How to Transition Your Baby From Their Swaddle

A few months ago, I posted on my Instagram asking for help transitioning Bastian from his swaddle. He loved being swaddled. He had a really strong startle reflex until he was about 5 months old. So swaddling him was really the only way to get him to stay asleep. As he grew out of that, he also started sleeping best while on his tummy. Because he was rolling around so much, we really wanted to help him transition from his swaddle. 

We had a few people suggest just doing it cold turkey, but that didn’t go over very well. We needed something gentle and gradual, instead of just enduring a torturous week of a confused and sad baby. It was also suggested to simply swaddle him with one hand out for a few nights, before taking away the swaddle completely. The issue with that was that he was so wiggly that he ended up breaking out of the swaddle entirely. And then we were back to square one.

Something else that was suggested to me, was the Love to Dream 50/50 swaddle. This is a swaddle with wings that you can zip off. I figured it was worth a shot, and ordered one. My sister used it when they transitioned their baby, so I was hoping it would work just as well for us.

The first few nights were kind of hard. The idea behind it is that it’s a little less restricting than a traditional swaddle, so it’s less upsetting when you unzip the first wing. Then once they’re used to that, you unzip the other wing, and then it functions as a sleep sack. Because it’s less restricting, he was up a lot the first two nights. If I were to do it over again, I would swaddle a traditional swaddle over the 50/50 the first night, to make it a smoother experience.

After four nights, we took off the first wing. Three nights later, we took off the second wing, and he finally started sleeping through the night again. He doesn’t rely on the sleep sack in order to sleep, but we do use it. It helps him to have the association between his sleep sack, and time to sleep.

Sheets | 50/50 Swaddle/Sleep sack