Today's blog and podcast is all about sleepwear. Whether you've got a newborn, baby, toddler, or preschooler- we've got you covered!

I get into the details of what your child should wear to sleep, when your child should wear special sleepwear, and why! I also offer all my product recommendations depending on what stage of life you're currently in.

*This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my privacy and disclosure statement for more information.

Click here for a quick link to your desired podcast app

Swaddles

Swaddling can be SUCH a helpful tool for newborns. Here are some basic swaddling facts you should know:

1. Swaddling is great for newborn sleep because it reminds them of the womb! Your newborn loved the womb and if we can recreate that feeling of security and snugness, it will help!
2. Swaddling also prevents your newborn from being woken up by their Moro reflex. This reflex will fully integrate around 4 months so a swaddle can be helpful in the first few months of life to make the transition from womb to world easier.
3. Like all things, swaddling should be done in moderation. It's a great tool for sleep but when awake, we want your newborn to be free to move and play!
4. For safety reasons, I recommend you transition out of the swaddle at the very first signs of rolling.
5. When swaddled, babies hips should be loose and free to wiggle.
6. The swaddling material should not be up around baby's face.

Swaddle sleepwear I recommend:

Summer Infant Swaddle Me

Pros: Inexpensive, easy to use

These are my personal favorite!

Halo Swaddle

Pros: Easy to use, can also be used as a regular sleep sack once you're done swaddling

Cons: More expensive

Love 2 Dream

Pros: Good option for babies who hate swaddling

Cons: Most expensive

Swaddle Transition

Did you know there are several swaddle transition products that are designed to help you stop swaddling? Let's break them down below and if you need more specific help with that transition out of the swaddle- check out this blog too: How to transition out of the swaddle

Swaddle transition sleepwear I recommend:

Magic Merlin Sleepsuit

Pros: Very helpful if your baby still has a strong Moro reflex

Cons: Shouldn't use for very long because they prevent baby from rolling around and getting comfy. 5 months is the oldest I prefer to see babies in these suits.

Halo Swaddle to Sack

Pros: If you used this swaddle for you newborn, you can simply wrap the velcro piece around their chest while letting the arms be free! Get double the use out of this swaddle!

Zipadee Zip

Pros: Unique star fish design makes for an easier transition from the swaddle. This can also be used long term for many months so you'll really get your money's worth.

These are my personal favorite!

Sleep Sacks

Sleep sacks function as a wearable blanket. Since we don't want anything in the crib with baby (no blankets, pillows, etc.) these are a great way to give them that extra "blanket" layer while also keeping them safe. Plus, babies don't know how to keep a blanket on all night anyways!

These can also be great deterrents to keep your toddler from climbing out of their crib. Typically with one of these on they will not be able to hike a leg up and climb out.

Last thing I want you to know is that while sleep sacks are great tools, they are NOT a necessity for good sleep. You don't have to ever use a sleep sack if you don't want/need to!

Sleep sack sleepwear I recommend:

Merlin Dream Sack

Carters Sleep Sack

Pros: Inexpensive, can often be found on clearance at Kohl's! Any sleep sack will do. Please don't feel like you need the fanciest of the fancy. 🙂

Zipadee Zip

Pros: Can be used well past the swaddle transition phase up to 24 months!

These are my personal favorite!

Toddler & Preschooler Sleep Wear

Once your child outgrows traditional sleep sacks, there are still options for keeping them warm at night. Many toddlers and preschoolers won't be able to effectively use sheets and covers until older so it's best to avoid that pitfall of repeatedly fixing their covers overnight and instead just use one of these sleepwear options below! For a more in-depth review of the longest sleep sacks I could find, see this blog here.

Toddler/preschooler sleepwear I recommend:

Halo XL Sleep Sack

Pros: Still trying to keep your toddler safely in a crib? These fit up to 40in and up to 36lbs!

Flying Squirrel

Pros: Still get that cozy feel of a sleep sack- but with the feet free! Comes in sizes up to 5T.

