Are sleep consultants worth it?

[desparate4sleep]

I am desparate to get my 8 month old off me and into her own cot.I have been crying all day today and am at my limit. A sleep consultant I have seen charges £325 for a Skype consultation, a plan and some support calls.

It just seems so so expensive but if it works I would do it. The consultant doesn't use cry it out and doesn't replace one crutch with another so my baby likes to fall asleep breastfeeding but she doesn't replace it with rocking so what does she do?

I have been researching for months and trying different techniques. I understand that it is about consistency so I followed a plan for two weeks, then another for ten days as well as multiple other things.

I have a very determined baby and I really don't see how she could change her sleep habits in 4 days that she claims.

Has anyone used one and would you recommend? Sorry if this post doesn't come across well I am typing with tears streaming down my face.

Oh, I forgot the other sort of poster in my previous post - 'oh I never had a problem because we had a good bedtime routine'. We have a fucking brilliant, cast-iron bedtime routine and I bet so does OP. Absolutely no one who is contemplating sleep training hasn't tried a bedtime routine. Again, if that's all your kids needed to go to sleep without either parental help or tears then lucky you.

My baby sleeps amazingly. I don't have a good bedtime routine. It's just my baby. I would never be arrogant enough to think it's because I knew it all - looking at you, hollow

We didn't have a bedtime routine other tham milk, nappy change, pj's. Is there more to it?
By routine I mean nap and sleep structure.

www.thesleeplady.co.uk/

We used this lady and she has been phenomenal. She has given me lots of tips I wouldn't have thought of although I did read a lot of books as well. She specialises in reflex and allergies too (which my Ds has) so has been a life saver. The fees on her website aren't accurate I don't think. If you give her a phone and explain the situation she will give you a quote.

She's very good.

And I agree that there aren't any major secrets with what approach to use but having someone behind you gives you the confidence. You report back and she will advise tweaks etc and it makes the whole process a lot 'nicer' for the parent.

I found that having more children changed my attitude to sleep training. If you have a toddler to feed and change, plus another pre school child to look after, then the baby just has to self sooth once fed. End of. Every body needs their turn.

Thanks for all your replies. I have been reading more into it and you are all right there isn't a magic technique that the sleep consultant will use.

When I was reading the sleep consultants website I liked that she doesn't use cry it out, yet, I have figured out that she uses the shh/tunmy pat technique to get the baby to eventually settle. I have tried this several times and my DD just screams and screams to get picked up so therefore it will be cry it out method.

I do understand that it will be useful in the sense of having a 'personal trainer' to keep you going and also if you are paying so much you are going to follow it to the letter to make sure it works.

I am still not sure whether to do it or not. On one hand I am at breaking point and feel very mentally unwell with the broken sleep but I don't think I can cope with having my baby cry.

@Ilovemysleepthief good luck and please update on how it goes.

I will let you know how I get on, and if it works I will give you the sleep plan to try. Might save you some money that way

@desparate4sleep it is really hard- there were some tears with both of ours tbh but we never left them to cry for long. We used shh pat mainly. We tried picking up but found it was back to square one then. I found it worse than my DH so he did a lot of the going in.

Although it was hard it was definitely worth it. Within a week with both we went from feeding or cuddling to sleep and cosleeping to self-settling for day naps and at night.

@desperateforsleep check out sleepy moonkeeper, her prices are lower than some and she does various packages. What we did was get more of a clock based structure in the day, a much earlier bedtime, and controlled crying at night. But we almost didn't need to go there with cc, when the days got better the nights almost sorted themselves. Sounds simple but somehow it just isn't. Especially as dh and I couldn't agree on what to do. She was also great when my 4yo lost the plot with her sleep, due to anxiety.

That should have been @desperate4sleep 😂

I used one with my eldest and it was the best thing we did. You certainly don't need to pay that much for one that operates via Skype though.

@NewAccount270219 absolutely hits the nail on her head with her posts! Posting on here is only going to lead to even more confusion, as more and more posters seem to fit into the last 2 categories.

