As a mom of a new baby I was very big on getting my kids on a schedule. And I had my kids sleeping in their own beds from day one. But I also loved holding them while they slept, and I often couldn't resist holding onto them during their nap time instead of putting them in their beds. I love how you can just hold a newborn, and they just sleep. I just love it!!
I swaddled both Elise and Joel. For Elise the swaddling only lasted a few weeks. She was a kicker. She kicked me in the womb and actually caused me so much pain in my abdomen that it took a couple of months after her birth for the pain to completely go away. As soon as she was born I got to see what she was doing in my tummy. She would stretch out her legs as far as they would go and then kick both legs together up and down. It was so funny - I would often hear her kicking on her mattress from the next room. So with all her kicking she would usually break out of her swaddle within minutes. It quickly became a lost cause.
Joel on the other hand was not a kicker. He loved to be swaddled, and we actually swaddled him for a long time. He suffered from acid reflux as a baby and so he actually really struggled with sleeping at naptime. 45 minutes was usually the longest amount of time he would sleep for during a nap (thankfully he slept great at night!). Anyway, I tried just about everything in attempts to help him sleep better, in addition to medication. We tried elevating his crib, putting on a noise maker, and of course, swaddling. I had to work with him for several months, but by about his third or fourth month he finally got consistent with his naps. By this time he was pretty hooked on being swaddled, so I was nervous to stop. But summer came and it got too hot for it. We stopped swaddling and he adjusted well!
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