Halo Walker

Pros: Still get that cozy feel of a sleep sack- but with the feet free! Comes in sizes up to 5T.

Need more help than just sleepwear? Check out my resources for every age below:

In this latest episode Carianna answers your baby sleep questions! To leave your own question to be answered on a future episode, use this link: https://www.speakpipe.com/sleeptalkingmoms

We cover everything from dropping night feeds and the swaddle to tackling early wakings!

Early waking mini course

Sleep coaching crash course

Everything page

Click here for a quick link to your desired podcast app

Episode 10: Baby sleep question & answer

Baby sleep question & answer Welcome to the sleep talking moms podcast, my name is Carianna, and today's episode is going to be just slightly different. Kayla won't be joining us but I am going to be answering some questions from you guys as the listeners, so I'm really excited to tackle some of these burning questions that you have,
Baby sleep question & answer My name is Katie and I have a seven month old. He can put himself to sleep independently we used cried out for sleep training. And, but he still wakes up ones in the middle of the night sometimes twice to eat. He's big enough that he should be able to sleep through the night, but I'm not sure what to do to encourage him to do that, we dream feed him once, but often he wakes up, and then now that he's used to eating men so he'll wake up once, or you go to bed and then usually one more time in the night. Anyway, so any advice on how to help them with that would be great. Thanks so much. All right, Katie, I'm so excited to be answering this question so first what I would say always, when you're thinking about dropping night feeds just talk to your pediatrician, make sure they're on board. Make sure there are no weight gain concerns, you're right that at seven months I would guess he could go all night without a feed but we do want to just kind of get that blessing from your pediatrician. But once you've done that, I would recommend since it's one feeding that's more of a dream feed, before you go to bed yourself. That is where I would start I would cut that one out first. And if he's getting like a significant amount like if it's you know five plus ounces at that feeding. First I would drop it down slowly, so maybe drop it down by an ounce or two every couple of nights so that he's getting less and we're encouraging him to make up those ounces then during the day, if he needs those ounces so I was slowly cut back on how much you're offering for that first feed. And then on the night that you decide you're going to cut it out. I would either, you know have a sleep coaching method that you're going to respond with, so maybe you're checking in on him. Maybe you're soothing him, maybe you're using cried out again I know that you did that before I felt comfortable with that. So that is a valid option as well. If you want to use it. But basically, we're going to just stop responding with the feed we may respond in different ways but we're not going to offer that feed and push him until that time of his typical second feeding, if he has one. So I would do that step first. Once you're there, then I would do the same thing with that second feed I would decrease it. If he's getting a significant amount. And then once you decide you're going to take it away altogether respond differently maybe you're checking on and maybe you're offering soothing, maybe you're staying out of the room completely, but that's how I would do it I would tackle the dream feed first, And then I would tackle the second one. All right, good luck, Katie.
Baby sleep question & answer Hey there. So my question has to do with, dropping the swaddle. My little one loves to be swaddled. And we tried a few times to drop it, and it's just been an absolute disaster. So my question is, when you go to drop the swaddle. Is it best to start at bedtime or naptime, and we've tried doing the one arm out. I mean nothing works literally nothing works we've tried, I feel like I've tried everything. So I'm the man just going cold turkey and embracing the chaos. Is there an amount of crying, that is, would be considered normal. With this change, and about how long will it take for her to adjust. She is almost four months old. Alright, thank you for your question Gabrielle, okay so first off first question you asked was about better to drop it. Naps or bedtime. I always recommend when we're anytime we're making big changes, whether it's a swaddle or transitioning to a different room or from bassinet to crib or sleep training that we start at bedtime because that night, we have that surge of melatonin, that's helping us sleep, we don't have that during the day, so it's normal for naps to just naturally be a little harder. Now I know that at the same time like knowing that science. It's also can be a little more painful if we drop it at night because night is when we want to get our uninterrupted sleep right and so if you are being interrupted. It's annoying, but your child will pick it up, smoother if you drop it at night so I would do night first. And given that she is almost four months, We really do want to get her out of the swaddle. You know as quick as possible. We don't want there to be any potential for her to accidentally roll in that swaddle and get stuck with her arms, you know, type in at her side so I would do it at night, and then I would honestly, maybe the next day. Also remove it from nap one if you want to remove it from all naps the next day you can. That might be what I recommend just based on her age since she is older, but if you want to take it a little slower and do nap one for a couple days and then remove it from nap one and nap two for a couple days and so on. You can stretch out a little bit longer but I liked your idea to just kind of embrace the chaos, and to do both arms out, I think at that age, that is very