what am i doing wrong... Aden + Anais swaddle blankets

[urquie]

after all the great reviews here i got 4 1/2 month old dd the a&a swaddle blankets. it seemed like the perfect solution... dd will not sleep unless her arms are swaddled straight down and she sleeps really hot. also she is outgrowing the miracle blanket for night sleep.

we tried the a&a blanket yesterday and last night and were having no luck. she kept breaking her arm/s out. also there is sooo much fabric... i thought it would be fine for dd since she's older (can't imagine swaddling a newborn with the a&a) we've been using the nanny and webster blankets for naps and they are nearly as large. a&a are 42x42 and n&w are 36x42, so not a big difference, but the fabric is loosening up everywhere.

i consider myself a very good swaddler... or at least i did, until yesterday. am i missing something?

[ThreeofUs]

You're probably a champion swaddler. But these are good, long-staple cotton blankets. The fabric is probably stretching, don't you think?

Don't know what to do about it but use them a few times and expect that her arms will get out, but that you'll soon reach the end of the stretching.

I'll be interested to see what other folks think.

[SnuggleBuggles]

No tips but whew! I am glad that a champion swaddler said that swaddling a newborn with these would be hard. The blankets were so huge that I couldn't figure out how to swaddle ds with our A+A blankets. I am not a good swaddler at all though. They wound up being used as receiving blankets or burp cloths. :(


Beth

[baileygirl]

You might try using the Miracle Blanket, but not using the leg part. We got away with swaddling DS (in a swing) until he was 8 months using that method.

[Cam&Clay]

I still use the a&a swaddle blankets on my 11 month old, but now with arms out. I dearly love them. When he was newborn, I simply folded the blanket over on the top edge. It gave him a more secure swaddle and a lot less to fold inside. He was a warm sleeper, too, so since I ended up with a double swaddle, I dressed him in less.

FWIW, my babysitter at the time considered herself a champion swaddler and really didn't like the a&a blankets at all. She preferred the stretchy thermal blankets.

Susan
DS1 age 10
DS2 age 11 months

[american_mama]

Hmm, I have both the A+A blanket and the miracle blanket and DS is 7 months. I rarely swaddle him now, but can still use the Miracle blanket without the leg part. I also just wrap the Miracle Blanket fabric around his arms and don't tuck any of it under his back, since he does flip to his stomach now, particularly is he is crying in bed, and I want him to be able to work his arms out in that situation. It seems to me that the Miracle Blanket used with arms only would fit a child for months and months.

As for the Aden blankets, I did use them successfully when he was an infant but he could almost always work his arms out. I used the swaddle method recommended by Harvery Karp/Happiest Baby on the Block, which means orienting the blanket so it looks like a diamond and then folding the top corner down 6 iinches or more, I'd say. I could do a newborn swaddle that way. I notice the blankets are tighter when fresher from the washer and dryer, so if they are looking too stretched out, I re-wash and dry.

Finally, and maybe I should have said this first. I think your child is a factor in how well they work too. Sometimes DS sleeps hours in an Aden blanket without breaking free and I guess that's a time he has been a less active sleeper. Other times, he breaks out. I don't think it's always, or even usually, my swaddle that makes the difference, just his sleep habits that time.

The Aden blankets also stretch differently depending on how evenly you pull the fabric, meaning you can end up with a tight swaddle over the shoulder but not the whole arm. It helps to gather the fabric together in your hand when pulling it tight and pull the gathered section, or keep it smooth but more consciouly pull from the center and/or pull in sections (hard to do) to make sure it's more evenly tight. But don't make yourself crazy: whether I do or don't do that, sometimes DS breaks free and sometimes not.

[urquie]

Hmm, I have both the A+A blanket and the miracle blanket and DS is 7 months. I rarely swaddle him now, but can still use the Miracle blanket without the leg part. I also just wrap the Miracle Blanket fabric around his arms and don't tuck any of it under his back, since he does flip to his stomach now, particularly is he is crying in bed, and I want him to be able to work his arms out in that situation. It seems to me that the Miracle Blanket used with arms only would fit a child for months and months.

hhmm... this may be a good idea for us. i've been using the miracle blanket at night w/o the legs. dd co-sleeps right up against me - no matter how far over i scoot! the problem is that when i take her swaddle off in the morning she seems really warm, especially her arm that is against me.

what do you do with all that extra fabric that you're not wrapping around? someone else said the fabric was a choking hazard...



For a long time I was wondering why the Miracle Blanket company didn't make a larger size, and then finally I read somewhere that older babies who can move around and undo the swaddle could strangle on a long blanket if they get it up around their neck. We ended up switching to a thin cotton Halo sleep sack.

[american_mama]

>> I also just wrap the Miracle Blanket fabric around his arms and don't tuck any of it under his back,

I'm sorry, I wrote that bit above and didn't say it right. What I DON"T do is use the inner wings to wrap over each arm and then under each side of his back. This is the part that seemed so successful at pinning his arms down as a newborn and therefore the part that I don't want to do now that he is older and can roll.

I do use both the inner and outer wings together and wrap the short side around his arm and chest, then the long side over the other arm, chest and then around his back. I wrap it until I run out of fabric, which is about 1.5 times around him.

The extra fabric is just the foot pocket, so it's all at his waist and below and he just sleeps on it. Because it is at his lower body and because of his age, I don't consider it much of a strangulation hazard. If even that possibility makes you uncomfortable, and I understand it might for some, I'd consider the Miracle Blanket outgrown. They have great re-sale on ebay.