Week 13 Sleep Journey with Hank: Naps, Swaddle, and Transitions
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[00:00:00] Welcome to this sleep by Alex podcast. I am a certified pediatric sleep consultant and a mom of three, and I will be bringing you quick science backed sleep advice to get you and your baby or a toddler sleeping well
Hey everyone. Welcome back.
What are we on now? Let me see. Week 13 with Hank. Holy moly. He's currently napping in his crib in the other room, although he's like. Six minutes in already, so I am sure I have about 24 minutes on the dot before he wakes up and cries for me. Let's hope I can record this in that 24 minutes. I feel like I usually can, right?
I try and keep it under 20,
but if he wakes up mid recording, we'll just have to go grab him. you are new here. I recently had my fourth baby, and I am taking you along this baby sleep journey with me, letting you know what each week is looking like and giving you realistic tips that I am actually implementing in my real life as well.
Follow along the sleep [00:01:00] journey. If you're new, feel free to go back to week one and sort of catch up and hear all about how it's been going and how I got to this point with Hank. And I am so glad to have you here.
So a little update on what Hank's sleep is looking like lately.
He just turned three months old.
His wake windows during the day have stretched slightly.
We're usually landing somewhere between 60 and 90 minutes for the most part, still about an hour after he wakes up in the morning. I'm trying to get him to take a nap, although it is taking him longer to fall asleep, so sometimes it'll be a good 10 or 15 minutes before he's actually asleep. So it's probably more like 75 minutes that he's awake before he is down the rest of the wake windows.
I try to get him down around 75 minutes, and then before bed I do an hour and a half. That seems to be working well for him for now.
We've definitely hit the sort of three month crap nap phase where most of his naps end by 30 minutes on the dot. And while that's really, really normal and has been normal for a [00:02:00] while for him, I used to be able to really easily pick him up and he would fall right back asleep. And now he definitely fights it a little more.
He's clearly still tired. He is just so like aware of his surroundings and stimulated by the environment that I can't necessarily bring him in the living room or even in the wrap sometimes if my other kids are around or I'm walking around the house to extend the nap, which is what I was doing before.
So he really needs me to stay in his nursery and rock him in the dark. If I'm going to extend an app. Unfortunately, I can't do that very often. I can only do it on the weekends when my husband's home to be with the other kids. Obviously during the week, I have my 3-year-old here with me when the other kids are at school.
And also between pickups and drop offs and whatnot. There's not a whole lot of time anyways for me to sit in there and rock him back to sleep. So that is one thing that's been going on lately is his daytime sleep has sort of gone a bit downhill because of that.
I mean, he's still doing great and [00:03:00] he is thriving and he is happy, but I'd say he. Probably is getting less consolidated nap time sleep than I wish he could, but honestly, there's really not too much I can do about that right now. I'm doing my very best to at least extend one nap a day. I don't want him taking 30 minute naps all day long.
Sometimes, honestly, it's only one of those naps that I'm able to extend, and the rest are those like 30, 40 minute cat naps. It is what it is. I'm doing my best and we're just rolling with it. I think that that is contributing to his night's sleep, changing a tiny bit. Now, I'm still really happy with how night's sleep is going.
He sleeps really well in his bassinet. He goes down really easily. He sleeps a nice long stretch. That first chunk. He takes a feed, he goes back down for another few hours. He's doing great. The only thing that's changed is he was doing between five and seven hours for the first stretch, but often it would be that six or seven hours.
Um, with five being [00:04:00] kind of the outlier, since he hit this sort of three month crap nap phase, I noticed that that first stretch is pretty much tapped out at five-ish hours, sometimes five and a half. That is still really good for this age and completely normal and I'm not gonna like try to micromanage everything I'm doing to stretch that.
Again. I'm fine with that. I'm just making note that I noticed that first stretch is a little bit shorter the last week or so. And it's most likely because of these shorter naps that he is taking, the less consolidated and restorative daytime sleep he's getting. It's just not helping him get that super long stretch for the first piece of the night.
But five hours is still great, so I'm not gonna worry too much about it. I'm just gonna roll with it I definitely first make sure he's truly hungry. I'll pop in the pacifier. I'll try for 10 to 15 minutes to get him to sleep a different way, and if he's just not having it, then I'll give him a feed.
No big deal. It's still really normal for him to have his two night feeds that he currently has. He's three months old and I'm really happy with [00:05:00] this. I am really looking forward to being able to sleep train only because of these naps. It is just harder for me now to get him a nice, solid nap during the day, and it's not his fault and it's not my fault.