very reasonable to do if she was a lot younger, we may want to use more of a transitional product or do one arm at a time but at this age. I agree, I would just let both arms be free and just know that it's gonna take her some time to adjust that's really normal that's all she's known for almost four months. So really just be patient and know that sleep may be a disaster for a week or two. That's okay because we need to get her out of that swaddle. And we need to get to the other side of this process so push through, even though it may be rough. When you asked about how much crying, I would say it really depends on what you feel comfortable with, and what I maybe don't know about your situation exactly is, if she's already an independent sleeper, or if you help her to sleep. You know that's going to play into this too obviously if you help her to sleep. We're not going to expect her to put herself back to sleep, multiple times at night, if she's not already doing that, but if she does have those skills then we are going to expect a little more from her so if she's an independent sleeper, I would have kind of a plan in place of how often are we going to go in and check on there, how long are we going to spend in the room, offering soothing, whether she accepts it or not but offering that soothing, how long are we going to spend doing that and basically just have it real clear so you and if your partner's doing it with you, you're on the same page and you're not trying to make decisions in the middle of the night because that's a lot of times where we go wrong, we think, Oh, this will be smooth or we don't talk about it beforehand and then it gets rough in the middle of the night, and we're not ready for it. We don't have a plan and we end up like kind of stalling out and and getting stuck. So definitely make a plan of action for what you guys feel comfortable with, and what you are going to want to move forward with there. And I think that was all I think that was all you asked. So, good luck. Yes, just know I would settle in for one to two weeks. You shouldn't be up, you know, all night for one to two weeks but it may take two weeks for sleep to really settle back in to where it was before you dropped the swaddle. Okay, Hang in there.
Baby sleep question & answer I carry on. After doing SQL. We seem to be making progress with night, weekend. But he still wakes around sometimes he wakes from 430 for feed which is great. Sometimes he goes back down. After that for another two hours. Sometimes he then wakes up the day. So how to address the early morning, weekend, when the rest of the night, has been great. Thank you. Okay, awesome. I'm so glad to answer this question to you, this is one of my sleep, coaching, Crash Course students, so she's been following along with my course and the day by day plan, and sounds like night wakings are improving, we're just kind of hung up on those early morning wakings first I just want to encourage you, That's really normal. I feel like it typically early wakings are kind of the last piece to fall into place so that's not unusual. What I don't know what this Kareena is how old your little one is. I know you mentioned like waking around 430 and having a night feed sometimes then he'll go back down sometimes he won't. That night, feeding, I mean, if that is age appropriate and everything, then I would still keep doing that. And then I would be putting him back in his sleep space, and since I know that you are working on independent sleep that he's falling asleep on his own already. Then I would be kind of giving him that space using the sleep coaching method that you have picked I know my course walks you through several options. So using the, the method that you have picked and applying that for that early waking until either he falls back asleep, or until it's our designated morning wake up time, so and I would just continue to do that morning after morning, making sure your environment is ideal, you know, making sure that that's all in place that nothing is waking him up at that time, but those times that he has a feed and can't fall back asleep. We want to be giving him the practice to do that keeping him in his dark sleep space so his brain doesn't think oh it's light, it's time to be awake, and it will just take some time of consistently doing that over and over for his body to really get into that rhythm of sleeping and later so stay strong with what you've been doing and try those things out if you haven't already been trying them. Alright, and that leads me into a perfect segue you guys, I have, that's the last question I'm going to answer but I did want to let you know, just over the weekend, my early waking mini course went live.
Baby sleep question & answerAnd so if that's something you're struggling with if you're struggling with early wakings. This is a great affordable very affordable mini course option to walk you through the culprits behind early wakings and give you some tools so you know how to address the early wakings what you can do to combat them. And this of course is ideal if your little one falls asleep on their own, already, if they don't fall asleep on their own already, then you would be better suited to like my newborn sleep course or my sleep coaching Crash Course, that is for four to 24 months or my toddler and preschooler sleep course, those are more for building that independent sleep piece, if you don't already have it. But if you have an independent sleeper and you're just struggling with early wakings, definitely check out that early waking mini course, I will put the link in the show notes below. All right, Thank you guys for joining me. I'm really excited that we got to do some q&a is, and I'll actually drop a link in the show notes so if you want to leave a q&a for me if you want to leave a verbal question I can answer it on a future episode for you. Baby sleep question & answer Have a great day.

