Okay, so here's the background - neither Maria nor Josephine ever liked to be swaddled once they were home from the hospital. Truth be told, I was never really good at it (I could never understand how those nurses got my baby wrapped up like a human burrito, with not once square inch of blanket out of place...), and they screamed and squirmed and fussed and fought like crazy every time I tried. They broke their way out of my pathetic attempts at swaddling in seconds, and I soon gave up on the idea. Fast forward a few years to Edward, and I saw quite early that he LOVED to be swaddled, and by the third baby, I had actually discovered the knack and the beauty of the swaddle.
That being said, I will admit that I was still a bit skeptical when my friend Christina (love you!)sent me a "Miracle Blanket" in the mail as a baby gift. I mean, I thought it was thoughtful and sweet of her, but the thing looked like a straightjacket-kind-of-contraption, and I secretly wondered what was so much better about this than a good old fashioned blanket. Here is how they look:
Well, she is a good friend and I felt like I would be a brat if I didn't even try it out, so I gave it a whirl one night...and that was the first night that Edward slept for more than two hours at a time. So I used it the next night, and the next, and the next...and thus began my love affair with the miracle blanket.
There were two separate occasions where I couldn't use it because it needed to be washed and wasn't ready for bedtime use, and his sleep habits were dramatically different. Instead of sleeping in 4-5 hour installments, he was back to waking up every two hours - yuck. On both occasions, I made sure he had his miracle blanket the next night and voila - he was sleeping great again. After the terrible sleeper that Josephine was, that was the thing that I was most nervous about when I was pregnant this time around - the baby's sleeping habits - and it makes me so happy that I was given something that helped me with this!
So, as you can see, I love, love, LOVE this blanket and would recommend it to anyone. I think the reason it works so great is that not only does it make it easy to swaddle your baby nice and tight, the way it's designed, they can't work their way out of it easily, which means that their little movements during the night don't wake them up.
Anyhow, so here's my dilemma, Edward is getting too big for it already!! It is supposed to be good to up to 14 weeks old (on average, I guess). He is 10 weeks old, and the last couple of nights, he has managed to work his way out of this thing, meaning that he is now waking more often - boo. Now, mind you, I don't blame the product. This kid is seriously strong for a 2 1/2 month old - we just went to the doctor's yesterday and he said that Eddie is doing things strength-wise that he doesn't expect to see until four months old. So yeah, woop-dee-doo, he's strong and blah blah blah, but what about my precious sleep?!! I knew that he would eventually outgrow the thing (they only sell one size), but I was thinking that I had a few more precious weeks with the thing. He seriously sleeps SO much better with it - the difference is amazing - and I'm not ready to give it up.
:(
Oh, and in case you are wondering, no I am not posting this on behalf of the company or to get any freebies (I had to add this, because I have been guilty of this in the past :), I just love this blanket and am so sad to think that I might not be benefitting from it any longer. Maybe I will take on ad adventure and try to make a bigger-sized one myself...
This is both of us at six months old. I think I look like a greased up pumpkin in this picture.
We are both about 3 years old in these pictures. Tell me Maria does not look EXACTLY like Lou (and if I had a picture of Josephine next to this one, you would see that she sooo has my face).
And here we both are at about five years old. Yes, Lou was already an avid fisherman, as you can see. :)
