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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To pay for a sleep consultant for my baby?

124 replies

Rowenleaves · 05/08/2016 17:07

My baby is 4 months old and his sleeping is pretty bad. He will only fall asleep if I feed him and can wake up to 6 times in a night. I've tried different things but nothing works for long.

Has anyone had any success with a sleep consultant? I've heard mixed things about them.

OP posts:
Comtesse · 05/08/2016 22:07

I used a sleep consultant when one of mine was older and it was great - made a massive difference and helped me keep my shit together. Dunno what they do with really little ones but worth enquiring if you can afford it (I saw Andrea Grace and I think that was £200?). Waking up 6 times a night is a complete killer.

coconutpie · 05/08/2016 22:08

roses2, you're wrong. Babies at 6mo DO need breastmilk at night. Clearly yours does if they are waking hourly! If your DS is waking hourly, you should be offering breast and he'll go back to sleep much better than shush and patting. By the way, the Tracy Hogg "method" is very anti breastfeeding. Since you're breastfeeding, you should bin her book because her book is completely incompatible with breastfed babies.

Oly5 · 05/08/2016 22:10

Your baby sounds completely normal. Of course they wake up all the time at four months old, feed on and off forever and don't like their cot.
This is all normal, your baby is tiny.
It will improve even if you do nothing at all.
At that age, both mine woke all night long, would only nap on me or when on a walk in a pushchair.
I hate all the drive to "sort out" the sleep of tiny babies when they're doing what is perfectly normal for them.
Being a new parent is totally
Exhausting but it will get better OP

Legofriend · 05/08/2016 22:11

YANBU. We saw one at 7 months so a little later than you but our DD was only going for 4 hours at a time. Best thing we did for our sanity and her sleep.

missm0use · 05/08/2016 22:12

My daughter is 6 months old and is breastfed. Some times she wakes up once and wants to feed and sleep on me all night, sometimes she wakes every two hours for a feed, sometimes she only wakes once. And rarely she sleeps straight through! It depends on how much she's fed during the day, how active she's been and if she's going through development leap growth spurt! At 4 months old we had almost three weeks where she'd wake and only want to sleep on me - they go through sleep regression. Buy the wonder weeks app - gives a good estimate of when they are going through a growth spurt and how long it will last! Much easier to cope not blow my brains out with her fussy / crap sleep when I can see a countdown of a few days. Xx

roses2 · 05/08/2016 22:13

My baby is waking for comfort, food. He goes back to sleep after I've patted him for a minute or two.

Not all babies want food at night...

RedToothBrush · 05/08/2016 22:15

You have a 4 month old. This is normal.

You could spend a fortune on a sleep consultant and give them the credit for your child just getting into a routine on their own.

If you have money to piss up the wall on something pointless because you don't have patience, then go right ahead.

Meanwhile in the real world, babies don't sleep.

roses2 · 05/08/2016 22:15

Sorry that should read he is waking for comfort, not food.

I previously offered him food but he was taking very little so I stopped the midnight snacks around five months. Even at 5am he only has a little milk. He seems to take a lot around 6am.

BiscuitsAndMilk · 05/08/2016 22:16

Roses2 -
My pediatrician gave me the same 'no longer needs food in the night' bullocks. My baby needed food and slept much longer stretches with her tummy full.

That said, around six months was a nightmare. It is developmental, I don't think what you do makes that much difference at that age. Fast forward two months and she is a really good sleeper. I did nothing different.

RedToothBrush · 05/08/2016 22:18

I'm sorry but wonder weeks is as much horse shit as a sleep consultant would be at this age. Its horoscope for parenting.

Dontyoulovecalpol · 05/08/2016 22:19

Coconutpie how can you say babies do need breast milk at night? Loads of babies have dropped their night feeds by then!

Champagneformyrealfriends · 05/08/2016 22:20

My baby sleeps very well and I put
It all down to Gina Ford

Grassgreendashhabi · 05/08/2016 22:27

Not at 4 months

Too early

RedToothBrush · 05/08/2016 22:28

Hey my 15 week old, slept brilliantly. He was sleeping through the night. A week later he didn't...

I really wouldn't get smug about having a sleeping baby as you might get bitten on the bum for it.

It can change just like that.

