Swaddling vs Growbags

Hi ladies, would love to hear your experiences/views and opinions on what worked/works best for you and your bubs.

Thanks!

Oh and if you could mention your state and the tog you use, that would be wonderful too.

Chrissy, I swaddled Jackson and never tried the growbag, but next time round I am going to be bagging the baby (LOL, that sounds a bit odd!) because Jackson always wiggles out of his covers and gets cold and wakes up, but If I put him in a growbag now he would crack it big time, so I want to get next bub ready from the start.

I personally don't think you need a grobag from the start as they don't move anywhere when they sleep - well Matthew didn't anyway! Swaddling worked for us until he moved round his cot and chucked his blankets off.

He is now in a Living Textiles sleeping bag for winter and also has blankets. LT don't do tog as far as I know.... and I live in Victoria ;)

Hey Chrissy,

We wrapped Blake for about 8 (possibly up to 12 but I seriously thing it was 8) weeks until he spent more time struggling to get his hands out of the bunny rug.

From there he was under blankets firmly wedged in with cloth nappies down the side of the mattress to keep him feeling snug like the wrapping.

When that stopped working at about 5/6 months I decided to try grobags. I was worried that after being firmly confined in both bunny rugs then blankets that he wouldn't like the grobag.

Well I have to say they've been such a hit.
We bought one brand new one which comes with the thermometer which indicates room temperature as well as suitable clothing and rating grobag to put baby in.

We have 2 x 2.5 tog which is the heaviest weight - one to wear and one to wash, 1 x 1.0 tog travel grobag, which also has zip access at the back so Blake can wear it in the car/pram, and 1 x 0.5 grobag for high summer.

Although Blake still doesn't sleep through the night (another issue nothing to do with grobags!) when he's roaming around the cot; and he crawls and swirms all over the place, I know he's warm, safe and happy. All are genuine Grobag brand except for th 0.5 tog which is a Living Textiles bag which is exactly the same but different brand.

Oh yeah, I'm in Melbourne, outer eastern suburbs :)

I do BOTH!!! I can't not wrap Coco as she wont sleep (she's 5 months) but she spends so much time trying to find her hands so I wrap her then put her in her grobag. Not sure of the type. I live in Sydney x0

Chrissy - As far as I`m aware (someone correct me if I`m wrong) it`s recommended that newborn babies be swaddled for the first 6 weeks.

With Matthew, he was a horror, started kicking of blankets from 5 weeks so he was no longer swaddled from this stage and it`s only been in the last 4 weeks (since Matthew was 11 months) that we`ve started using grobags/sleeping bags and it`s the best thing as Matthew is now sleeping 10 - 12 hours a night :shock: before this I was up to him at least once, often twice if not 3 or 4 times a night.

With this baby I`ll be swaddling from newborn but as soon as he is like his big brother and starts kicking the blankets off he`ll go into a grobag.

Hey Chrissy,

I have used a 2.5 tog Grobag with Jack at night, since he was about 5 months old and the weather got a bit cooler, as he used to kick his blankets off too and wake up cold!!

But during his daytime sleeps I wrap him.

And also if he is really overtired at bedtime, he will try and fight against sleep, so sometimes I wrap him in a very light wrap just till he's asleep and then I loosely unwrap him.

Grobags are fabulous inventions IMO and I love them!!!

And I live in Werribee Vic..

HTH :p :p

I live in Sydney.
We've always swaddled and never used a grobag. We swaddle with thier hands up so they can suck on them and self comfort if they want. Yasin was wrapped for long past the recomended time because he seemed to find it hard to sleep without it and he still uses his old wraps as comforters now that he's a toddler.

I wrapped DS until 6mo and then hestitantly forked out for a grobag, not convinced, but it has been fantastic! DS absolutely loves the grobags and so i do - i love that i can feed him to sleep in it so no more waking him up to wrap him. It also means i he stays nice and cosy in bed.

I live in Adelaide and used the 1tog during summer months and we are now using the 2.5 tog.

