When Lainie Ceasar and her husband brought newborn twins Max and Zack home after a 10-day stay in the neonatal intensive care unit, they tried to swaddle their boys like the nurses had demonstrated in the hospital.
"They would sleep more frequently and seemed more at peace while swaddled," says Lainie. But the Ceasars didn't have much luck swaddling using standard receiving blankets. "Our little Houdini-boys would constantly get out of our swaddles...especially the swaddles I put on them in the middle of the night with a foggy head!"
Then the Ceasars discovered swaddling blankets specifically designed to keep babies securely and safely swaddled. Now Lainie insists a swaddling blanket is a "must-have for parents of multiples!"
What is swaddling?
The practice of swaddling-wrapping a baby's body snugly in a blanket to sleep-has been around for centuries. Many Native Americans traditionally swaddled babies. Remember the etching of Sacajawea on the U.S. dollar coin with her baby bundled snugly on her back? According to Dr. Harvey Karp in his book, The Happiest Baby on the Block, "For tens of thousands of years, mothers living in cool climates have swaddled their babies. . . . History has recorded that Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Jesus were all swaddled as babies. . . . And now, our nation has also rediscovered that babies like being wrapped as snug as a bug in a rug."
Benefits of swaddling
When done correctly, experts say, swaddling makes a baby happier because the infant feels as if it is still held tightly in the womb. Once an infant's limbs are free from the confines of the uterus, babies are often afflicted with the startle reflex-their arms and legs pop up and jerk spasmodically when the infant is placed on its back. Experts believe this is because the infant intuitively thinks it's falling.
Naturally, this jerking usually wakes the infant. Because parents have been advised in recent years to place infants on their backs to reduce the risk of death from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) when sleeping, swaddling has become even more popular to help ensure better sleep.
Swaddling also makes a baby feel as if it's being cuddled, just as if the child is resting in its mother's arms. Studies have shown that being touched is essential to babies' normal development.
Swaddling is thought by some to send a signal to a baby that it's bedtime. Suzi Sweeten's infant son John quickly learned to associate being swaddled with the need to sleep. His eyes would droop as soon as Suzi, Boca Raton, Fla., began wrapping him in his swaddling blanket. Mom of twins Adarezza Ferrer, Pleasant Hill, Calif., too, found that her babies "knew that if they were swaddled, it meant they had to go to sleep."
Researchers at University Children's Hospital, Brussels, Belgium, concluded very recently that, "[W]hen infants between six and 16 weeks of age sleep swaddled and supine, they sleep longer, spend more time in NREM sleep, and awake less spontaneously than when not swaddled." (Influence of Swaddling on Sleep and Arousal Characteristics of Healthy Infants, Pediatrics, May, 2005.)
Swaddling blanket vs. receiving blanket
If the benefits are so numerous, why don't more parents swaddle their babies? The truth is, it's tough to learn how to swaddle a baby properly using a standard blanket. The blanket must be tight enough to stay fastened and make the baby feel secure, and yet loose enough so that the infant doesn't become overheated.
Once a baby starts moving around, he often kicks off his blanket, and a loose blanket in the crib can increase the risk of SIDS. According to Mike Gatten, creator of the Miracle Blanket, Medford, Ore., "receiving blankets become too small very quickly-usually by 2 weeks of age" and therefore aren't effective in swaddling a baby.
Now a wide variety of specially-made swaddling blankets designed to overcome the limitations of traditional swaddling are available. These blankets may be shaped to fit a baby's body, long enough to wrap around his body, and might have Velcro fasteners to prevent an infant from pulling the swaddle loose.
Swaddling helpful for multiples
"Parents of twins have double the challenge of caring and comforting their newborns," says Lynette Damir, R.N., founder and CEO of SwaddleDesigns, Seattle, Wash. "When parents of twins swaddle their babies, the parents benefit as well as the babies. When babies sleep better because they are swaddled, parents sleep more, too."
Kristen Peterson, VP of Product Development at Kiddopotamus, maker of the SwaddleMe® blanket, Leawood, Kan., reports, "I have talked with parents of twins who, in looking back, say they don't know how they survived the sleep deprivation and exhaustion of the first months. Parents and babies need all the help they can get, and the SwaddleMe® can be one of the most valuable products twins will ever use as it calms and soothes them, helps them sleep longer and better, and helps them feel better by containing their extra movements."
Multiples are often born prematurely, making it all the more important that their "energy should be reserved for growth, not trying to keep themselves warm or getting to sleep," says Heather Allard, inventor of the Swaddleaze swaddler and sleep sack, Pawtucket, R.I.
Many parents give up swaddling quickly because their babies don't seem to like it. But it doesn't take long before most babies realize they love it, parents reported. Some babies never grow accustomed to swaddling, but the vast majority sleep better as a result of being swaddled. If your babies resist swaddling at first, Dr. Karp advises, "Be patient. You may have to practice a few times before [the baby] gets used to it. Try swaddling when she's already sleepy and in her most receptive frame of mind."
This article originally appeared in Twins Magazine, January/February, 2007.