Cutting the Cloth

A few weeks ago, My Fair Lady and I decided to begin the arduous process of weening Max from his Miracle Blanket, which is great for newborns. But as soon as they start wanting to stretch out and move, it becomes an ever increasing challenge to get them back into it. Plus, Max's legs were beginning to scrunch up inside because he was getting too long.

Yet we were not ready to go all the way and break the swaddle, i.e. let Max sleep the night away with his arms out.

So there we stood in his nursery at 1:30 a.m. arguing loudly about the best way to go about this. Max, meanwhile, just stared at us from his changing table. I don't quite recall who said what exactly, but these were some of the more memorable quotes:

"Just cut it!"

"He needs to not be swaddled anymore!"
"You want to start completely right this second? We haven't slept in three months and you want to ensure we don't sleep for three months more?"

"I don't want to ruin it! What about the next child?"
"Hey look! They have a website from which we can order more!"

"What if we cut it so his feet go through but his arms are still swaddled? Is that a good middle ground for you?"

This last was asked of Max and he just blithely smiled up at us. He was fine with it. So we cut off the bottom portion of the Miracle Blanket and re-swaddled him thus conking him out immediately.

I recommend for future parents that discussions like this be held during the daylight hours when your body knows instinctively that it's supposed to be awake, even if it feels like sleeping.