Anyone had leg kicking keep baby up when swaddled?

[jett5113]

Hi,

My ds is 9 weeks (born 6/6) and is *extremely* active with his arms and legs, they are always moving. He has to be swaddled for naps and sleeping, and we use the miracle blanket since he escapes from anything else and it startles him up. In the past week, his naps went from 2 hours to 30 minutes, and in the past few nights, his sleeping went from 5 hour stretches to up every 1-2 hours. He doesn't seem hungry when he wakes up. (Already posted separately about the sleep issue)

We swaddle him with his legs straight out, and we noticed that when he jolts awake, he is lifting/kicking his legs while swaddled. Could that be preventing him from going back to sleep? He seems so restless and just keeps fussing until it escalates to all out crying. Anyone else experience it? If so, what did you do?

I just tried double-swaddling him for the last nap with his legs up like they did in the hospital and he seems to be able to get to sleep easier. Any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

[Gigismom]

our dd always kicked her legs when she was swaddled, but i don't think this caused her to wake up.  she would do it most when she was lightly sleeping...
as for the naps shortening, our baby did that too at around 8 weeks.  before that, she slept for 2 or more hours, then one day, she went to 30-45 min naps.  we could not extend these for the life of us, so we just went with it.  it was hard, but the good news is that she naturally lengthened her own naps at 6 months.  now she sleeps 1.5-2 hours usually.  in the "naps" board, there is lots of info on 45 min naps.

[Daniel's mummy]

We eventually gave up swaddling at around 13 weeks as Daniel would just fight to get out of it so much it wasn't worth it in the end.  To begin with though swaddling was great - he is such an active baby that it really helped calm him. But once he got to about 13 weeks he was so strong we just couldn't contain him!  We used to spend 10 mins getting 'what we thought was' the perfect swaddle, so tight and secure and after 2 mins we walk back into the room and he'd have both arms out waving in the air grinning at us!!! :lol: Cheeky thing.

We went onto using a grobag.  If I remember rightly I think we started using the grobag at naptimes only and kept trying the swaddle at night.  He soon got used to it and slept fine.

I don't really know what the answer is - it's just very frustrating isn't it when you can see they keep waking themselves with their own movements but there doesn't seem to be much you can do to stop it.

Hope it improves soon.

Hazel

[cwolff]

My daughter does the same thing.  I cannot for the life of me figure out a way to keep those legs from kicking in the Miracle Blanket.  So, I use a thermal blanket, which is stretchy and not too hot, and I wrap that around her middle and legs, and twist it a few times so it stays put.  This puts a little bit of weight on her legs, which I think she likes, and also she can't actually kick her legs out of the swaddle then.  I have felt so bad because it does wake her up when she ends up with one leg in the swaddle and one freezing cold one out.  Try to wrap her bottom half.

[MommyJ]

Our son did the same thing - we always laughed about what strong abs he must have from all the leg lifts.  What seemed to work the best was to swaddle in the miracle blanket, then wrap another blanket around his bottom half and tuck it under the foot of the mattress to "pin" him down.  My mom is appalled at the "straight jacket" treatment but he has been sleeping through the night since he was 7 weeks old.  We stopped having to pin the legs at about 12 weeks.

[heather10]

this is all really great advice.  I am awaiting my miracle blanket which I ordered almost 2 weeks ago and have been checking the mail daily for it but nothing yet.

My son is also 9 weeks and born on the same day as the original poster.  Around 7-8 weeks, he too started shortening his naps.  What is UP with that?  It has had me so depressed because I keep worrying that he won't get his rest and will get cranky on me, so I fight with him to stay asleep - maybe I should take a pill and just get out of the house and enjoy what is left of my summer and know that he will figure this out eventually.

We too have the leg raise thing.  He does it at the 45 min mark in his sleep and it wakes him up too.  Good suggestions for pinning the legs down!

[Tammy: Ethan & Kaden's Mom]

My ds was swaddled since about 2 months old with a miracle blanket (we did it earlier, but he would get out of every swaddle before we bought the miracle blanket).  He is extremely active, always always ALWAYS kicking his legs.  I never seemed to have an issue with his legs keeping him awake though.  However, I agree with Lindsey.  Somewhere around 2 months or so, he went down to 45 minute naps.  Nothing, I mean nothing, we did extended his naps.  So, eventually, I just had to deal with it.  But somewhere around 5 or 5 1/2 months, he's started taking his *usual* 45 minute nap in the morning, but now sleeps 2 or 2 1/2 hours at his afternoon nap.  Not sure what happened there, but thank the lord!   :lol:   He sleeps wonderfully at night, about 11 or 12 hours, so I figure he's probably just not *that* tired in the morning yet!

Also, I just recently stopped swaddling him at night, because he has been rolling over for a month or so, and completely gets out of the swaddle anyway.  I wasn't sure if this would work or not (even though he gets out of it) when putting him down, but he drifts off just like he was before.  Yeah!   :lol:  I do still swaddle for naps though, but honestly, that's more so that he has some sort of a blanket, because he's in short sleeve, no leg onesies during the day.  At night, now that I'm not swaddling, I have him in long sleeve footed sleepers. 

I've seen those sleep slacks, but haven't tried one.  Knowing how my ds likes to roll around so much when getting situated to sleep, I thought they might get tangled up around his legs.  Anyone have an opinion on that?

[MommyJ]

No tangled legs so far but he doesn't roll all the way over at night yet - just to his side and back.  Lots of kicking though.  It's loose enough not to bother him but small enough to keep him covered without bunching up near his face.

[JudeBaby]

That cracks me up!  My little guy did/does the same thing.  It sounds like an elephant stampeeding he slams those legs so hard.  In one desperate attempt to get him to nap, I just laid my leg across his.  Now, I didn't squish him or anything, but after a few minutes he went to sleep.  I ended up getting a little nap in as well.

He's 20 weeks now, and has grown out of that for the most part.  I think it did help with the abs muscles because right after he started that, he began rolling from back to belly.