Merlin's Magic Sleepsuit. The name says it all, y'all.
We have had a bit of a time figuring out what exactly RB should sleep in. Safe sleep has been drilled into my brain. No loose blankets, no pillows, no toys, keep a fan on, pacifiers are good, white noise is okay, on their back, on their own. It's kind of ironic that these babies come with no guidelines and yet so many rules.
When RB was born, they swaddled his happy ass at the hospital and he ate that shit up. He loved it... for all of three days. I swear the day we came home from the hospital was the day he decided he was absolutely done with swaddling and if you even said the word in his presence he screamed. One of the first rules RB taught us: do not trap the arms. You trap the arms, and you will be sorry. Seriously. Very sorry.
It only took Beau and I a few angry RB's to learn that swaddling was a thing of our past. We then started swaddling just the lower half of his body, leaving his little arms free. That worked for a time. Then he started wiggling - like really wiggling - in his sleep and escaping the blanket. It was then that we turned to sleep sacks.
Every single social media feed I have is full of ads for one thing: baby sleep. "Buy this and your baby will sleep!" I laugh-cried like an insane person at these ads the first six weeks of our baby's life. Newborns don't sleep, y'all. At least, ours didn't. Well, actually he did, for about 2 hours at a time if we were lucky. He made so much noise while he slept too. That was one thing neither Beau or I were prepared for (one thing among the hundreds of other things because we knew nothing about these little things). The amount of noise newborns make is wild! You see all these pictures of newborns and they just look so peaceful. They're always sleeping and their little heads are propped up on their little arms, and it just looks blissful. Cut to reality and it is not at all peaceful. RB grunted like a bridge troll. I don't really know when he stopped constantly grunting. Maybe when he finally figured out how to work his downstairs plumbing (that was a hard skill for him to master - he's a pro now though). Sleep was a constant hope, wish, and dream for all three of us.
We had a couple of swaddle sleep sacks we tried. He hated them. I think we used them like 5 times. He doesn't seem to care for things to be tight against him. He prefers room to roam.
The next sleep sack we bought was the Nested Bean. Their marketing department puts some serious dollars behind advertising. I know this because it was always on my feed. I bought two versions: the first was a swaddle transition sack, and the second was a regular sleep sack. All Nested Bean sacks have a light weight right on the chest that's meant to mimic the weight of your hand on their chest to give them some comfort and not feel so alone. Have you ever laid a sleeping baby down, been hopeful, then picked your hand up to leave only to watch those beautiful little eyes pop open and be wide awake? Like, baby, you just slept for 5 minutes - that is not a nap. You little mumpsimus*, you need sleep!
*Quick note - I just learned the word mumpsimus. The definition is a stubborn person who insists on making an error in spite of being shown that it is wrong. RB definitely has a tendency to be a mumpsimus.
The swaddle transition sack worked for us for all of about 2 seconds. RB did not feel he needed to transition out of swaddle life. Once he was done, he was done. I am very similar. Once I am done with something, I am totally done. Kind of funny to think that maybe he got that part of my personality. The transition sack had removable arm covers that initially keep their arms inside but you can take it off so they can free those puppies. We took them off as soon as we got it because, ahem, we had learned the hard way. It also had a velcro belly belt inside so you can trap their arms in. I've read that when you transition a baby out of swaddling, you do so by freeing one arm at a time and letting them get used to it. I have no idea how that works because, again, our decisive offspring was fucking done with that swaddle shit (his words, if he could talk!). He hated the velcro thing around his belly, regardless of the status of his arms, so that one was short-lived.
The regular Nested Bean sleep sack we bought has been a staple in our house. He has one at daycare he naps in. He actually naps at daycare, sometimes for two hours stretches. They must be fairy godmothers up there because he sure as shit doesn't nap like that at home. I'll probably do a write-up about the daycare workers sometime soon. They are doing God's work. Beau and I love them. So, so much. Anyway, back to our sleep sack saga. The one we bought is great because it has a two-way zipper, and it has two buttons at the top on either side of the arm holes so you can unbutton them and open the thing like a book. This is fantastic because when you have a baby that's dozed off, the last thing you want to do is move them too much and have to put their little baby arms through sleeves or armholes. You don't want to wake the beast. With this sleep sack, you can open it like a book, lay them on it, then fold it over them and button the top without ever having to put their arms through the holes themselves. It's hard to describe apparently. I feel like this isn't making any sense. Take my word for it - it's a very smart design. It was our main sleep sack up until this week. It will still continue to be our nap sack.
