If your little one is still crying after you’ve changed, fed and burped them and laid them down for a nap, the answer could be swaddling. Almost universally, nurses and midwives will wrap up newborn babies tightly, and they do so for good reason! Find out here the main benefits of swaddling a baby, how to swaddle a baby and when to stop.
What Are the Benefits of Swaddling?
Swaddling is of the best methods to calm a baby. Young babies spend most of their time in one of four states: sleeping, calm, alert and crying. Using a swaddle helps transition them from crying to a calm state.
Distressed babies will calm down because wrapping them in a swaddle recreates the warmth and snugness of the womb environment. Swaddling can be used, starting at birth, any time that your baby needs help calming down or is having trouble transitioning to sleep. You can swaddle your baby whenever they sleep, but make sure they spend time swaddle-free while awake.
How Do You Wrap a Swaddle Safely?
Those first few hours in the hospital can be a blur of exhausted memories, so it may be hard to recall the precise, swift movements the nurse used to bundle your baby. Here are the basic steps:
- Lay out a large receiving blanket.
Place square blanket down in a diamond position, so a corner points to the top. Fold down this top corner so that the point falls within three to four inches of its opposing corner (and blanket is long enough for the full length of the baby to lie in). This should now form a triangle shape. Place your baby face-up on top of the blanket, with their shoulders just below the folded edge.
- Tuck one of your baby’s arms gently at their side.
Wrap that side of the blanket across their body and tuck it beneath them on the opposite side. Do not cover their other arm.
- Fold up the bottom corner of the blanket.
Make sure it’s loose enough that your baby’s legs and feet can still move freely.
- Grab the last corner of the blanket.
Tuck your baby’s loose arm down at their side. Wrap the blanket snugly across your baby’s chest and tuck it beneath him.
The key to swaddling safely is making sure you’re doing it correctly. If you can’t fit two or three fingers between the blanket and your child, it may be too tight. It’s also important that the pressure is in the right place. If swaddling is done correctly, the pressure is not on the hips, but around the shoulders. Swaddling too tightly around the hips can lead to hip dysplasia. To keep your baby safe, make sure they aren’t getting overheated while swaddled. Remove a layer underneath if need be.
When laying them down for a sleep, your swaddled baby should always be placed on their back.
When Is It Time to Stop the Swaddle?
As your baby grows, you may begin to worry that you’ll have to visit their university room every night to swaddle them to sleep. However, like many other things, they will outgrow the need before you know it. A baby can be swaddled as long as the baby likes it, but when they start to try to break out, it may be a sign that they’re ready to stop.
If you think your baby is outgrowing the need for swaddling, try stopping gradually. You can test the waters every once in a while. Try putting your baby down for a nap swaddled with one arm out. If that works, next time try two, and then without the swaddle entirely. Most babies will outgrow a swaddle by six months; however, once your baby is able to flip over onto their stomach while swaddled, it’s time to stop immediately.
The more you practice, the easier using a swaddle will become. If not, consider buying velcro or zipped swaddle alternatives, which can make it easier to soothe your baby, especially while fumbling in the dark at 3 in the morning.