Swaddling 5 month-old?

[slgt]

DD#2 is 5 months, and I decided to try swaddling her last night to see if we would all sleep better. She has been waking 5 times a night with very restless/twitchy hands - classic development spurt, plus she's teething. She would wake herself up by pawing at her face and generally trying to grab at everything. So I swaddled her, and she woke only 2 times. Is this ok? Or am I starting a bad habit? I figured I'd try it for a few more nights and see if it continues to help. If it does, give it a few weeks and then try her unswaddled again. She has not otherwise been swaddled since she was a few days old.

[Buzzer Beater]

 Swaddling here at 7 months... otherwise it's crazy time! I don't think it's harmful in any way.

[Knitting Mama]

I personally don't see a thing wrong with it. My 8.5 month old is swaddled for all sleeps. It really helps cue her that it's time to go down and then helps her stay out longer when she's asleep!

[rachieface]

My almost 8 month old is swaddled for most naps, and usually for night time.  It kind of depends on what he seems to want; sometimes he rolls right over to his side so we don't swaddle him then.  But it definitely helps calm him when he needs it.  I babysat for a 10 month old that was still swaddled at the time...I don't think it's that uncommon. 

[tzs]

we swaddled until 9 months or so and yeah, there's nothing wrong with it. if you want, i would think trying without after a few days could be a good idea and if she does fine to stop. the only reason being that you won't have to worry about weaning from the swaddle if you don't start the habit. it took us months of gradually swaddle weaning and then at some point she was just ready to go cold turkey but i did stress about it for a while.

a similar situation for us is that i can remember the point in her infancy where she could fall asleep without a nuk but would fall asleep faster and better and more reliably with the nuk. so i went with using it because it was easier, not realizing i was setting myself up for issues in the long run (needing it to sleep, the rejecting it while still needing it, tehn not being able to fall asleep...ugh!)

so yeah, see if the swaddle helped "reset" her sleep by trying to go without it. but if she needs it then she needs it and you can cross the swaddle weaning bridge when you need to.

[bdoody11]

We swaddled DD#1 until 13 months and she is totally fine. We are still swaddling DD#2 at 6.5 months. We'll see how long she needs it!

[Llyra]

I think my DS may be the swaddling record-holder. He was swaddled to sleep in a Miracle Blanket, with holes cut for his feet, until he was 16 months and nearly 27 pounds. Even now, you'd crack up if you saw the way he sleeps-- he wants me to roll him up tightly in his quilt, with his arms pinned at his side-- which technically IS swaddling.. (He's almost four years old now, and almost 40 pounds, and he looks like this great big giant baby. But he sleeps through the night, except if he has to get up to pee, so I can't argue with that..) If it works-- then it works. I wouldn't worry about weaning from it later-- she'll move away from it when she's ready, and there's no compelling reason she has to stop by any specific age. My son is a living, breathing example.

[Knitting Mama]

Llyra, my brother still self-swaddles at 36! He just loves sleeping rolled up in a blanket!

I did post a thread a ways back about my mom's silly worry that my daughter's "delayed" crawling (she is now crawling at almost 9 months which is totally normal but on my side of the family it was generally more like 6 months so my mom freaked out). She was sure that swaddling was what kept Cecilia from crawling earlier. I know the real truth which is that Cecilia's extreme hatred of tummy time until she was 5-6 months is likely more of a contributing factor than swaddling. Once she became okay with being on her tummy, she started practicing crawling. So at this rate I don't care how long she is swaddled, as long as she's happy with it and we're happy with it!