Transition Time: How We Stopped Swaddling and Learned to Love the Transitional Swaddle Sack

Let me paint you a picture…

It’s a little after three-thirty in the morning. The witching hour. My wife and I are woken up from a dreamless unconsciousness for the third time in a single night by a shrill cry from the bassinet just off the coast of our bed. Our daughter is awake again. Is she hungry? Wet? Or maybe she’s just scared? It’s not her fault. She’s new to this. She’s new to this and we are too. So I lay a hand on my wife and guide her back to her pillow—she needs the rest more than I do—and I scoop my little girl up and start to lull her back to sleep. It takes a while, but that’s okay. It’s time well spent to give my wife a break, even if it’s time I wish I was resting.

The sun would be up in just a few hours and just a few hours past that I planned on reaching out to an old family friend of ours, a retired nurse formerly in Labor & Delivery, and having a conversation with her. There’s no guidebook to being a new parent, they say, so consider this little writing project of mine the first chapter of a book they’ll tell you doesn’t exist. What follows is a combination of the fruits of that conversation, and a little independent research by yours truly. I hope it helps you get more sleep than we did those first few nights.

Here’s something I didn’t know. You have to learn to sleep. Well, okay, not in the way that you learn to ride a bike or memorize a mathematical formula. But all those little habits that you and I and my poor sleepy wife take for granted are things you need to learn. Winding down before bed. Getting on a healthy schedule. A big part of that is feeling safe and secure in your environment.

I hadn’t considered the importance of swaddling until I had that phone call. Sleep seems so intuitive to someone who’s been doing it thirty years. But babies need a little bit more than we do. They need something to help give them that sense of safety that they’d known in the womb, that warmth, that snugness.

They have a reflex called the Moro or “Startle” reflex, which causes a baby to flail their arms and legs when they think they’ve suddenly lost support or if something happens around them they don’t expect. So swaddle, check. And swaddling works, but there is a caveat. When babies are in the two to four month range, they start to learn to roll over. Natural part of their development. Thing is, when baby’s arms are pinned down by a swaddle blanket it’s absolutely not safe once they can roll over onto their belly. If baby rolls and lands with their face planted on the mattress, it is very important for baby to be able to use their arms to reposition to get air.

When our little girl started to roll at twelve weeks of age, we stopped swaddling. And our “good sleeper” was no longer sleeping well. She was waking up constantly. We were using a sleep sack, and within days we were becoming desperate, and we even considered using her swaddle. Our friends told us to be patient and eventually she would get used to the sleep sack. Instead, we decided to do some research given we assumed we were not the first couple to travel this path.

What we discovered is what prompted me to write my story. We learned that when a baby starts to roll over, it is important to be mindful of the relationship between keeping that startle reflex in check, and giving your baby room to move around. Too much freedom, they’re going to startle themselves awake again. Not enough freedom, baby can’t adjust themselves if they roll onto their tummy.

Now, keeping that in mind, the snugly wrapped swaddle blanket worked great for us in the first three months, but we dealing with a baby who was clearly “attempting to roll.” I found a product designed by a nurse that successfully walked the line between these two extremes. Soothing the startle reflex while giving enough room, just enough room, to let our girl push herself up when she rolls over.

Turns out there’s one standout product designed to help transition from a swaddle and several others that can be better described as convertible products. And given our experience with a sleeveless sleep sack, the other options were not serious contenders.

You have to be careful here, because there’s a difference between the product that is really designed for this swaddle transition stage, and “convertible” sacks—which are basically just swaddles that convert to a sleeveless wearable blanket.

While my wife napped, my LO and I sat together on the couch watching old episodes of Dragon Tales and I scoured the internet for the best and most popular swaddle transition products. Which, yeah okay, spoiler warning: It’s the SwaddleDesigns Transitional Swaddle Sack, and our baby girl is sleeping great. I’m going to bet by the time you’re done reading about my experience, if you have a baby who is starting to roll over, you’re ready to make yours too.

Why Did We Choose the Swaddle Designs Transitional Swaddle Sack?

