The Night That Sleep Almost Wasn’t

Does your little one have a special item? You know, a cuddly blanket, snuggly stuffed animal or bedraggled teether blankie that he/she won’t go anywhere without? Especially when the going is to bed? Let me introduce you to mine…

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I apologize for the stock picture instead of a shot of my very own Swaddle Me blanket…but Brent left it at day care yesterday, so it wasn't available for the photo shoot. You might be thinking to yourself that it’s not a big deal to leave something like that at day care. If you ARE thinking that, then you obviously answered “No” to the question posed above regarding “special items.”

Because if you do have a little one that has a special item, then you’ll understand why I went into immediate Freak Out mode at 8:17pm CST last night. I mean, our household got deathly quiet when I asked “Hey, hon? Where’s his swaddle blanket? You know, the blue one…”

Later on, after the meltdown that occurred shortly after I realized that we didn’t have the special item for the night, Brent compared hearing that question with getting a speeding ticket. You know how it is: you’re speeding, you pass the cop, he hits his brakes and the bottom falls out of your stomach. Sort of a deer-in-the-headlights type of feeling. When you KNOW that you messed up. And messed up BIG.


Jax has the swaddle blanket (color: blue, size: small, fabric: micro-fleece) and I swear to you that the makers of the Swaddle Me blanket/wrap puts baby crack somewhere in my blanket. It honestly has special, magical powers for my son. He can be fussy, whiny, cranky, and/or tired and you wrap him up in that blanket and the world slowly falls away and ceases to exist for him. In a matter of seconds, he’s quiet, content and usually asleep. I don’t know what it is about the blanket, but we call it “magic” in our house!

You see, my little man is a wiggly worm. He likes to be bundled up tight, but everyone needs to watch out if he manages to get loose. For a few weeks, the big hospital blankets that they “donated” to us worked great, but then he got strong enough to work his arms out of them. The Swaddle Me blanket is perfect because with the Velcro keeping it closed, he’s not going anywhere! And he sleeps SO much better when he’s all bundled up and his energy is being contained…so therefore, he sleeps in the swaddle blanket each and every single night.


And apparently it’s just that ONE Swaddle Me blanket…I mistakenly thought that all Swaddle Me blankets were one and the same, but on no – they’re not. Don’t make my mistake and think that you can go to Babies R Us to buy a “back up” swaddle blanket…it won’t work. I bought two. I thought that Jax was growing out of the one that we had, and that it would be nice for day care to have their own to keep there and then we would keep one at home. So I bought two – in the larger size and the cotton material, thinking that he would be more comfortable with more room and a more breathable fabric.

That was mistake numero uno. Apparently all Swaddle Me blankets are NOT made the same. He’s gotten to where he’ll take it during the daytime for naps, if, and only if, we insist. This is after two washings (in an attempt to “shrink” it a bit) and many, many times of wrapping him up in it and then taking it off to replace it with the baby crack one eventually. But he will NOT take anything but the baby crack one at night to sleep in. Nothing else works.

So can you now understand my level of panic when I realized that Brent had not brought said baby crack magic blanket home from the day care, right? And maybe now you understand why Brent slept with one eye open last night…just kidding!

I held back any scathing comments that I could have made to Brent when I realized his grave mistake…that took a lot, it really did. I simply went and found one of the poor substitutes for the “magic” blanket and settled in for a long night. I tried the green one first – no, I’m not really sure why I thought the color was important. Next, I tried the blue one – it didn’t work any better than the green one, duh! Finally, in an attempt to “make things right,” Brent came in and used his “burrito baby” skills with one of the hospital blankets. He also volunteered to get up and re-burrito Jax during the middle of the night for me…since he WAS the one that left the baby crack blanket at day care…

It took three different tries with three different blankets, an hour of my time, around 1,374 rocks of the glider and a good dose of patience to get him to sleep last night. I was worn out by the end of the “battle” between the Mommy-who-wants-her-baby-to-sleep and the baby-that-isn’t-in-his-normal-comfy-cozy-cocoon. I was so tired that I brushed my teeth, pumped one last time, and crawled into bed to sleep in sleep-of-the-dead mode until he woke up to eat at 2:30am.

Lucky for me, when he wakes in the middle of the night to eat, he’s not really awake. I mean, he cries and he’s hungry and his eyes are open, but he’s still somewhat asleep all at the same time. Interpret that to read that he’s easier to put back to sleep and that he’s less picky about which blanket he’s wrapped in. The poor substitutes got their chance to shine at 3am…

Two good things came out of this…well maybe three. Jax proved his point that he’s a better baby when the baby crack blanket is around. We proved our point that he CAN and WILL sleep without the “magic” blanket, if needed. And lastly, I don’t think that Brent will EVER leave the Swaddle Me blanket at day care again!