swadling problems

[brittsy]

Help!  I am starting our 3 1/2 month old on EASY.  We are on day four and things are not going well.  He is a very advanced three-month old and has already taught himself to roll over (both from front to back and from back to front).   We had been swaddling him, but last night he managed to roll over onto his tummy while still tightly wrapped in his swaddle.  I came in to check on him and found him sleeping face directly down which is, I believe a SIDS hazzard.  I feel as if I can't continue to swaddle him because, if we do, then he could get caught face down without his arms free to push himself up and get out of the situation if he had trouble breathing.  Any advice?

Also, should I be attempting to get him on a four hour schedule or a three hour schedule?  Please Help!!

[Liz R]

hi,
As soon as Jake rolled over I started weaning him from the swaddle. I felt the same as you about the dangers of rolling over while tightly swaddled. After doing this he soon discovered that he likes to sleep on his side and sometimes his tummy.
Has he only been swaddled for 4 days or longer? If its only 4 days I'd stop, as it will be easy. If it's longer, perhaps try the "one arm out method" This usually ends up with them breaking totally free anyway.
Also I went to a 4 hr EASY at 3 1/2 months as Jake had night waking, and short naps, if you feel he's ready for more A time, there's a great bit in pu/pd in the 2nd book on how to go abut it. It worked great for us!
Good luck,
Liz x

[brittsy]

Thanks for your tips!  We swaddled him at night for his first two months--then we stopped.  We started again four days ago for the purposes of putting him on easy.  I think we will try doing it during the day only since we are closely monitoring his naps anyways.  Tonight we manged to get him to sleep tonight w/o the swaddle, using PU/PD and finally letting fall asleep holding onto my finger while he was in his crib.    Before EASY, he had been eating every 2 1/2 hours so I figured we should start him on 3 hours and then try to get him to 4. . .but maybe we should have just started out with 4 hour EASY. . . 

Do you have trouble with Jake waking himself up when he rolled onto his tummy?  Any suggestions on how to deal with that?

[Liz R]

re the EASY, I aggree, a 3 hr is probably best, going from 2 1/2 to 4 hrs will be too much for him.
re the tummy sleeping, Jake can roll all over the place, I often go in to wake him and he will be on his tummy right down the end of the cot! Thats in a sleeping bag! He has slept brilliantly recently(watch me jinx that now.......) and it does't seem to wake him, so no tips on that, sorry.