Masketti · 05/08/2016 22:32

Highly recommend them BUT definitely not before 6 months. Probably more likely around 8 or 9 if things aren't better. The first thing she'll say is no feeding to sleep. Then it's get the day time naps sorted. Then make sure they sleep in their bed st nap times not just bed time. After that the advice will be individual to your baby and your situation. DD3.5 had one at 18 months but I wished I had found her earlier.

middlings · 05/08/2016 22:36

Agree 4 months is too young. I struggled on waited until 6 months and spent £200 on a sleep consultant. No controlled crying - just listening and responding. Within 4 nights we had gone from at least 40 mins of rocking and bouncing and co-sleeping from 1am with constant feeding to self settling and two feeds a night. At 8 months she slept through. At nearly 3yo she's still an early riser but is a fabulous sleeper. Best money I ever spent.

Crunchymum · 05/08/2016 22:41

Can someone tell me exactly what a sleep consultant does?

I have a non sleeping 19mo and it's killing me!!!

middlings · 05/08/2016 23:11

In my case, I sent her a long email detailing DD's 'routine' (I use that word very advisedly) and then she came to see me for 2.5 hours. We talked through her suggestions of how I get DD2 into a better routine and she helped me settle her for a nap during which she showed me the technique on how to settle DD. It involved letting her get unsettled but going in before she really cried.

I then had her on phone, text etc for 2 weeks for questions.

She gave me the tools to put in place when I knew I needed to.

You do need to find someone who's personality and style chimes with yours - a bit like the books!

I was so tired, I needed someone to help me to get over the hump.

coconutpie · 05/08/2016 23:12

Calpol - because it's normal for a breastfed baby to wake at night some nights / every night and they want to breastfeed. A 6 month old breastfed baby doesn't tend to "drop night feeds" of their own accord, they still need them at that age. They might be hungry, need comfort, might be unwell, whatever, breastfeeding isn't just about hunger.

kellymom.com/parenting/nighttime/sleep/

Information on night weaning since it has been mentioned.

kellymom.com/ages/weaning/wean-how/weaning-night/

Writerwannabe83 · 05/08/2016 23:15

I used Nicola Watson from Child Sleep Solutions and for just £90 she fixed all my problems.

I contacted her when DS was 10 months because I had so many sleep issues with him and I was on my knees with exhaustion.

Within about 5 days I had him in his own room, no longer feeding to sleep, no longer co-sleeping, he was sleeping through and also having two naps a day in his cot.

I think 4 months is too young to be doing any kind of sleep training though but I'm sure many Consultants would still be able to give you some gentle advice or tips on how to manage the wake-ups as opposed to how to prevent them.

stouensbay · 05/08/2016 23:27

Have you tried a dummy? He could be partly comfort sucking though even my excellent sleeper feed twice a night at that age.

A dummy really helped us with DC2, he was a sucky baby and it soothes him and helped us. We had to persevere with it a bit as he wasn't a newborn.

BertieBotts · 05/08/2016 23:29

You can't "teach" a baby to sleep because it is not a skill, it is a developmental milestone which some babies reach earlier than others.

You can train them not to cry when they wake up but this is not actually self settling - in the sense that they are comforting themselves. Think about it - how on earth could a four month old baby get comfort from themselves? They can't rationalise that they are safe and nothing can happen to them or that Mum/Dad is nearby, they can't self-talk. How do you think they are "self settling"?

For older babies/children it is possible to create better conditions so that they are able to self-settle, in the true sense of the word, but for a four month old baby, no way. If they need parenting at night they need parenting at night - the variance of normal is enormous at this age (and it is, unfortunately for the parents, perfectly healthy for them to wake often!) It's much better for everyone involved if you can just arrange things around this expectation rather than worrying that something is wrong. Co-sleeping can be one way of doing this. Partial co-sleeping is another - feed lying down and make the bed safe in case you fall asleep doing it but ultimately plan that either you or your partner will move baby back into their cot after a feed. Or using a sidecar cot, that you separate later. Sleeping in shifts to an extent with your partner if you have one. Giving a dream-feed with a bottle helps some breastfeeding mothers (but is a huge inconvenience to others). Catching up on sleep during the day might also be a possibility.

Dontyoulovecalpol · 06/08/2016 01:03

Well coconut no one told my BF babies. They just started sleeping through Hmm they just be superhuman. Although it wast unusual amongst their peers who were overwhelmingly BF too.

onecurrantbun1 · 06/08/2016 04:10

Am I right in thinking your baby does a 6 hour stretch at the start of the night (9pm-3am)? That's amazing! I know sleepless nights are hell while you're going through them but it sounds like you're very much "normal". Are you going to bed (at least some nights) as soon as LO is asleep to make maximum use of the 6 hour block?

onecurrantbun1 · 06/08/2016 04:13

Sorry, that was for stargirl

OP, personally I'd leave it a couple of months if possible - just my gut feeling that it's unfair to intervene when they're in a sleep regression and not on solids yet. 6 times sounds like a killer, I do sympathise.