I know you've all been patiently waiting for this list! I'm about to dish on all the products that you could ever possibly buy to improve your baby's sleep. You might be surprised by how FEW items are on my NEED list and which items I advice you not to waste your hard earned money on!

*This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my privacy and disclosure statement for more information.

1. Velcro Swaddle

The velcro makes it adjustable to size and helps keep your baby from breaking out. These are often sold at Babies R Us, Walmart, Target, and Amazon for $34.99 (3 Pack). Does it get much easier than that?

2. White Noise

One of my favorites is the LectroFan Micro. In fact, I personally own 2! They are small, portable, hold a charge for 12+ hours and pack a lot of sound for their size. But honestly, you can't go wrong with any of the Lectrofan sound machines. Check them out here.

3. Crib

4. Dark Room

Ok, so this one isn't really a product  BUT I'll give you some examples of products that you can use to achieve this dark room. Again, this is a MUST people! That's why it's on the NEED list. Get your baby's sleep space DARK! Whether that is your room because you are room-sharing or your baby's own separate room, this is non-negotiable.

I often want to laugh (is that mean?) when I see beautiful nursery pictures with translucent flowy curtains. I'm sorry, but that is not reality and sooner or later those nursery aesthetics are going to be crushed with black out shades. Getting your windows blacked out doesn't have to make your nursery ugly, but it may cramp your style.

I highly recommend using BlackOut EZ Window Covers. We used them in my house, and I've even written up this lovely review and how-to HERE. We cover them with some beautiful faux wood blinds (which you'll see in the review) and the room looks amazing- and more importantly- it's pitch black.

You can also go the aluminum foil and duct tape route if that's more your style.

Okay! That's it for the NEED section. Told you it was short! Make these top 4 items a priority!

1. Video Monitor

My own personal video monitor is no longer sold, but I'm all about saving money when you can and this VTech Video Baby Monitor is a great option that gets the job done without breaking the bank.

A more expensive option is the Infant Optics video monitor. From everyone I know that's used it, I've heard nothing but amazing things! It's got night vision, room temperature display, remote pan/tilt/zoom, portable, expands up to 4 cameras, sound activated LED, and 2 way talk.

2. Pack 'N Play

If you are a family that travels often and stays with friends and family, you'll most definitely want to invest in a Pack 'N Play so your child can have their own sleep space while traveling. Most hotels keep Pack 'N Plays or cribs on hand so be sure to ask if you are staying in a hotel.

As mentioned above, many Pack 'N Plays come with bassinet attachments so you could absolutely skip the crib and go with a Pack 'N Play for the first several years of your baby's life. I see a lot of families do this when funds are tight or space is limited.

3. Sleep Sacks

I love sleep sacks for their many uses but I'll be honest, I've never used a sleep sack with my own children! They are great as a wearable blanket for colder climates, as a deterrent to climbing out the climb, and solving the issue of baby's legs getting caught in the slats of the crib. Definitely a good idea but this falls under the WANT category simply because I've survived 5 years with good sleepers and no sleep sacks! However, please remember that blankets are a no-no for at least the first year!

