It's Magic! (sometimes)

When Simon was born, we started swaddling him to sleep--and he loved it. Apparently swaddling mimics feelings of being all warm and cozy in the womb. So we had all kinds of swaddling tools and techniques...there was the traditional blanket swaddle, which Matt was a master at:

And there were a couple of different ready-made, brand name, velcro-assisted swaddle products that we used as well, much easier for me to manage:

In fact, Simon was swaddled to sleep up until 4 months old...here he is at Grandma's house at Christmas, all bundled up:

But we knew the day was coming that we would need to transition him from the swaddle, for a variety of reasons. We we hadn't thought much about it until we went through a horrendous week of sleep after we got back from Christmas. We knew something had to change. Sigh.

Our friends Amber and Richard had been using something called "Baby Merlin's Magic Sleepsuit" and said that their son, Max, was doing really well in it. So we ordered one online and patiently waited for it to arrive. Those few nights were excrutiating...so on New Year's Eve we desperately texted Amber to see if we could borrow Max's old suit and give it a try.

Lo and Behold, on December 31st, Simon slept through the night! Now don't get me wrong, it's not a magic cure...in fact, just this past week we barely made it through the worst week of sleep I think we have seen since the first month. But for the most part he is doing well and the Magic Sleepsuit is a great transition from a swaddle to regular PJs.

And, making it ALL worth it is the fact the Simon looks like the Michelin Man in the suit, it's hysterical. I finally took some pictures of him in it today:

In the second picture above, Simon is napping in our bed with me--he's a terrible napper for us on the weekends, but if he and I nap together, he'll sleep for 2, sometimes 3 hours. And I won't ever say no to a nice long nap myself! Cuddling up to a sleepy baby on a Saturday afternoon? There are worse things in life.