The Miracle Blanket

It's hard to believe, a year ago I was huge, waddling and waiting to meet my son. It seems so cliche, but it really has gone so fast. I still remember bringing him home, holding him, trying to breathe in every essence of my beautiful son. In some ways it feels like yesterday, but when I see all the things he can do now, I know a year has passed. It's his birthday today - HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY - and in honour of his birthday I want to review something that was essential to us through the first few months, well maybe longer than a few months - The Miracle Blanket.

There are tons of articles about swaddling, some people swear by it, others don't get it. As one may expect, some babies love swaddling, others, not so much. We swaddled the boy right from the start and he liked it; he was 8 lb 7.5 oz at birth and had gained a pound within the first week. It quickly became apparent that most traditional receiving blankets were going to be too small for swaddling the boy. We received our Miracle Blanket as a shower gift and it came accompanied by rave reviews, so I had high hopes when we tried it out.

The first night we wrapped the boy in the Miracle Blanket he cried, struggled and fought. Within a few days, it wasn't so much as a fight, but a small struggle, within a couple weeks the boy would wait patiently on the change table for me to swaddle him in his Miracle Blanket.

What's unique about the Miracle Blanket are the inner armflaps that you wrap around each arm before tucking your baby's feet in a flap and then wrapping the tails of the blanket around your baby to complete the swaddle. I know that sounds complicated, but check out the instructions here it's not as difficult as it sounds.

What's great about the Miracle Blanket is that it keeps your baby swaddled, even if he/she is a bit of a Houdini. The extra long tail goes all the way around the baby twice, so even though there is no closure to hold the swaddle closed, it stays closed. The truth is, I never really liked the idea of securing my baby's arms with velcro like some of the other swaddle blankets have. The Miracle Blanket kept my son warm, snuggled and safe. In time, he settled faster and stayed asleep longer - and as he got older it kept his arms wrapped up as long as he wanted them. I only wish that I had two, so that the nights it was in the wash, I wouldn't be back to a regular receiving blanket. Then again if I had two, I wouldn't know so surely that the Miracle Blanket worked for us. I loved the Miracle Blanket so much, that when the boy stopped using it ALL the time, I lent it to a friend to try out with her baby for a week.

I would have liked it if the Miracle Blanket also came in a larger size; we were still occasionally using the Miracle Blanket at 6 and 7 months, but we had to stop because he just stopped fitting. He was too long in the body and it no longer came up to his shoulders. Granted he was getting a bit old to be swaddled by that time, but the boy was big from the start, so I would have probably started out with the larger size if it was available.

The price on the Miracle Blanket website is $29.95, which is reasonable and comparable to other swaddling blankets on the market, though in my local stores they were running $39.95, which seemed a bit pricey considering that they aren't even organic. That being said, they are well constructed, we had no rips or tears and my son tugged and pulled on the Miracle Blanket a lot as he got older and learned to pull his arms out at will.

The Miracle Blanket is a great product if you have a swaddling family; I give it 4.5/5.