Safe T Sleepwrap

I'd imagine most all parents are overly paranoid about SIDS. When I was younger my family was very close with a family who lost a 5 month old daughter to SIDS. It was devastating. 

When I knew I was going to be a parent, I'd accepted the fact that there might not be ways to entirely prevent that unimaginable horror, but I knew that I'd do everything possible to decrease the odds.

To start, we do use a sensor pad (SIDS monitor) under the mattress (which reviewed here).

When our little guy got old enough to roll over, he was removing himself from the monitor's range of detection and it was sounding all the time. The thought of not using the sensor just wasn't an option in my mind yet. 

So we found this Safe T Sleepwrap:

I know, it might be a little odd to think of basically strapping your baby to the bed, but I give it 5 stars and say it's a fantastic item to use.

This is a two piece wrap that velcros together around the mattress. It has little flaps sewed to it that hug your baby in place. The fabric is soft enough, and the flaps that wrap your baby also have velcro to keep them in place.

It wraps around your baby's abdominal area, starting just below their underarms. There's a flap that comes up between the legs to prevent rolling over, too. 

This also helped my piece of mind knowing my baby wasn't going to roll over onto his stomach in the night. I know that once they start rolling at night most doctors will tell you to let them, and say they're strong enough to adjust themselves. But, truth is, you just never really know. 

I think this could contribute to weaning off the swaddle too, since they'll still have the hugging feeling from the wrap.

Another perk is the that the velcro placements on the wrap make it very adjustable. We've used it during travel with twin sized beds and once around a couch cushion.

I recommend it! Especially if you're at the stage of a baby consistently moving off of a sensor pad. I purchased mine from Amazon for $99.99 (here). 

Woombie Swaddle

I'm one of those moms, the one that swaddles their kid and then pushes off the weaning part of it. 

My baby sleeps so well though, he was sleeping 8 hours at night by 10-12 weeks and 12 hours at night by 5 months.

We tried our share of swaddles. Our Lovebug had a very strong startle reflex and would wake himself up constantly. Many of the swaddles we tried weren't effective, as his ninja skills could easily free his hands. 

Finally, I found these Woombie swaddles that just zipped up:

I was worried about it at first, because it doesn't constrain the arms down, he could still easily, and freely, move them about within the stretchy fabric of this swaddle. It did take some adapting, but a few days later, he was over it and it was the best sleeping tool we've used since. Get it here for $28.00. 

I think one of the best parts about this swaddle is that I recently discovered that they make convertible ones to help you wean! 

This, which is basically a onsie straight jacket ;) (get it here for $30.00):

We're on the onsie straight jacket one and it's been so wonderful. They have buttoned slots near the arms, so that you can just free one arm at a time and gradually work up to both arms having freedom. He's doing very well with one arm free at a time. I feel like we're finally on our way to weaning off the need of a swaddle.

Also, if you have a baby that gets anxious while flying, this seemed to help ours out quite a bit during flights.