Friday, June 13, 2008

making mummification work for you

I really need to be writing this as a thank you ode to the Little Brother and his wife M. They gave us the Kiddopotamus Swaddle Me blanket (two of them) a few months ago and we've just recently put them into the bedtime rotation.

Bean has developed, over the past few weeks, a nervous bedtime energy that can only be described as FRANTIC. The little girl thrashes and wiggles and squirms until her arms are flying willy-nilly over her head and regularly smacking herself in the face. It's not a pretty sight. I was so frustrated and distraught over the behavior after a while that I started to actually hold her arms down so I could soothe her to sleep. The problem with this answer, of course, is that she'd wake herself up in the middle of the night with a nice swift arm to the noggin.


Enter the Swaddle Me. I don't mean to do this much laughing on my daughter's behalf, but there is a LIMIT to the contraptions we can put this girl into without busting a gut. The Swaddle Me is fantastic, don't get me wrong. Since we started using it, she is sleeping an average of 7 HOURS, which is the kind of thing that I shouldn't even talk about, for fear that it will go away. The
seven-hour stretch of sleep is absolute heaven, but it comes at the price of making my baby look like this:

(Can I just add that they totally PHOTOSHOPPED THAT BABY'S HEAD ONTO SOME OTHER BABY'S TORSO? It kinda makes me wonder what the original baby's face looked like. Was he screaming? Totally unimpressed? Was there maybe NEVER a baby in the swaddle? Hmph. This is the same image included in the Swaddle Me's packaging, and it just kills me every time I look at it.)

So yes, since you asked, we have been mummifying our baby every night. Works like a charm.

5 comments:

Pickles and Dimes said...

That Photoshop job is baaaaad. But in a hilarious way.

I always feel bad when I see babies smacking themselves. You can tell they're frustrated by their lack of muscle/coordination, but it always reminds me of my brother using my hand to punch me and then saying, "Quit hitting yourself! Why are you hitting yourself?" Hee.

artemisia said...

Oh! I am sending this info to my sister - RIGHT NOW. Little M. has had a helluva time sleeping at night...

artemisia said...

Also - so glad this is working well for and Alice. Restful sleep for all of you!

Wendy said...

So...We have one too! All 3 of the boys slept better when swaddled, but it was always a trick to find just the right blanket to make it last ALL night long! So, my friend gave me one for Emily and it is great! Sometimes, I feel bad about the "mummification", so i'll go back to the blanket swaddle, but then if it's not a great swaddle blanket guess what happens...2 am she's up and thinks she's hungry and gets to snuggle up for a nice long snack because I sleep feed and, well I have to say that I would never do that with the boys, but on the 4 baby in less than 5 years, I'm exhausted and tried to stay away at first, but gave up and now we nurse lying down and she LOVES it!!! She's a cuddler and a snacker. So, yes, to make a long story short, we like the swaddleme too!

angelalois said...

Guess what. A friend from Shane's work gave us a ginormous box full of baby stuff and it included one of these. We had no idea what it was or how it worked or anything, until today. My genius mom figured it out. Then I remembered your post. It's the same product!! WOW!! The "kiddopotamus" written on the bottoms should have given it away.