A glimpse into the baby sleep industry: Swaddles

Two months into motherhood, I have learned a few things about the challenges of being a parent. One of which is the importance of sleep. See, before becoming a mom, I had always thought that the late nights would be manageable because I only need four hours of sleep to function properly, based on my hectic lifestyle back in grad school, when I started working as a postdoc fellow and then a scientist, and then as a data science student.

But the first weeks of motherhood proved me wrong QUICKLY. I learned how important sleep actually is.

Sleep. Ever elusive but a necessity for good brain and body development for babies and a requirement to keep parents level-headed and able to take care of babies. During my baby's first weeks, he slept like a champ but for 30 minutes at a time... lulling him to sleep took a much longer time! I thought that I had to find a way to encourage him to sleep longer... and this search led me down the rabbit hole of the baby sleep industry. And my impression is that it's HUGE!

Swaddles

As a desperate mom, I became open to the idea of buying clothes for the little guy that would encourage him to sleep. I discovered the swaddle industry and got read into the different types of swaddles. Of course, I first learned how to swaddle my newborn in the hospital using a muslin blanket. But I wasn't great at that and my baby proved to be skilled escape artist. And so I bought him a few swaddle sacks  with velcro ears (Summer Infant's SwaddleMe). Those were really good at keeping his Moro reflex at bay, leading to 45 minutes of sleep. A good 15 minutes on top of the 30 that he was already doing! 

But then his growth spurts came and I was left with too-tiny swaddle sacks, forcing me to buy more. And I discovered the Halo Sleep Sack, which is like a sleeveless shirt with wings. My parents often describe it as the priest's robe. This sleep sack can be used as a swaddle (wrap it around the baby with arms restrained by the wings) or as a wearable blanket (wrap the wings around the baby's torso and keep the arms free). It worked quite well in lengthening his sleep up to 60 minutes but I found that middle-of-the-night diaper changes difficult while the wee one wore the Halo because there's too much fabric to push out of the way (that may get wet when he peed while I changed his nappy). I also wondered how to manage putting this on a sleeping newborn who could be jolted awake by the slightest change in position. Suffice it to say that I ended up feeding and lulling my baby to sleep in the wee hours with him wearing the Halo... and it would eventually be covered in spit up milk.

I noticed that my son's arms were always at level with his face when he slept with arms free. So I decided to experiment with the cactus-shaped swaddles from Halo and from Love to Dream. They're the simplest swaddles to use: just place the baby inside and fit the arms into the sleeves, then zip up the swaddle. The wee one also slept for about three hours while sleeping in one of these swaddles. But he kept waking up fussy, as if irritated to find out that his arms were stuck in one position. In the Halo and the SwaddleMe's, he eventually figured out how to free his arms but that's an impossibility with the "cacti". I was also concerned by how high the neckline was... my son might end up choking because the neckline was small and the fabric didn't appear to have enough stretch at the neck. Each time I used these swaddles, I was more vigilant but I was happy that he was sleeping longer (and I could sleep too, finally!). 

At some point, I decided to stop using the "cacti" and the wearable blanket because the wee one had reached the length limit or he always woke up complaining. I was running out of easy-to-use swaddles! 

Then I encountered Nested Bean, makers of weighted swaddles and other sleepwear for babies, on Instagram. The swaddles looked cool and the science of weighted blankets convinced me to buy one and see if it could help my son sleep well. And all I can say is that i swear by the company's Zen swaddle. The weights effectively calmed my son down and the wings of this particular model were stretchy. If the wee one wanted to bend his arms, he could and they won't get out of the fabric... well, until my son discovered how to extricate his arms from this swaddle. Nevertheless, I liked the idea that this swaddle is appropriate til the baby is six months old so I bought a few more (to be used in case of accidental pee and poop during diaper changes). I also bought a sleeveless version of the wearable blanket... looking forward to see how they perform with my son.

A quick estimate of how much I've already spent on swaddles surprised me. I probably spent around USD 200 for these sleeping aids for one child! But I have to say that these purchases were done alongside my son's growth spurts. He just kept outgrowing his swaddles!