How to wean a baby from swaddling: tips for parents

Modern recommendations of pediatricians make us abandon the usual diapers. To date, in most maternity hospitals, the baby immediately after birth puts on sliders and vests. However, most mothers still try to swaddle their baby. Over time, parents encounter such a problem as the reluctance or inability of a child without a diaper. In order to determine what a diaper is - evil or manna from heaven, we suggest sorting out its pros and cons.

Benefits of Swaddling

1. Moms who swaddle the baby from a very young age know that the baby sleeps in the diaper much more calmly. He is in his usual state of tightness, as if in the womb. Therefore, his sleep is deep and long.
2. Toddlers of the first months of life still do not know how to coordinate the movements of their arms and legs, therefore they are very afraid of looming limbs. So that the baby does not throw up arms and legs, is not afraid of this and does not wake himself, he is swaddled.
3. A tight diaper often helps the baby during colic - it eases his suffering during gas formation.
4. If the baby has diaper dermatitis, his mother is forced to abandon diapers. Therefore, a baby with gauze diapers is much more convenient to swaddle than to keep in clothes.
5. Doctors have shown swaddling for some children with various orthopedic problems, with a violation of the tone of the limbs, and with hip dysplasia. Tight swaddling allows you to gently, but carefully fix the crumbs.
6. Our grandmothers are sure that swaddling can help straighten the legs of a newborn.

All these pluses, as well as the meaningful grandmother’s “All were swaddled, and so are you!” drag the scales towards the swaddle. And young mothers wrap their precious little bags in chintz and flannel diapers. However, you need to talk about the minuses of swaddling.

Disadvantages of swaddling

Why did modern doctors refuse swaddling? There are a number of reasons for this.

1. Tight swaddling disrupts the circulation of limbs.
2. If you swaddle a child for more than three months, you can get a lag in his motor skills - he does not train his arms and legs enough, his muscles develop worse.
3. In general, swaddling is fixing a child in an unnatural position for him. He cannot cross arms and knives, cannot turn over or curl up if necessary.
4. In the summer, swaddling can cause overheating, because the thermoregulation of a newborn baby is still imperfect.
5. Excessive swaddling can often cause hypertension in babies.
6. It happens that children who are swaddled, forgotten or not often laid out on the tummy. And this, as you know, is a necessary condition for the health and development of newborn babies.

Having learned about the pros and cons of swaddling, we can draw conclusions - swaddling is possible, but two conditions must be observed. The first is to swaddle a child only in the first months of life, not longer than three months. Further, the baby should develop muscle skills and coordination of movements, even in a dream. And the diaper interferes with this. The second condition - swaddling should not be tight so that the baby still had the opportunity to move.

If you have already gone this way, and want to get rid of the diaper (without prejudice to sleep and tranquility), we will give you some tips.

How to wean a baby from a diaper

1. Try to swaddle the baby not completely, but only his legs. This will allow you to get rid of the diaper gradually, so to speak, in stages.
2. Often a diaper and a sense of constraint give babies comfort and a sense of security.And when the arms and legs remain in a free position, the child begins to get scared, becomes anxious. It is this reason that makes him wake up and cry at night. In this case, it is worth thinking about a joint dream, at least for a while. When the child feels his mother next to her, her warmth and breath, he will become calm, and he will fall asleep sweetly.
3. Swaddle your baby more and more freely each time. Over time, you can just throw on your favorite diaper, without fixing the baby's legs and arms in any way.
4. If the baby refuses to fall asleep without swaddling, do not refuse him this. And after the baby falls asleep, slightly relax the diaper. So, gradually, you can refuse swaddling.
5. So that the child learns to fall asleep without a diaper, offer him an alternative way of going to bed. You can shake the baby, offer him breasts, vilify him, sing a lullaby. The bottom line is to change the habitual rituals of falling asleep.
6. You can replace the diaper with a regular blanket or bedspread. Lay the baby to bed and cover him with a blanket, giving him the usual warmth and feeling of tightness.
7. In the process of rejecting the diaper, you can use special sleeping bags for children. They are products made of soft material with a zipper in the middle. The child can be completely packed in a bag, leaving only the head or only the lower part of the body can be fixed - to the waist. So the hands of the crumbs will remain "free". Such a sleeping bag is a cross between swaddling and clothes. The baby will be fixed in one position, but still be able to move his legs and arms in this bag.
8. In order for a child to fall asleep even without a diaper, he must first be “wound”. To do this, you need to withstand an awake period of at least 3 hours. It is very useful for the child to bathe in warm water with a drop of essential oil of pine needles. This will allow the child to sleep in a calm sleep, even if he is not wrapped in the usual diaper.

Armed with these tips, you can abandon the diaper and use it exclusively as a litter.

The process of weaning from the diaper is quite long, for this you will need more than one day. However, patience, perseverance and boundless love of the mother will do their job. Change your baby’s habits if they interfere with his health and development.

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