There's not much we can do about it. So if he was able to independently take a nap that was at least an hour, which I can achieve through sleep training, once he's four months old, then he's going to be so much better rested during the day and happier. In his next wake window. So I'm really looking forward to that.
Not only for me, but for him.
Okay. That's Hank's sort of sleep this week.
I've also started the, transition out of the swaddle for him.
He is not yet rolling over, so it, it is not detrimental that he gets out of the swaddle today. So I knew though, a couple weeks ago that okay, he's not really like rolling to his side or rolling over yet. I'm okay with him still being in the swaddle, but I can see that it's on the horizon. I can see in the next few weeks [00:06:00] that we'll probably drop the swaddle altogether, so I decided to start practicing in a really gradual way, getting rid of the swaddle.
He's still completely swaddled all night long as of now. That will probably change in the next couple weeks, but for now I'm still swaddling him all night. What I started to do was just practice uns swaddling during the day.
So I'm going to share a little bit about how that's going for me and what I chose to do to transition him, and then I'll give you some little tips that you can use in your own swaddle transition. I love the swaddle. It's an amazing tool in the newborn months, and it can be a huge pain in the butt to drop the swaddle when your baby really relies on it, especially if your baby ends up being an early roller.
So if you have a baby who all of a sudden is rolling over at two months old, their startle reflex is still so strong, they're bound to wake themselves up very frequently, and that can be really frustrating. [00:07:00] Usually those early rollers are also really active and a bit jerky, and they're the ones who truly need the swaddle the most.
So it can feel really frustrating when you finally got sleep on track and then you need to drop the swaddle. I totally get it. I've been there
and I will be there again. I'm sure when we drop the swaddle at nighttime.
So first I'll answer the question, when should you stop swaddling? Really, as soon as your baby is showing some signs that they're going to start rolling over, or if you're starting to sleep train. Whichever comes first. So if you're sleep training, we're definitely gonna wanna drop the swaddle in that process.
Or if your baby starts to show signs that they're gonna roll over soon. What we wanna prevent is your baby from rolling onto their stomach with their face down and their arms aren't in the swaddle, so they aren't able to push off off the mattress.
And why you do it during sleep training if you haven't already is because we really want to allow your baby to have access to their hands. If they're gonna start learning how to self-soothe, they're gonna wanna suck on [00:08:00] their hands, rub their ice, scratch the matches with their fingernails. We need to give them this tool if we're going to expect them to learn to fall asleep independently.
So go into this transition knowing that most newborns are going to have an intense startle reflux, and especially the earlier your baby transitions out of the swaddle, the more likely they're going to startle themselves awake really frequently. So go into this transition knowing. That there will naturally be more wake up and sleep disturbances for at least a couple weeks.
Your baby might need some extra help falling asleep, staying asleep. Remember, you can't spoil your newborn, so if you need to rock them to sleep and you didn't need to previous sleep, or you have to help them out with a contact nap because they're struggling to sleep without the swaddle, that is akay.
Hang in there. Your baby will adjust. Just stay consistent and they will get used to the new [00:09:00] routine
if you're transitioning your baby outta the swaddle after four months old. The good news is you can actually just sleep train at the exact same time, and I'll talk about that in a minute. Teaching your baby to fall asleep independently is going to give them that skill to get back to sleep on their own, even if they startle themselves awake frequently.
It's going to improve their naps and it's going to reduce the amount of times they wake up needing you in the middle of the night. So it can be really amazing to pair sleep training with dropping the swaddle if your baby is at least four months old.
Okay, so let's say you're ready to drop the swaddle. How the heck do you do it? There's a few different ways to do it. The first way is cold Turkey. Obviously, you can just drop the swaddle one day right away. If your baby is showing these signs that they may roll really soon, or they've already started rolling, and we need to just get them out of the swaddle as soon as possible, some babies will do fine.
They'll adjust quickly. They'll transition [00:10:00] straight from the swaddle to a regular sleep sack with their arms out.
And it's gonna be perfectly fine
now most babies who rely on the swaddle to sleep will actually do better with a bit of a more gradual transition. So when you're ready to begin the process, you can start by swaddling one arm in and one arm out. So allow your baby to sleep with one arm out of the swaddle and one arm still in the swaddle for maybe one to two weeks.
This is assuming they're not already rolling over, right? After that one to two weeks, you can then swaddle your baby with both arms out. So the swaddle will be wrapped around your baby's chest, like right underneath their armpits, and it leaves both of their arms free. And after about a week with both arms out, you can just get rid of the swaddle altogether.
You can switch them to a regular sleep sack with their arms free, if that's what you wish to use.
