A while back I wrote about The Happiest Baby on the Block DVD and Dr. Harvey Karp’s Five S’s.  The first “S” is for swaddling.  I remember going on the hospital tour when I was pregnant and seeing the swaddled newborns in the nursery and thinking they literally look like little bundles of joy.  Fast forward to having my own little bundle of joy and it was my turn to learn how to swaddle.

My husband and I took just about every class you could take before we had the baby and in one of those classes we learned how to swaddle a baby (we practiced on a doll).  Well, when we got to the hospital we learned that there are as many ways to swaddle as there are people.  And the nurses and doctors swear by their personal techniques.  By the time we mastered the art of the swaddle and got home with the baby we realized that all of the receiving blankets we had at home were not big enough for a proper swaddle.  Ah! How are we supposed to swaddle without proper blankets??

At about 2 AM in the morning on the second night home with the Tiny Dancer we were struggling to calm her down because we could not properly execute “the first S.”  Then a light went off in my barely coherent brain…I remembered that someone had gifted us a Summer SwaddleMe® wrap.  I had set it aside when we received it because I could hear my mother’s comments about it looking like a “straight jacket” and “how could you put your baby in a straight jacket” type stuff.

Left: Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Madonna and Child (1319); Right: Native American baby of the Nez Perce tribe, photographed by Edward S. Curtis, 1911 (Source: Wikipedia)

In desperate need of sleep I tore open the packaging and put the Tiny Dancer in the Summer SwaddleMe®.  I LOVE the Summer SwaddleMe®!  It is NOT a straight jacket!  It just makes what people in other cultures have known for centuries – a swaddled baby is a happy baby.  The Summer SwaddleMe® just makes the whole swaddling process a LOT easier.  You don’t have to worry about the size of the blankets, how they’re layered or folded.  You just pout the baby in the Summer SwaddleMe® and there are two velcro closures – that’s it.

The Summer SwaddleMe® comes in many colors and different weights for different seasons.  For about the first two months, the Tiny Dancer slept in her swaddle (if she was awake we didn’t swaddle her).  It helped my husband and I get through one of the most beautiful, yet tiring times of our lives.  And it’s not just me!  The Summer SwaddleMe® is an award winning product.  If you’re still not sold, here’s how Summer explains the benefit of swaddling:

Research shows that swaddling may help reduce the risk of SIDS by promoting better sleep when infants are put to sleep on their backs. Swaddling also reduces the incidences of the startle reflex which is responsible for frequently waking babies. By recreating the comforting snugness and security of the womb, the SwaddleMe® has revolutionized the way babies and parents sleep.

You can purchase the Summer SwaddleMe® online or at Babies R’ Us.

*Just a quick note, the baby may cry during the swaddling process, but once they are snug and secure they calm down immediately.