Transitioning out of the swaddle

Swaddles are an amazing at calming newborns. In fact, they are one of Dr. Harvey Karp’s 5 S’s to soothe a crying baby. The cool thing about swaddling is that it stops your baby from startling themselves awake. Lots of newborns wave and flail their arms when they get agitated. This can work them up to be even more upset, and it can also cause issues when you’re trying to get them to fall asleep and stay asleep.

Swaddles are recommended for babies that are 0-12 weeks old. After 12 weeks old, your baby is (likely) starting to show some signs of rolling over. Maybe they’re tilting their head to one side while doing tummy time to try to flip their body onto its back, or maybe they are looking so far in one direction that this twist is slowly manoeuvring their little body to roll. Whatever it is, by 12 weeks old, we want to transition your baby out of the swaddle.

This tight burrito can also become a sleep prop and a safe sleep hazard if we end up keeping it past 12 weeks.

So, how do we transition out of the swaddle?

Firstly, I recommend finding a few sleep sacks that you love. These ones are my favourite. For every rest period, you will want to put your baby into a sleep sack. This acts as a cueing mechanism for them, along with keeping them warm.

For the first night of your transition out of the swaddle, I want you to swaddle your baby with 1 arm out. This means that one arm is still tightly swaddled against their body, with the other arm free. Do this for 3 nights as they start to get used to their newfound freedom. Even if they are flailing their little arm around, I want you to trust yourself that this is the right thing to do! Good things take time.

For the next 3 nights, I want you to swaddle only their body, but leave both arms free. This tightness around their body will still provide that familiar support that they were getting from being swaddled, but it leaves their arms free to move, and potentially help them self-soothe by sucking on their hands.

Self-soothing is the basis of sleep training and it is a fantastic way for your child to learn emotional regulation as they grow older.

On the 7th night, you will completely remove the swaddle and place them into a sleep sack. I linked my favourite sleep sacks above, but if your child LOVED being swaddled, they may like a weighted sleep sack better. The weight in the sleep sack can provide some of that ‘heavy’ feeling that swaddling also offers. It can also help to calm your baby. Weighted sleep sacks don’t solve sleep issues, but they can help budding sleep skills and they can be cozy for your little one. My daughter, Georgia, loves to sleep with a sleep sack, and her Dreamland Baby weighted sack is one of my favourites. She is a back sleeper, so with the weight from the sleep sack being evenly distributed on the front of her body, she feels secure.
(If you’d like to check out Dreamland Baby Sleep Sacks, use my affiliate code: Bailey15 for a rebate at checkout)

Transitioning out of the swaddle can take some time, but within that week-long period, the transition should be complete.

12 weeks is a great time to start introducing healthy sleep habits and even some of the fundamentals of sleep training. If you’d like some structure around sleep for your little one, I would love to help you. Don’t hesitate to check out my sleep packages here or book a call with me if you would like to chat further.