15 mo. old won't nap without swaddling...

[LRSnark]

My son (almost 15 mo.) has always been a great napper--if the circumstances are right. At night he's been doing twelve hours faithfully since three months old and unswaddled since eight months (that transition took only a couple nights and he was fine). But we can't get him to sleep longer than 30 minutes during the day if he isn't swaddled. Even after an exhausting day traveling (we live three hours from the nearest airport), he'll still only crash for thirty minutes in the car.

He loves being swaddled--he's just too big for the Kiddopotamus swaddler we've been using (he's 23 pounds, 29 inches). He usually works his way out and then, if he does manage to fall asleep, only naps thirty minutes. If we can manage the swaddle, he averages ninety minutes (and he's still napping twice a day).

I can make a bigger swaddler. But in less than two months, he's going to start day care, where they all nap on mats with the lights on and music playing. I'm very worried that he won't sleep more than thirty minutes. Does anyone have any reassuring stories about toddlers magically figuring out how to sleep unswaddled? We've tried half swaddles, etc.--no luck. At nine months we went cold turkey for three weeks--no progress whatsover. Horrible experience. At twelve months I tried it for another week and a half--still no improvement.

And for those of you who did swaddle this late--how did it finally end???

[Thatchermom]

We were late swaddlers, too, and just really ended in April. Unfortunately, ours was a reverse situation - DD switched to a sleepsack for napping a few months before that. We switched her at that point because she could totally take her "wrap" off and began to climb out of the crib and that wasn't working for any of us! She slept fine at night so we initially only made the daytime switch. I do remember during those first days putting her in the sleep sack and then kind of wrapping a blanket around her arms to help her feel swaddled and fall asleep. Like you, we had tried the switch prior to that and it was a miserable failure. We did also switch her to one nap at the same time - limiting our battles and making her more tired to increase the chances of our success.

Our night time magic wand came from the pediatrician. She got really sick and among many other meds at the time came home an opportunity in a bottle of codeine. We had a bunch of nights that we knew we'd either be up with a sick little one anyway OR she'd be too out of it from her meds, so we decided to go for it during that time and it worked. She does wear a sleepsack that she still calls her wrap, but mostly it is to keep her in her crib. So far, if she can't get a leg over the rail she can't get out. :)

Just like people say about diapers, nobody goes to college in a swaddle. He will eventually sleep without it!