4. Snooze Shade

This is a WANT for the baby who will be forced to take some naps on the go due to older siblings schedules, errands that can't be rearranged, etc. The Snooze Shade can be used with your car seat to make their environment pitch black and ventilated to help them sleep on the go. Use this link to take 10% off your purchase!

5. Slumber Pod

This is a portable tent that can enclose your Pack 'N Play while traveling to give your baby that very dark environment they need in hotel rooms! Definitely recommend this for families that do lots of hotel traveling with little ones.

*Use the code ALLTHESLEEPS to take 10% off your purchase!

If you already have an older baby dependent on the DockATot to fall asleep and stay asleep, apply to work with me and we can chat about the best option for you and your little one. I've helped many families remove their baby's dependence on the DockATot to sleep and I can do the same for yours!

This big transition naturally comes up a lot with my newborn clients and I thought a blog post would be helpful to walk you through your options!

First off, lets talk about WHY we swaddle in the first place!

Swaddling is SO important for those first few months because it reminds your baby of the womb. It recreates that snug, cozy environment. I know some babies seem to "hate the swaddle" but in all honesty, you need to swaddle them anyways!

They will sleep SO much better swaddled and that initial fight against the swaddle, doesn't last all night. Oftentimes, it just takes distracting them once they're swaddled.

(By the way, I have an AWESOME newborn sleep course that goes over all of these important pieces, including what to do if your newborn "hates the swaddle.")

Next, I want to touch on WHEN to stop swaddling as it's an important safety note:

If your newborn is already rolling but you know they still have a strong Moro reflex, which usually goes away around 3-5 months, there are a couple options out there to help them with this transition:

 1. You can try a Merlin Sleep Suit. This suit helps to muffle that startle reflex while also allowing their hands to be free. I don't recommend this product as a long-term solution but it can be great to get you through about a month until that reflex is gone. Then you can switch right to a sleep sack!

2. You can also try a Zipadee Zip. The star fish design allows a baby to move around freely while still providing the enclosed, cozy sensations babies enjoy so much in the swaddle and womb. Unlike the Merlin sleep suit, you can continue to use the Zipadee Zip for months if you'd like! They make different sizes to match your growing baby!

Alright, now are you ready to make the transition? Here's HOW:

If you are transitioning to one of the above products (Merlin Sleep Suit or Zipadee Zip) I say just make the switch! Do it at bedtime and jump right in with your new product.

If you are transitioning out of the swaddle but not into a Merlin's Sleep suit or Zipadee Zip, then I suggest the following tips:

1. You can try swaddling with 1 arm out for a couple nights. I still suggest making the change at bedtime because you'll have your baby's circadian rhythm and hormone production working in your favor at that time. Do one arm out for a couple nights up to a week and then remove the swaddle completely.

2. You can also swaddle your baby's chest snugly with their arms OUT. This will still help to give them a cozy feel but will also give them use of their hands! You could even do this as the next step after swaddling with 1 arm out. Again, start with this change at bedtime!

3. Lastly, you could just take the swaddle away cold turkey and start using a sleep sack instead. Sleep sacks are wearable blankets and are sold in lots of places including, Kohl's, Target and Amazon. They don't need to be anything fancy!

The most important thing moving forward, is to have a plan of action!

Have a sleep coaching method or plan for how you will respond if your baby starts waking more frequently during this transition. 

The last thing we want is for this transition to start new unhelpful habits that you will simply have to break later.

If you haven't previously been rocking or feeding your baby to sleep, don't start now! If your baby has consistently been going 6+ hour stretches overnight without eating, don't start feeding them  every 2 hours if their wakings increase during this swaddle transition.

If you need help formulating a plan of action or maybe you've decided you'd like to transition out of the swaddle at the same time you sleep coach, book a free consult with me and we can see if we'd be a good fit!