The Merman

 

  It might just be me, but I find it so hysterically odd that I have to basically tie my son up in order to get him to sleep.  It's not really his fault I guess.  He just can't stop moving, even for a nap.  He'll just whine or stand up and start jumping in the crib if we don't swaddle him.  Sometimes both.  And honestly, I'm getting tired of  swaddling him five times a day, but then again it causes him to sleep through the whole night and that is more priceless than anything.

When Rory was younger (a few months ago) we would wrap him in one amazing stretchy Carters blanket as seen in the picture.  It made him feel comfortable and put him right to sleep.  Score!  

But then, as these things tend to happen, he found he could easily wrestle his way out of the wrap and was kicking and screaming before 11 P.M.

This made life incredibly hard because my wife and I are not so good running on less than 6 hours of sleep. 



Thankfully my wife is brilliant!  (When she isn't suffering from pregnancy brain, which she will be happy to tell you, continues for the baby's first year in life.)  She had this fantastic idea to use a second blanket to wrap around his legs to keep them from gaining enough of his seesaw-like momentum to break out of his wrap.  I don't know which of us started calling it the merman but let me tell you it worked incredibly.  He rarely gets out of this wrap.  But Mama wasn't messing around, she added one more blanket to the mix just to make sure.

"It just keeps everything together!  And look he likes it!" Kim says.
"He looks like he's in a straight jacket!" I say.

But, she was right... he loves it and he sleeps!  (Yes he still rolls all over the crib and finds a way to angle himself in each corner and crevice)

Of course we'd be up a creek if we forgot the head blanket!  He needs to feel that soft happiness on his cheeks that gives him that final push into slumber.  I sure love you, little monkey.