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4. Babies will get spoiled or dependent on swaddling.
Fortunately, this worry is totally unfounded. Holding
your baby twelve hours a day is not an overindulgence; it’s
a fifty percent cutback from what she got in your womb!
Once your baby is four months old she’ll be able to push
up, roll over, and grab, and she no longer will need to be
wrapped. Until then, swaddling can be a great comfort.
5. Wrapping frustrates an infant’s attempts to suck her
fingers.
It was easy for your baby to suck her fingers before she
was born: The walls of your uterus kept her hands right
next to her face. After birth, however, it’s much harder for

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her to get her fingers in that position. Even though she
tries, they often jerk away as if yanked on by some
practical joker. (Pacifiers were invented exactly because
babies have such a hard time keeping their hands in their
mouths.)
Please, don’t misunderstand me, it’s fine to let your
infant have her hands out so she can suck on her fingers—
as long as she’s happy. Unfortunately, most babies aren’t
able to keep their hands there, especially when upset. So
rather than calming a baby, loose hands usually fly by their
owner’s mouth, frustrating her and increasing her screams!
It will take three to four months for your baby to
coordinate her lips, tongue, shoulder, and arm—all at the
same time—to keep her fingers in her mouth. However,
once your baby is able to manage all that, swaddling
becomes unnecessary (although it may still help her sleep
longer).
6. Tight bundling might interfere with a baby’s ability to
learn about the world.
Of course, your baby does need her hands unwrapped
sometimes so she can get some practice using them.
However, when she’s crying your job isn’t teaching, it’s
calming. In fact, even when your infant is calm, bundling
may actually help her learn about the world, because she
can pay attention better when her arms aren’t constantly in
motion.