Hellobee Boards

DD always had her hands up by her face. I think it's babies generally do in the womb. After she was born, when she wasn't swaddled, her arms were always raised. However, she slept best when swaddled and still does at 12 weeks old. I think you'll find that the swaddles will come in handy.

I have a friend who just had her baby in October. She ALWAYS had her hands on her face in u/s too and they swaddle her with her arms up by her face somehow and she LOVES it!

You may want to look into this swaddle:
http://www.lovetodream.com.au/index.htm

It allows the babies arms to be up while still being swaddled.
It's a bit expensive, I think on par with the miracle blanket though. Amazon does sell it, but the cheapest place I've found that ships in the states is at ecomom:

http://www.ecomom.com/love-to-dream-love-to-swaddle-up-white.html

It may just be the solution you are looking for. I plan on getting one for our little guy once he's here next week!

H always had her hands in her face in the womb...We noticed pretty immediately that she always wants them near her face or raised over her head when she fell asleep....When we swaddled her with A&As, she would get red and angry and frantic trying to fight her hands out, and end up REALLY waking herself up and screaming= Bedtime Fail....So we eventually just started swaddling her with her arms out, and since she will break her feet out of even the tightest swaddle (and I'd see bare toes hanging out on the monitor where she kicked out the swaddle and her socks too!), we graduated to sleep sacks...We LOVE A&A sleep sacks...Hopefully your DD won't be so determined to keep her arms out!

DS also had his hands up by his face in utero! Our 4d u/s was hard to get too, because he was sitting so low in my uterus and his hands were by his face too!

He did hate being swaddled, but we also weren't aggressive about it from week 2-6ish. He slept well at night without one so I didn't push it, then as he hit the 6 week growth spurt, he started getting more and more fidgety during sleep with his arms; so we started reswaddling him.

We're just past the 8am mark and readily swaddle him in swaddlemes, A+A blankets (russian swaddle), and halo sleepsacks with arms tucked and he's done really well. we average 2 5 or 6 hour stretches per night.

He naps with or without a swaddle too

Almost exactly what @mrsjyw said! And baby shopaholic is soooo cute!

My LO hated being swaddled. And I hated swaddling.
At like 4 weeks we just gave up and around that time she started rolling onto her belly to sleep anyway.

Our Lo always had her hands in her mouth up near her face as well in utero, and as soon as she was born she loved sucking her fingers and thumb...so what we did was swaddle with one arm out and put her on her side with a wedge so she couldnt roll forward...now she can suck on them at night to self soothe

I posted this on the other thread, but I often leave lo's hands up by his face when swaddled. He wriggles out of parts of it, but it still does the job and we are all happy. (Using a blanket swaddle.)