Admittedly, compared to our peers, we were really late in giving up the swaddle. Having read “The Happiest Baby on the Block” during pregnancy, we had been doing the “5 Ss” (Esses? I mean “S” in the plural.) since E was born: swaddling, shushing, swinging, sucking, and side/stomach positioning. Swaddling in particular became a big part of our sleep-time routine. We had been doing the “double swaddle” with the muslin blanket and tucking E into the sleep sack (“The Snuggle Buggle,” as we called it). As she got older and older, I began to fret that we shouldn’t be doing this anymore, that maybe not having access to her arms while she snoozed was somehow psychologically damaging. In addition, all of my mommy friends were surprised that we were still swaddling. And my own mother called it “binding.” (Helpful! Wait, no…)