If you’re reading this, you’re probably pretty tired. Scrolling, looking for a solution to get both you and your little one back to bed. I’m not going to bury the lead or give you any of that “Number five will shock you!” business. I’ll do you a favor and put the last item we looked at first on the list—even though I think that it’s good to be informed about some of these other products and how they fall short when compared to the Transitional Swaddle Sack.

The first thing you should know about the SwaddleDesigns Transitional Swaddle Sack is that was designed and developed by a real RN, with many years of experience. The second thing you should know is that it works so well I can’t believe that one of these swaddle sacks doesn’t come with every baby as standard equipment. Bottle, diapers, cute little hat, blanket, Transitional Swaddle Sack.

This thing’s an absolute game-changer. Designed for the swaddle transition period by someone who understands exactly what a baby needs during that window of time. It has these short sleeves about half the length of a normal sleeve with a foldover cuff that contains baby’s hand within the fabric. The sleeves keep the arms bent in a safe and natural position with arms up above the shoulders.

That tightness, it’s not a design flaw. It’s not intuitive. My wife thought that the sleeves were too short—it must be a mistake—but no, that’s not at all the case. The arms up, half-length sleeves with foldover cuffs is actually the special detail that makes the difference. Remember, the startle reflex is triggered by feeling a lack of support and the flailing of baby’s arms and legs, and what this snug fit does is it helps partially restrain the movement of baby’s arms which gently calms that reflex by making baby feel secure and safe.

There’s just enough resistance to do this because of how the sleeves are designed, but not so much resistance that it prevents a baby from using their arms in the event that they roll over. In fact, if baby rolls over with their arms in the special sleeves, the arms are in push-up position, perfectly positioned for baby to push up and lift body and head.

Even better, it helps babies to learn to fall back asleep on their own if they do wake up. Sometimes my daughter needs a little help here or there, who doesn’t? But there has been some nights where I’ll catch her stirring, a few noises, then she stretches and does a big sigh and she’s right back out again. That’s important. She’s getting better at this sleep thing by the day. Always nice when neither of you have to wake all the way up.

So yeah, if you’re tired and you stop reading here—which you can do, by the way, I won’t keep you hostage. This is the swaddle transition product that you should get. Check out the company’s website, the story of how they came up with it is awesome, and the product is great quality made with 100% cotton. Goodnight to you and your baby.

For the rest of you, come with me and let’s talk about why I didn’t pick any of these other options.

Love to Dream’s Transition Bag

So, this is one of the big guys. Love to Dream is one of the big dogs in the baby sleep space. They’ve got a big brand name and a lot of years of rapport to boot. The thing that struck me the most is that it’s got no sleeves at all. Not in that, sort of, arms out wearable blanket sense but rather where sleeves should be are these “wings” as Love to Dream calls them. With wings attached, your baby can slide their arms and hands toward to their mouth to self-soothe.

Now, this isn’t bad. It’s a little funny to look at. Okay, it’s a lot funny to look at. But there’s good stuff here. The wings contain baby in an arms up position when the wings are attached, and when baby is starting to roll over, you remove the wings to allow baby to have full range of motion.

This is why I said “convertible” before. It’s like taking the top off a sports car. The company says that when it’s time to transition from a swaddle, parents should remove one arm, then both arms. Here’s the problem though, even with one arm out if baby startles that arm can go anywhere. Fly wild. Fly free. With both arms out? Now we’re in wearable blanket territory. No suppression of that startle reflex at all. Baby does benefit from the mobility when both of the wings are removed, so they can push up in case they roll over, but it’s one or the other here. Parents have to choose which they’d like to prioritize between calming that reflex and ensuring safety when baby rolls, and for my little girl the arms free option led to “no sleep.”

Halo’s SleepSack Swaddle

Halo is another big brand in baby sleep. Love to Dream’s big competitor. This really puts the “sack” in sleep sack, it really does just look like you’re zipping your baby up into a bag. There’s “no sleeves” here, and “no wings.”. It goes over the shoulders like a tank top and sleeveless design means that baby’s arms are completely free. But during the swaddling phase, parents use two big pieces of fabric that wrap around and fasten with Velcro® to restrain baby’s arms and hands by wrapping baby up like a cocoon.

