Swaddling blankets

As I’ve mentioned previously, I couldn’t find blankets suitable for swaddling here in Norway, so I had to order them online. The first ones we got were Aden and Anais muslin swaddling blankets from the Hamill Baby online store. They come in lots of cute patterns, but since I wasn’t 100% confident we were going to have a girl, we opted for the unisex Jungle Jam set of four featuring monkeys, birds, giraffes and elephants. Very cute.

These blankets are good for a couple of reasons. Firstly they’re natural muslin, so they’re very light and they breathe well. Having a summer baby, this was pretty important to me; I was nervous about the baby overheating when all wrapped up. Secondly, they’re nice and stretchy, allowing for a good, tight swaddle that the baby can still wriggle in. Thirdly, they’re quite large, which makes it much easier to wrap the blanket all the way around the baby and use her body weight to keep it in place. So overall, I would definitely recommend these blankets… except if you have a wriggly little escapee like we do, the baby can sometimes manage to wriggle her hands free, rendering the swaddle useless.

I couldn’t seem to keep Ella contained in the muslin swaddles, so I started to look around for alternatives. I read a lot of good things about the Woombie, which is a tight-fitting sleeping bag with a two-way zipper so that your baby is tightly contained inside, but you can unzip the bag from the bottom to change nappies without unwrapping the baby. This sounded like a great idea to me, so I ordered one in the newborn baby size. Unfortunately this option didn’t work for us. The newborn size turned out to be quite big and just wasn’t tight enough to stop Ella from flailing. I guess the idea of these is to give your baby room to move inside the bag, but not to flail the arms above the head. But for Ella, a little wriggle room was still too much. She would try to bring her hands up to her mouth, but would just get a face full of Woombie, frustrating her no end and making her wake up and cry. Perhaps in cold weather it would be a way to keep another swaddle layer in place inside, but it’s not a good idea for summer, and too much trouble for me.

Here is a picture of the various ways a Woombie could be used (from the Woombie website):

As you can see, it looks pretty tight, which is why I ordered one. However, at four weeks old it was still too big for Ella, and she’s average size for her age (and now at 8 weeks old, it’s still too loose for her). So I don’t know how old or how big the babies they designed this for are, but considering swaddling is most important for the first twelve weeks, this one was a bit of a dud as far as I’m concerned. However, lots of people posting reviews online seem to love them, so I guess they work for some babies.

Chris eventually developed a swaddling method with the muslin swaddles which we came to call “the burrito”. As he rolled her into the swaddle, he’d catch her arms in spare folds of the cloth so that her body weight kept them down at her sides, and kept them there until morning. Being a bit of a wuss when it comes to wrapping her tightly, I never managed to do this technique very well. I’ve managed a couple of times, but my swaddles are always too loose and eventually Ella wriggles her hands free and wakes herself up. I did experiment with a “double layer burrito” method I saw on YouTube, which worked, but once again I didn’t like having too much wrapping around the baby in warm weather.

Eventually, and somewhat by accident, I came across the Miracle Blanket. It is a swaddling blanket that is designed to do exactly what both Chris’s complicated burrito and the double layer method do. It has an extra piece of cloth sewn inside so that you can wrap your baby’s arms down before wrapping the rest of the blanket up. It also has a little leg pocket so that you can choose whether or not to have your baby fully swaddled, or let the legs be free. I have ordered one and am now waiting for its arrival. I’ll update this post with the results once I’ve given it a try.

In the meantime, we’re happily using the original muslin swaddling blankets. I do a light wrap for her daytime naps and then Chris does his burrito for night-time.

On an interesting side note, I was surprised at some of the reactions from Norwegians about my swaddling Ella, particularly from the older generation. One woman told me categorically that I should not wrap my baby so tight because it takes away her freedom. I politely told her that Ella likes being wrapped this tightly and sleeps very badly without it. She looked skeptical and raised her eyebrows at me, but seemed to accept it. Another woman, of about the same age, seemed pleasantly surprised that I was doing something “so old-fashioned” and said she hoped that it came back into fashion because it was such a sensible and effective thing to do. Strangely, I don’t think I’ve come across a single person here who thinks swaddling still exists in the modern world. Some of them had never even heard of it in the first place. But in my opinion, if your baby responds well to it (after you’ve learned to do it well and given it a proper try, not a half-assed try like we did at first) it is the best thing you can do for your baby’s sleep. If you need more proof, I can add that Ella was sleeping through the night at six weeks old, and had to be woken for her late-night feed because she was sleeping so well.

UPDATE!

Ella has been using The Miracle Blanket for several weeks now and absolutely loves it. We don’t use any other kind of swaddle anymore and she has yet to escape from it. It’s incredibly easy to use, the fabric is soft and stretchy and you can put it in the washing machine and dryer with no shrinking or fading. If you’re having trouble with swaddling, especially if your baby is escaping, I can’t recommend this more enthusiastically.