We have a third option as well. You may want to use a sort of swaddle transition [00:11:00] product. So there are many products out there that can help ease this sort of transition out of the swaddle. And none of these products are necessary, but they can be helpful, especially for babies who are early rollers or they have a really hard time with the transition.
Maybe they still have a really strong startle reflux. They aren't old enough for sleep training yet. Dropping the swaddle can feel really tricky. So there are a few swaddle transition products I like.
That you may choose to use instead of doing one arm out of the swaddle. As of today when I'm recording this, these products are considered safe, but remember, the a a p recommendations are always changing, so please make sure to check if these products are currently safe for using before you go out and buy them.
Some products that my clients like and that I like include the Zippity zip. That can be a great one. I've used that with three of my kids so far. Many clients I work with Love the Baby [00:12:00] Merlin's Magic Sleep suit. A. Some also love the love to dream swaddle up transition bag, especially if your baby is already in the love to dream swaddle up, swaddle.
This might be the perfect transition for them to use.
My current favorite with Hank is something new that I found on Amazon. I don't even know the brand to be honest. I literally just found it on Amazon. It is similar in a sense to the Zippity zip, but I like it even more because number one, it's half the price, which thank you very much, baby. Number four, I'm not spending a lot of money on you.
Number two, it just seems cozier and to fit them better. Sometimes I find that the Zippity zip fits a little funky if your baby's small.
And number three, I'm able to have his hands in or I can have his hands out, which some of these don't have that option. Of course, it's also safe for him to continue to use as he gets older. So some products like Baby Merlin's Magic sleep suit. Once your baby can roll over in that sleep suit, [00:13:00] they're not supposed to use it anymore and you need to drop it.
Things like the Zippity zip or this one I've been using with Hank is perfectly safe to use once he learns how to roll over in it.
Keep in mind also if your sleep training at the same time as dropping the swaddle, I really don't recommend using a product that they're eventually going to have to get rid of. For example, like I said, at some point your baby's gonna have to get outta the Merlin Magic sleep suit, so you're gonna have to do some sort of ResSleep training, most likely when they learn how to roll in the suit and it's no longer safe.
So if your sleep training while dropping the swaddle, it's best to either use something that they can wear forever, like a regular sleep sack. Or a Zippity zip, or the one that I'm using with Hank, which I'll link in the show notes. These things can be safely worn for years, and you won't have to do any ResSleep training when it comes to that time.
If you're not sleep training, feel free to use whatever thing you like.
Now, what about starting at nap time versus nighttime? Do you do both? Do you do one? If you need this to go quickly and your baby is starting to roll or they're gonna roll [00:14:00] any day now, I recommend just doing it all at once, naps and nights, because if not, it just sort of prolongs the process and makes it take a while.
And for safety reasons, we should just get them out of the swaddle as soon as possible. If your baby is not showing. Signs of rolling yet, and you're not sleep training yet, you can totally take it more gradually. So maybe you swaddle for some naps and not for others. Maybe you implement a partial night swaddle, which is the first part of the night.
You have one or both arms out, and then the rest of the night after their first feed, you have them swaddled up. You can even extend the time that they spend in the swaddle each night until eventually they go all night without it. What I've been currently doing since he's really not rolling over yet,
is I've been doing it really gradually. The first few days I just did one nap a day. The very first nap of the day. I used the swaddle transition sleep sack instead of a swaddle. After that, I started using it for every nap. He just seemed to really like it and do well with it. So I decided, well, to heck with it, let's just do all naps in [00:15:00] this, and then we'll keep swaddling at nighttime and address that when needed.
And then of course, over the next couple weeks, , I'm sure he's gonna show those clear signs of rolling and I'm gonna have to drop it at night, so then I'll just go for it and do it at night as well.
So, of course what you do depends on where your baby is at, developmentally, your goals, how quickly you would like this to go, so on and so forth.
Hang in there. 'cause transitioning outta the swaddle is, in my opinion, one of the trickiest baby sleep stages that we have to sort of just power through. Yeah, there's many ways we can help set your baby up for success, but it's really normal. There are gonna be extra wake-ups. They're gonna be tricky naps those first couple weeks as your baby adjusts to this new thing.
If you're having a hard time with dropping the swaddle with your newborn, or if you're ready to drop the swaddle after four months old and you wanna sleep, train at the same time, whatever you need support with, go ahead and hop into the Sleep by Alex membership.
I'll link that in the show notes [00:16:00] as well. I'm happy to lay out a completely individualized approach for you and your specific baby, so we can make sure that sleep stays on track.
Thanks so much for tuning in this week, and we'll chat next week.