BTW, they are heaps cheaper in UK! Even using the ebay.co.uk site you can get them cheaper than in the shops here even with the exchange rate and shipping (we got a new one this way, and a rellie in UK sent us another).

We have Kynan in a sleeping bag of a night. During the day however he has a tendency to wave his arms around in his sleep and hits himself in the head etc so I still wrap him (he is 11 months).

We wrapped (arms down) until about 9months, and we just couldn't do it anymore. She was being a beast and waking up so many times a night, it was getting very tiring. And the wrap we were using was SOOOOO big.
Then we bought 2 grobags - a 1.0 and a 2.5. We used the 1.0 all through summer, is was great cause they are lined with towelling, so it sort of soaker up all the sweat but kept them warm. Really nice.
The 2.5 one is used all the time now, and we have her in flannelette PJs underneath. They are wonderful, andwell worth the money.

Next baby I will probably wrap until 6-8 months, and then go into the sleeping bag. I think all babies go through a protesting stage of being wrapped, but I think they get out of it. Its a bit like car seats. They all hate being backwards, and then magically one day get over it!

I would recommend the grobags from 6 months.
Fi

Thanks everyone!!

I remembered before that we will have the bassinette for the first month or so, so we will try swaddling...then once she goes into her big girls cot, we will try the grobags.

Cheers :)

I am sure she will let us know what she prefers...LOL

Emily was born in late November and we live in Brisbane. Our upstairs area isn't airconditioned....swaddling was just not an option. It was FAR too hot. Luckily Emily slept very well and didn't mind just being layed in her cot.
As she got older (about 4 months or so) it started getting colder and she was rolling around the cot so we put her in a growbag. It worked really well, I never had to worry about her getting cold. They're great.

Hi Chrissy!
This one's a bit hard because every baby is different. I know babies that didn't like being wrapped from the start! They would sleep quite happily with arms outstretched and their startle reflex didn't seem to bother them.

Gab had a big startle reflex for quite some time. She would only sleep when tightly wrapped with her arms down by her side. If she got so much as one finger out, she was awake!
As a newborn, I could wrap her in just about anything but I found that I preferred a bigger wrap that Fi had made for me - it was bigger than the "standard" sized bunny-rug.
I found muslin wraps absolutely useless and she'd bust out of them in no time.

As she got bigger and stronger, the only blankets that would keep her snug as a bug were 2 stretch polar-fleece blankets that I had bought before Gab was even conceived. They were fisher price brand - bright yellow with embroidered bugs on them. They were nice and big and had a good amount of stretch in them. Polar-fleece kind of acts a bit like two pieces of felt in that it will kind of stick to itself... so it was harder for Gab to get out. As the weather got hotter, it was a bit of a pain because she'd get pretty warm with the polar fleece around her. So I got into the habit of stripping her right down to her body suit before wrapping her.
On super hot days, I had to resort to wrapping her in a single bed sheet - which meant she didn't sleep nearly as well.

Gab was wrapped until she was 10 months old. It wasn't until I discovered her in bed one morning with her arms out and she was still asleep that I thought, perhaps, she might be ready to sleep unwrapped. We started with her naps then progressed to night time. This is when I switched to a sleeping bag. She wore on during the day for naps, then I still wrapped her at night.
She has been sleeping in a sleeping bag for a while now and it's great. Keeps her toasty warm. We've got a few different types of sleeping bags - some new, some second hand. The one I use the most is sleevless but Gab has a heater in her room (just one of those column ones to take the chill off the air) so I don't have to put any extra layers on her arms.

I wouldn't go out and spend a fortune on blankets/wraps/sleeping bags until bubs comes along, Chrissy. I did have a number of sleeping bags in size 000 that I never got to use because Gab was still wrapped (I sent them to Fletchy to use on Zane).

I dont use a bag at all...I have had a few of them,but never used them...
I have wrapped Dom in a medium thickness blanket since the start,and still do actually...He will sleep without it,but it is a light sleep...it is definitely his comfort thing.
We are in Tasmania by the way..