Belle's Magic Suit

It costs $39.95. It weighs 15 ounces. Its dimensions are 11 x 10 x 3 inches.

But that’s not really how you measure the appropriately named Baby Merlin’s Magic Sleepsuit. The only measurement that really matters is this: Hundreds of hours of sleep.

Now, I’ve been a Dad for only four months. I still don’t know much about milestones, daycare, and development stages. But I know that Baby Merlin’s Magic Sleepsuit is the greatest thing that anyone has ever invented in the history of the world. Ever. In the history of the damn world! EVER!

In fact, you should buy one now. Seriously, here’s the link. If you find your way back to the blog post, cool. If not, I really don’t mind.

But, Mike, my partner and I aren’t planning to have any children. Doesn’t matter. Buy one anyway. Okay, maybe that’s a bit too far, but this thing, man, this thing!

(Now is a good time to note that I'm not a paid advertiser for Baby Merlin's Magic Sleepsuit. Honestly, who would pay me to advertise something?)

Baby Merlin's Magic Sleepsuit is, without question, the one thing I would tell every new parent to buy. Sure, you need diapers and bottles and bibs. You need clothes and pacifiers and a crib. You need blankets and wipes and a stroller. But you need Baby Merlin’s Magic Sleepsuit.

At first glance, of course, it was just another piece of clutter. It drew my typical doubting, raised-eyebrow glance and patented four questions:

• “Do we really need that?” 
• “How much did it cost?” 
• “Where are we going to put it after it doesn’t work?” 
• “Really?” 

In fact, when Bridget brought it home from a store or ordered it from Amazon (it’s hard to know anymore), I actually thought it was a scam: “A suit to help babies sleep? Did it come with magic beans? If I look out the window, will I see a giant stalk?” (I continued with this hilarious line of questioning for a while until I realized Bridget was in a different room and had stopped listening after the word “suit.”)

It took only one night before I realized the power of Merlin’s magic. Belle, knock on wood, has been a pretty darn good sleeper so far. Even in the first couple weeks, she was going down for four or five hours at a time. Bridget and I were tired new parents, but it wasn’t unbearable. Then the suit happened and, bam, she slept from 10 PM – 6 AM. We’ve been using it for about two months, and those four or five hours have consistently become 10 hours.

How does the suit work? Well, it’s magic, so how the hell would I know? The website says this: “The Magic Sleepsuit is designed to be introduced at approximately three months of age when most babies are growing out of swaddling, transitioning into larger more spacious cribs from smaller sleep environments … it provides babies with the comfort they need by helping to muffle their twitches and startle-type movements that can wake them prematurely, and by keeping them cozy and secure making it easier to go to sleep on their own or fall back asleep if woken.” 

Like I said, magic. If you don’t believe me, check out the testimonials on the Sleepsuit site. So many testimonials, right? (If you didn’t click the link, basically, it’s people using lots of exclamation points.)

Does it make Belle look like the kid from A Christmas Story? Sure, but who cares? That movie is a classic. She and I will watch it together someday and I’ll tell Belle about her magic suit.

I really hope she’s still sleeping through the night then.