We then bought two not-so-cheap Dreamland Baby weighted sleep sacks. He screams every time they are in his vicinity. They are hidden in a drawer. They are not spoken about. In our house, they are the Voldemort of sleep sacks.
The next sleep sack we bought is Merlin's Magic Sleep Suit. Not a sack, technically. It's a full suit. It has been on my social media feeds too, but not as much. It is all over my TikTok but it's organic; they don't seem to do as much paid advertising as the other brands. I was looking on Amazon, as I do (a habit I am actively working to break) and I saw it: Merlin's Magic Sleep Suit with 21,000+ reviews and a 4.5 star rating. I broke down and read some reviews. "My baby sleeps 12 hours a night" - "This helped my baby learn to self soothe" - "I had a baby who hated swaddling but loved this suit". After 10 minutes of reading reviews and staring at the picture, I ordered it. Then my mom called and we looked through the Amazon listing and reviews again together and we were both very excited. Would it actually be magical? It was created by a mom who is a pediatrician. A note came with it that said she created it, used it for her kids, and all her friends and family used it too, and then she figured she should share the magic with the rest of us. It's basically a full baby suit that is extra fluffy inside so your baby feels like they're being cuddled. I would give it a try myself were it big enough.
Turns out it is magic. Merlin's actual fibers must be sewn in the damn thing. We got it earlier this week and washed it, but it's so thick that it just did not want to be dry by bedtime. He slept in his Nested Bean sack that night. That's still a great sleep sack. He just moves so much in his sleep that he wakes himself up a lot. He literally did a 180 the other night; started with his head on one end of his crib, but when he woke us up for a bottle, his head was on the other end of his crib. It was actually impressive. My hope with this magic suit was that he would get more restful sleep. He is, after all, growing insanely fast and he needs truly restful sleep (the little mumpsimus!). I did a bit of googling and people suggested trying the suit for a nap at first and not for a full sleep, just in case your baby needs a moment to figure it out (you don't want to fuck up bedtime, for you will pay for it with tears - yours and your baby's).
We tried it for our early morning nap before daycare earlier this week. I have no idea what day we did that on because time is an illusion. We put it on him and laid him down, and I will be damned if he didn't doze off himself without having to be rocked - like "hey, guys, this is exactly what I have been asking you for, thank you so much, gonna nap now" and then he proceeded to nap for an hour. He would've napped longer but we needed to start the day. RB doesn't much care about schedules.
Last night was the first night we used the magic sleep suit for night sleep. We did our nighttime routine: bath, massage (yes, baby massage, he loves them), bottle, and then we read a book (normally it's a book then a bottle but someone was food-raging and overtired last night). He went into the suit after his massage, had a bottle after some cajoling, and honestly, he fell asleep before the book but I read it anyway. Last night's reading selection was The Giving Tree. I love some Shel Silverstein. We need more Shel in our lives. Then we laid him down at 7:45, which is a full fifteen minutes before his eight o'clock bedtime but our guy was tired.
Y'all. He was out of there. He slept so well! We watched him on his monitor and he was so still that we considered going in there a few times to check on him, but then he'd have a well-timed hand twitch or move his head a little, so we just let him be. When we went to bed, I stopped in and put my hand on his belly. I was telling some friends the other day that Beau and I obsessively check if this kid is breathing. I said something like, "I wonder if we'll ever stop" and my very good friend whose son is 20 years old said, "No, you won't," which made me laugh. RB was sleeping soundly in his magic suit, and we went to bed ourselves. Our little sleepy Grogu slept for a full eight hours, then I woke up at 3:15 and gave him a bottle. He didn't wake up and yell for one, though. I'm not sure how long he would've slept given the chance. Did you do the math there? I sure did, while he was dream-feeding. That is a legit 8 hours of sleep. Absolutely incredible. Unfathomable a few weeks ago. There are no words. He then slept straight through until 8AM this morning. He woke up in such a good mood! I slept for nine hours last night. Beau slept well too. I want to shout from the rooftops! "MERLIN IS TRULY MAGIC!"
Two notes from Beau:
Beau said I should title this blog "Fat Guy In A Little Coat" (if you know, you know - and if you don't, please go watch Tommy Boy!!). I actually looked to see if there was a song with that title, and there is, but it was a screamo song, which doesn't really go with the vibe here, so I went with what I went with. It did give me a good laugh though.
He also said this to a friend who recently had a baby and he's sharing all he's learned with him as he goes, because it takes a village, y'all: "The Merlin's Magic Sleep Suit is his nighttime suit, and it's amazing. Also he looks like an astronaut, which isn't advertised as a benefit in their advertising, but definitely a plus"
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