According to the literature, most babies sleep swaddled until they are about three months old, then they let you know that they are ready to sleep free. Key word in this sentence: “most”.
Not our guy. At three months he still needed to be swaddled to calm down from crying and to sleep more than thirty minutes at a stretch. Ditto at four months. In fact, we had friends pick up the large size swaddle that is designed for babies up to 20 pounds. “Thank goodness,” we thought to ourselves, “that will cover us until he’s nearly one!”
In those moments of gleeful relief, we failed to remember that Kentucky experiences something called spring. Last week, Matt and I realized with no shortage of terror that along with the first spring blossoms and leaf buds come actual heat. When we were outside and didn’t have to wrestle Simon into a coat, this heat seemed like a gift. When Simon kicked his feet into the spring wind and smiled, this heat was a joy. But when it was bedtime on Sunday night, we looked at his fleece swaddle wrap and realized that there was no way we could swaddle Simon with the mercury so high. Uh oh.
We had two choices: turn on the air conditioning or wean Simon from the swaddle. I’ll be honest, if Matt had supported me, I would have closed all the windows, set the AC to 68 degrees, and swaddled Simon in a heartbeat. Coming off of two nights of insomnia, I needed the sleep! But Matt understood that we needed to cross this line sooner rather than later, so we gulped hard and laid Simon down in his crib with no cover at all.
The first night, he woke up every two hours. Simon was hot, cranky, tired, and not sleeping well. We were a perfect match, as I was also hot, cranky, tired, and not sleeping well. Matt was cranky from not sleeping well, but seemed to be the only comfortable one among us.
Last night, I faced bedtime with considerable dread. I knew Simon had been hot all day, as he nursed nine times compared to his ususal six or seven. It had already been a long day, and when we put him down at 11:00 or so after his final feeding, we were both dreading the 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. wake-up. So you can imagine our surprise, our delighted surprise, when we heard the first weak cries, looked over at the clock, and saw that it was 5:30.
Our little guy slept for six straight hours–longer than he has in weeks. Longer than he did the last time we swaddled him. Hallelujah!