Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Below is a little of our sleep journey for those that need details (I did). But I’ll put a few quick bullet points addressing some of the things I read from previous reviews while researching this product. 1. It works (for us) 2. Baby can get her hands to her face easily enough to soothe, but not so easily that she accidentally bonks herself in the face and wakes up. 3. Yes it takes a while to dry (3-4 hours for me) No, it doesn’t shrink. But I’m pretty careful, I lay it on top of the dryer for a load or two to dry somewhat, then I turn it inside out and stick it in the dryer. High heat, 30 min. It comes out and I stretch the arms and legs a bit. We ordered 3-6 month size, our girl was 12 lbs and 23 in long at her 3 month appt. She’s almost 4 months and still fits in it great. 4. Yes the fabric pills where it rubs. Our baby kicks her legs a lot so it’s pilled there. We don’t mind at all. 5. Baby does not get too hot. Yours might, we are all different! We keep our house at 70 degrees and baby wears footed pajamas under the suit. She never wakes up hot or rosy cheeked, but her hands will be cold sometimes. 6. I don’t think it inhibits her ability to move her limbs to the point where she will be behind developmentally. She still wiggles and moves a lot, and does tummy time in the day. 7. I can still nurse my baby easily in this, and do so every night. 8. They are so stinkin cute in this. 9. Oh and, as far as some of the safety concerns, our baby has never tucked her legs or arms up inside of the suit which might cause a risk of the suit coming over babies face. I think you just need to make sure your baby is big enough to fill it out. Also, we only use the Merlin in an empty bassinet. She slept in her dock a tot inside the bassinet until we started using the suit, so it killed two birds with one stone for us. No more swaddle and no more dock. On to our story.. I had bought this initially for my second child when she was 12 weeks old and had high hopes for it. It didn’t work the first night and so I sent it back the next day without trying it again. For my third child I wanted to give it another go, because she was only getting 2-3 hour stretches in a swaddle at 10 weeks old, and seemed like she wanted her hands free. The first night it made her sleep worse rather than better. She was up every hour and a half! I tried again the next night and it was a little better, but no better than the swaddle. I was also going through a paci battle with her where she would cry, I would put the paci in, she would suck for 5 seconds, close her eyes and immediately spit it out. We would do this on repeat, every nap, every bedtime, it was exhausting. One night I literally sat next to her bassinet and cycled between nursing and paci for 3 hours just trying to get her down for her first stretch of sleep. I needed to conquer the paci issue. I had made the same mistake with my 2nd, and was becoming a slave to the paci like before and I knew it wouldn’t change until around 6 or 7 months when she could find and put it in herself. So I put the Merlin sleep suit up not sure if we would try it again later. We took the paci away, had 2-3 rough nights and became blessedly free of the thing. Fast forward a few weeks and I decided to try the Merlin sleep suit again, I think she was right at 3 months this time. First night back in it she had her longest stretch, slept from 9-5. She had a few weeks of 9-5,6, sometimes even 7 am! Then we hit the sleep regression and she’s back to waking up once in the night at 2 am. However, she goes back to sleep super easy. She also sometimes prefers to be in the Merlin and in her bassinet as opposed to the swing for naps. (We still use the swing because it’s closer to my office while I’m working from home). If she’s crying in the swing fighting a nap I will take her to our room, put her in the Merlin and lay her down. No rocking, no shushing, no bouncing, no spending 35 min+ trying to get the babe to sleep- just Merlin, sound machine and close the blinds and she will put herself to sleep. Taking the paci away — letting her cry a bit and learn to self soothe with her hand — the Merlin sleep suit = an incredible difference for us. Lack of sleep was definitely taking a toll and the dread of the hoops I would have to jump through to get our baby to sleep was causing me so much stress. I missed my family and didn’t want to be tucked away in that bedroom for hours. I have peace knowing when it’s time for her to go to bed I can lay her down after her little bedtime routine and go take a bath. I’m a much happier wife and mama. Thanks for reading, I hope the review is helpful for y’all.