‘Swaddle your baby’
When you become a new mum, or even in the pregnancy days, you’ll hear this term repeatedly from friends, mid wives, ads popping up on your feed 😉
What is it? Why does everyone keep talking about it?
Well that is because it is actually an essential part of life with a newborn up till possibly 4-6 months old. To swaddle means to wrap up literally. In modern day, we have so many options and designs available to swaddle our babies - the traditional piece of cloth or the innovative swaddle sacks or pouches with zips or velcro. Why do we need to swaddle and which is best?
Why do we need to swaddle?
- The first and most important reason is to prevent the infant startle reflex which will wake our wee ones up during their sleeps
- To feel safe and secure just like they did when in our womb
- Mimics touch to comfort our little ones
- To essentially help them sleep better and longer with the reasons as mentioned above
Which swaddle is best?
This will vary from child to child but personally we love the traditional swaddle blankets best. No zips or velcro to fuss with and we can adjust how tight we want the swaddling to be. While it does seem like there are a few steps to manually swaddling, we got used to it very quickly and can complete the swaddling process within seconds. The velcro ones require steps to be undertaken too. We find that the zip ones do not have a snug fit and our babies didn’t feel secure enough - they served more a purpose as a sleeping bag to stay warm than to feel secure. We do know of people who absolutely love the Love to Dream swaddles but for our household, we love our traditional cloth swaddle wrap blankets as they are so versatile in use too (wrap, blanket, pram cover, change mat cover, nursing cover).
Which material is best for swaddle wrap blankets?
There are generally two most popular types of swaddle wrap blankets available in the market - the muslin vs the jersey wrap.
The muslin wrap can be made from the materials: 100% bamboo, mix of bamboo + cotton blend, 100% cotton. They are all lightweight and highly breathable and we personally prefer the mix of bamboo and cotton. It delivers the right amount of softness and stiffness that we need when swaddling our baby. 100% bamboo would be the softest and silkiest of them all while 100% cotton the stiffest and we would say quite rough in texture when compared to the other two. Muslin swaddles are the best for warm weathers and you just need to dress your babies accordingly underneath first for cold weathers. The most versatile in our opinion.
The jersey wrap on the other hand is thicker than muslin wraps, more stretchy and not very breathable. Good for cold weathers. We find that our two babies tend to wriggle our of jersey wraps most easily as they are stretchy.
Which size?
We have used a swaddle that was 100 by 100 cm and found that it was not big enough to swaddle our baby properly. At least 120 x 120cm we would say.
We have created our Lluie swaddles based on our experiences with our babies. So naturally our swaddles are 120 by 120cm and made from a bamboo + organic cotton blend. Find out more about our Lluie swaddles here.
What to wear underneath the swaddle and how to swaddle? Read more here - https://raisingchildren.net.au/newborns/sleep/settling-routines/wrapping-in-pictures