It’s soft, it’s warm. It’s a popular swaddle. Thing is though, it is not a great option during the transition phase. Because the company tells parents to leave the arms outside the wrap when baby shows signs of rolling over. Effectively, just like the Love to Dream Transition Bag with no wings, the Halo SleepSack Swaddle with arms up provides no resistance and no suppression of the Startle reflex. It converts to a sleeveless wearable blanket.

You get the full suppression of the reflex with baby’s arms under the wrap, but once baby’s arms are outside the wrap, you lose all of that. Baby’s on their own when it comes to startling awake. They have the full use of their arms if they roll over onto their belly, that’s fine, it’s safe to use with the arms out this way. But you and baby are going to be waking up together more often until that reflex starts to temper on its own.

The Zipadee-Zip

This one was made with a really unique idea in mind. Fully enclosed arms and legs make baby look like a cute little starfish. The Zipadee-Zip provides minimal resistance against motion thanks to its design while still allowing for total range of motion. Babies can push up and roll with no issues while still getting a little bit of that soothing snugness.

As silly as it looks, this one really isn’t bad. But when it came down to it, and my wife and I were looking at our Amazon cart and trying to decide between them, this one didn’t make the cut. It really came down to the fact that the Transitional Swaddle Sack was specifically designed to provide partial suppression to help baby sleep better, and the reviews led me to conclude that the Zipadee-Zip would not yield the same result.

I’ll admit though, I was tempted to buy it just to get a picture. It’s scrapbook material for sure. Do people still make scrapbooks?

Baby Merlin’s Magic Sleepsuit

I love wizards. I’m a huge nerd, shocker, I know. If you made it this far into the article, I don’t feel embarrassed telling you that. When I was a kid, I had a book that claimed to be written by Merlin and held the secrets to his magic. I kept it, I still have it, I’m going to pass it on to my little girl someday.

This… well, it wasn’t in the book. We ruled this one out pretty quick into our little evaluation, primarily because it looks more like a spacesuit than a wearable blanket or a sleep sack. Open arms and legs so baby can suck on their hands, and a lot of bulky padding that I could not help but to raise an eyebrow at.

The sleepsuit is meant to suppress the startle reflex by just… being bulky and thick with padding. If baby struggles against the material, it will be harder for them to startle.

But, it was easy to cross the Merlin from the list, because the manufacturer states that you shouldn’t use the Magic Sleepsuit when baby starts to roll over! So, the Merlin is not an option for a rolling baby when it is time to transition.

Now, I included the Merlin because though it doesn’t really fit the definition of “transition swaddle” or “convertible swaddle” it’s an option that one of our new parent friends had recommended that we consider. Yikes! It’s an odd cousin, you aren’t quite sure of how they relate to the transitional product family. You might see a Merlin get recommended to you by Amazon or some other shopping app once you flip through these other options, but really it’s not magic, it’s not endorsed by any wizards, and it’s certainly not a transition product if your baby is starting to rollover.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying:

When it came down to it, we really needed something that could let our daughter move her arms, but still help to keep her asleep. She startles hard, maybe she’s a worried baby — takes after her dad that way—so for us we couldn’t compromise on an “either or” solution. We needed something that did both. An “and” solution.

It’s been a week with the SwaddleDesigns Transitional Swaddle now, and we could not be happier. Our girl sleeps longer, sleeps better, and most importantly we don’t have to worry about her ending up in any danger because she rolls over during the night because she prefers sleeping on her tummy. If so, another way that she takes after her dad.

No matter what you choose, there are several things that I want to highlight:

• Always place baby on their back to sleep.
• Choose somewhere nice and firm to put baby to sleep.
• No loose blankets, pillows, bumpers, or toys.
• Once baby seems like he or she wants to roll over, don’t use a swaddle that keeps their arms fully restrained.

It’s Saturday morning now when I’m writing this. Cup of coffee close at hand. I can hear my wife singing along to the Bluey theme song in the other room and my little daughter is content and she looks to be cracking a smile. We’re happy. We’re awake. The only way we can be either of those things is by getting a good night’s rest. I hope my thoughts here help you find your way to the same bright and easy morning as we’re having.