Nearly every week, I get a question similar to the one below:
“It seems like every time my newborn is just about to fall asleep, he hits himself in the face and wakes himself up. I’ve tried swaddling him, but I when I try this, he works himself out of it and the crying just gets worse.”
One of the common culprits to good sleep training, in the early months, is the “startle reflex.” You have probably seen this in your own baby when he is just about ready to drift off to sleep and suddenly his little arms flail up and he wakes himself up. This can also happen in the middle of the nap when baby is passing from one sleep cycle to the next. Swaddling can often help with this issue.
To be most effective, you need to practice getting a good swaddle that is difficult to “wiggle” out of.
Try using an over-sized, lightweight, baby blanket. Since it’s often hard to find one that is large enough, I made all of mine by just taking a very large piece of baby flannel and hemming the edges. It needs to be large enough so that you cross his arms across his chest and then wrap him up, from the arms down, like a little burrito. Usually 2 to 2 1/2 times around is enough to keep the best escape artists wrapped up. Now, this isn’t going to work well if you have a little one who likes to suck his fingers or thumb, but at least give the swaddling a try with one arm secured and see if that helps.
