Blanket Addiction: The dark side of the crib

Swaddled Aida, 1 1/2 months old, just after Christmas.

We started swaddling Aida from the start.

Like millions of newly expectant American parents these days, we were turned on to The Happiest Baby on the Block by more than one of our experienced mom-friends.

The advice came something like this: "If you haven't already read the book or seen the video, you MUST. Your life will be so much better." Or, "I wish I'd read it before Junior was born."

So, Steve and I watched the video (given to us by two different couples). And whenever Dr. Harvey Karp wrapped up that insane, relentlessly screaming baby and turned it on its side for a little swaying, we looked at each other with astonishment.

"Holy sh-t!" I'd say each time, my hands no doubt rubbing my swollen belly. "It's freakin' magic!"

That screaming baby's eyes would glaze over almost immediately and the screaming would cease. Like the kid entered some kind of baby trance or something.

Karp's idea is that when human babies are born, they enter the "fourth trimester." Unlike a foal that comes out with the ability to walk, human babies are still comparatively helpless, their brains still growing. The world is scary - cold and loud - and they lack control of their limbs, particularly when they're lying on their backs, as babies today are expected to do in order to ward off the SIDS monster.

To help soothe the baby, Karp holds, the best thing for parents to do is to recreate the womb as much as possible. The pressure from the swaddle keeps them comfy, warm and their limbs secure. White noise or "shushing" reminds them of the sound of blood and fluid flowing around them. Swaying mimics their mother's movements. And there were two other "S's" -- sucking and putting the baby on its side -- that apparently work magic, but that we never made a big deal of with Aida. (She hates pacifiers and usually got quiet before needing to be turned on her side.)

Hospitals have known about swaddling forever. After Aida was born and after she spent an hour on my chest all nekkid, the nurses whisked her away and wrapped her up in the standard hospital-issued newborn swaddle: one white flannel receiving blanket covered by another decorated with pink and blue baby footprints.

She was snug, safe, calm, sleepy, warm. She seemed happiest in her little swaddle.

When we got home, we continued wrapping her. At first, we did it the way the hospital did it, packaging her like a burrito, one blanket folded over her toes and wrapped around her body, and another around that to help keep her bundled.

She looked like a pea pod. So little and still. Every time we unwrapped her, she'd spread her arms out  over her head and move her neck back and forth like like a turtle.

Within a few weeks, we realized that the standard store-bought receiving blankets were too small to contain her. We had a period of a few nights when she woke up, having wriggled a hand or foot free and startling herself. The only way to calm her again was to re-wrap her and rock her back to sleep.

Sleep-deprived, Steve and I regrouped and agreed that it was time to get larger blankets. In a moment of desperation, we cut down a cute piece of knit cotton fabric I'd purchased before Aida was born. It was decorated with orange, green, yellow and pink hoot owls and I'd planned to sew the edges for a blanket, but never did. Turned out, we didn't need to sew it. We cut it at 44 inches by 44 inches, as internet searches suggested, and we had us a blanket.

Steve and I developed a playful competition over who made the best swaddle, using a YouTube video as our guide. At first, Steve was the master, hands down. And he lorded it over me constantly, whispering boastful comments to our newborn daughter, doing everything he could to turn her against me.

But I caught up. Swaddle after late-night swaddle, I became a baby-wrapping artist. Aida was putty in my hands.

If I heard Aida crying too long when Steve or mom were putting her down, I would swoop in ("I am  momma bear, hear me roar!"), size up the swaddle and, if it were loose (it usually was), quickly re-swaddle and hand her back. (The "handing her back" part was always hard for my micromanaging-new-mother self.)

I had learned that the durability of the swaddle had a direct effect on the quality of Aida's sleep.

It was clear we needed more blankets. That poor owl blanket was getting worn out. One afternoon, after threatening to make the house-bound escape for days, I left Steve with a bottle, drove to Jo-Ann Fabric and found three more bolts of cotton knit. On the way back, I received a panicked message from Steve. Aida wouldn't take the bottle he offered her. She was screaming her lungs out for boob food.

That drive back home couldn't have been more stressful. Every poky driver, every red light felt like a conspiracy to keep me from my baby and, thusly, to keep my baby from eating. "Get out of my way, people! My child is starving! Make WAY!"

When I got home, besides a sad little baby and a frustrated husband, I found a package from my aunt: A box of fabric for swaddling.

When Aida was not quite four months old, I decided to try out The Miracle Blanket, which my friend Bridget had given me before Aida was born (along with one of the copies of The Happiest Baby DVD). Until then, the blanket seemed too big for Aida.

The Miracle Blanket is kind of what my mom described as a "baby straitjacket." It has a flap to contain each arm and then a long "tail" to wrap all the way around the baby's body. It worked like (I hate to say it) a miracle. But the makers of the Miracle Blanket said on their instructions that they recommend parents stop using the swaddle in the fourth month. I was starting this just as she was getting too old to use it.

I began getting nervous about Aida's swaddle dependency around two or three months, as I started having visions of swaddling her the night before she started kindergarten. I also worried that by having her arms bound up during sleep, I was inhibiting her motor skills development.

Didn't she need to move around the crib a little more in order to learn how to roll over? Our doctor said not to worry about it. If she liked it, she liked it.

But I was over it. I wanted nothing but to be done with the swaddle. My friends who also swaddled recommended weaning Aida from the blanket gradually: wrap her with one arm out, then both arms out, then move to a sleep sack.

Aida had other plans.

One night, after Aida had just turned four months old, I left one of her arms out and listened to her cry for 20 awful, horrible, slit-my-wrists-I'm-a-terrible-mommy minutes before she fell asleep. When she did doze off, I posted a celebratory victory Facebook status update.

Twenty minutes later, she started crying again. (Terrible mommy. Surely the Florida Department of Children and Families would agree.)

After that, I just resigned myself to her swaddle. She liked it. It's how she slept best.

One day, it would be history, I supposed. I mean, she couldn't sleep like this forever. But I couldn't force it without her buy-in. (See AlAnon 101).

Aida turned five months old Tuesday.

As I already mentioned, she celebrated by performing a couple of flips in her crib IN THE SWADDLE.

This time, it was serious. Baby needed to lose the blanket. She couldn't be flipping all over the crib with her hands tied up. She'd surely suffocate! (Thank you, SIDS awareness literature.)

I pulled out one arm that night and she slept without a peep. The next day, we journeyed to Target and bought a zip-up sleep sack. That night, she again slept -- BOTH ARMS OUT of the sleep sack -- without any trouble. Like she'd been doing this for years.

A few hours in, I couldn't stop getting emotional about it. "Our baby's out of the swaddle," I told Steve wistfully. He nodded and indulged me. But I think he quietly shared my pride, too.

She's had three nights since then. She slept soundly in the sleep sack for two of them.

But last night, after napping for almost six straight (and unusual) hours during the day, she couldn't seem to get to sleep comfortably. She awoke several times and, after I met all her other needs, it seemed her arms were just driving her batty.

"Why don't you swaddle her?" Steve offered around 9 p.m.

I resisted. She'd done it for two nights. Why would this night be any different? She'll go to sleep.

Chatter. Cry. Sob. Yell. Cry.

I turned the doorknob. Sob. Stepped inside. Cry. Lifted her from the crib. Silence. Unzipped the sleep sack. Yell. Placed her on the Miracle Blanket. Cry. Wrapped up all but one arm. Cry. And pulled the blanket around her like a burrito.

Silence.

Her little body snug, she drifted into sleep.