Might as well face it... you're addicted to swaddles.

When Jon Jon was 6 weeks old, the novelty of sleep deprivation was wearing off. He was certainly not sleeping through the night, and we were experiencing the "Witching Hours" - where he was fussy from 6-10pm. At my wits end, I did what any looking-to-be-informed mom would do - I Googled.

At this point we were not swaddling Jon Jon. The receiving blankets just weren't cutting it, and the velcro style swaddles were no match for his wiggling hands. He would pop them out and start scratching and rubbing his face, thus waking him up. But during my internet search about swaddles I came across the Miracle Blanket. I watched the demonstration video on the companies website, and thought that this straight jacket style swaddle just might be on to something. And then it occurred to me, I had seen this strange, bat-winged piece of blue fabric somewhere before. It was in my closet! My sister-in-law Jill had included it in a box of hand-me-downs from her son Jack. When I first saw it, I had no idea what it was! But I quickly ran upstairs and pulled out the wadded up piece of mystery fabric and could hardly wait to try it out on my little guy.

The Miracle Blanket was a miracle for sure! Jon Jon started sleeping better right away. I was in love - with the swaddle that is. Fast forward to this past week. We had been swaddling Jon Jon consistently every night, and occasionally during naps, and the affects on his sleep quality, and ours, were wonderful. But as he has grown, the little bugger has started to bust out of his swaddle. First one foot, then one arm, then all limbs - which basically left him with a wad of fabric wrapped around his belly. Sadly I thought we had reached the end of our swaddle days. So we attempted to put him to sleep without the swaddle, and once more he scratched and rubbed his face awake. In a panic of - how will we all ever sleep again?! - once more I Googled, this time, "sleeping without swaddles", to see how other parents dealt with this challenge.

What I found surprised me. On parenting chat boards people were consistently talking about their babies being addicted to swaddling, and unable to sleep without it. Jon Jon addicted to swaddling?? And here I thought he was trying to break out of his swaddle because he didn't like it anymore, and it was I who was addicted to his swaddle, or rather the side effects of the swaddle - a good nights sleep. People talked of slowly transitioning their baby out of their swaddle, first one arm, then the second. But others talked of just swaddling their babies arms, so that they wouldn't wake themselves with their twitchy hands. Bingo! So last night when he woke up at 1am, I broke out the swaddle once more, and wrapped up those arms nice and tight, but left his legs dangling out the bottom. Jon Jon slept like a rock once more. So maybe he was addicted to this blue, cotton miracle.

But when will our addiction end? Will he ever sleep without his swaddle? I suddenly have visions of swaddling a teenage boy. I know it won't come to that, and at some point he will sleep soundly without the aid of turning into a little burrito. But for now I will continue to swaddle Jon Jon and hopefully it will once again bring back our sleep filled nights.