has anyone had a Mill-Pond consultation? and would you recommend it?

[Kveta]

DS, nearly 2, is an atrocious sleeper, and it is breaking DH +I. we feel like we've tried everything - controlled crying, gradual withdrawal, co-sleeping, extra food before bed, moving him into a bed, silent return (i.e. just replacing him every time he wakes), medised, pretty much the whole NCSS book, and nothing seems to work. He goes to bed beautifully - lies down and goes to sleep with one of us just sitting in the doorway, but he won't STAY asleep. We have now had 3 weeks of 4-5 wakings a night, for no obvious reason, and in combination with other problems, it has brought DH and I to our knees. He was almost in tears this morning, he is so tired, and I have been crying with exhaustion a lot too (plus I just had a miscarriage, so we're quite fraught with that too!).

so we're now thinking a consultation with this clinic may offer us an solution we hadn't considered yet. can anyone tell us their experiences? is the actual consultation worth it, or is the book alone enough?

We used Millpond to help with our 11mo and I've been really pleased. We followed a gradual retreat plan which they did for us. I also bought the book but it seemed to me to be mostly about controlled crying.
It's taken us 3 months but DS is now sleeping through (more or less) which is amazing.
I don't know if they'll have any new methods for you but it may help with sticking something out. When you've tried cc, gradual retreat etc. before how long have you done the same thing each night for? Before we started with Millpond we would come up with a plan ourselves, try it and then give up after a few days as it wouldn't seem to be working and we had lost faith in our ability to know what to do.
When we first started with the gradual retreat plan it made things much worse to begin with and I probably would have given up if we hadn't been for the calls with the consultant telling us this was normal and to stick it out. I think the best thing for us was the moral support. I don't know if this sounds helpful or if you've given the sleep training methods you've tried a really good go already.
Our DS would not self settle though and once we got to a point where he was falling asleep without us touching him he started doing longer stretches. Hope you find something to help - it's such a miserable experience when you're being constantly woken up.

They are amazing. I used them early on with a young baby consultation due to various things and the people you deal with are lovely. The lady (Clare) I spoke to had 2 children and really knew her stuff but was practical and helpful. I would recommend them highly. Book very good but can't replace individual programs with a 97% success rate. Do it.

Hope my post didn't sound like I was saying that your DS didn't sleep because you hadn't tried hard enough! I just meant that's how it helped us - we'd totally lost confidence in what to do and needed some guidance.

Yes, life and relationship savers, highly reccommend them.

thanks - think we might just try the book first. DS is amazing at self settling at bed time and nap time - we do have to be in the room, or else there is screaming and projectile vomiting within seconds but we don't mind just sitting in the room whilst he falls asleep. it's the CONSTANT wakings during the night that are getting on our nerves.

we have tried controlled crying (for 6 weeks! shortest cry time was 1 hour, and that was the 2nd night :o always between 2 and 4 hours the rest of the time. we stuck it out for so long because we had been told not to give in!), gradual withdrawal (ditto CC, several weeks of screaming and nerve jangling for us). shush patting was useless, swaddling never worked with him, and we have forgotten more techniques than we've tried, almost! we have always tried for a few weeks to see if it makes a difference, but he is much the same with each technique - we have 1 or 2 decent nights, but they are still in the minority.

will start with reading the book,then possibly invest some of our hard earned cash on a consultation with them.

Good lord, 6 weeks of cc! Why waste any more time, just pay for the consultation! I've not used them but saw a local consultant a few days back, feel better just for the moral support and we've only had a few weeks or poor sleep. Alternatively can you be referred to a sleep clinic by your GP?