I also like how she likens it to a personal trainer. When I finished our first consultation to find out exactly what new techniques she would be able to teach me (after having read every book under the sun plus every thread and blog post I could find), I was initially really disappointed for her to give me a routine that was in Gina Ford combined with a settling technique from Baby Whisperer - both of which I got for free from the library. As the fortnight went on, I realised I was paying her for talking me through the steps, analysing the logs I kept to suggest improvements, tweaking the timings when they didn't fit with our lifestyle and most importantly, introduce total consistency. When I did it alone, I genuinely thought I was being consistent, but with hindsight I can see I definitely wasn't.

In terms of no cry-it-out techniques - from my experience, all good sleep consultants will work with you to find a technique you are comfortable with. All the ones I spoke to offered free consultations and I used them to confirm that they would be able to use a technique I was happy with. Also, keep in mind that you can comfort your baby when they cry while sleep training; you don't have to leave them alone. It is likely they will cry and protest to the change but you can comfort them through it

Thanks again for all of your responses. It really is helpful to hear your experiences, I have posted before under a different username and the responses I got were along the lines of how I was damaging my child and I should just co-sleep. But it's 4am and I have had ten minutes of sleep so far.

I have a nap schedule but find it hard to stick to exact times as I try to get out to a baby group every day and they are all at different times. I have tried to put a strict routine in place before so stayed at home for ten days but as it didn't make a difference I stopped doing it and just let her nap when we were back. Would people recommend avoiding groups that don't stick to this schedule while I am trying to sort her sleep?

Thanks @Ilovemysleepthief that would be amazing, hope it works.

Huckleberry app, it’s free to download, you keep track of sleep for 3-7 days, then £12.99 for a sleep analysis and 6 week plan. It’s tailored to what you want - teach them to self soothe, stop co-sleeping, night weaning etc. Been great to have a structured approach. DS (9 months) would cry even when I was laying with him, so I wasn’t too fussed about him crying. Shushing and patting made him more agitated. Took him 2 nights to self soothe. As a friend said - do you remember crying as a baby?

Sorry forgot to add we were co-sleeping/bedsharing but he would wake at any tiny movement so neither of us getting sleep. He will now self soothe at the beginning of the night and sleep for 10.5-12hrs in his cot with 2-3 night feeds. (Next week going to tackle night weaning). It’s so nice to feel human again.

Not for me, I am still very unclear in what qualifications or training they have. Because they are not psychologists, teachers... It is all a bunch of 😬😬😬😬😬 for me.
All children are different and sleep is not a measure of success or good parenting.
It works for some people or so they claim

I also seem to think that most parents are desperate when they hire them and I tend not to like business that make money out of desperation

All children are different and sleep is not a measure of success or good parenting.

I don't think OP wants her child to sleep so she can feel smug. I certainly didn't. I just wanted some fucking sleep.

Re your question on baby groups - yes, I personally wouldn't go to those that mess with your baby's day time sleep schedule. But that's just me - I preferred to have baby in a decent routine and I found he was happier when he'd slept properly in the day. I also have a lot of baby groups near me - still manage to go to one every day at a time that suits - depending on where you live you may not have that choice.

Re sleep consultants id echo what's already been said. A few friends have used them and they did work - their babies consistently sleep through now. But from what I can gather the sleep consultant was basically a hand hold for cry it out or shh pat (not judging, if I was to do it, I think I'd need someone there to support!).

One useful thing I did get from the health visitor was her absolute conviction that you won't change sleep habits without tears, and the only alternative is to wait for them to change of their own accord (which is a totally legitimate choice). It was certainly true for us - DS has never been left alone to cry, but sleep training has involved crying. I think it was a lot easier psychologically for us though because our whole problem was that everything had stopped working to get him to sleep - bottle, rocking, cosleeping: nothing reliably got him down and we would have periods (sometimes two hours, the worst one ever four hours) in the middle of the night when he'd stay awake and cry as soon as the person carrying him stopped moving. So our household wasn't tear-free before, and also there wasn't much temptation to give in during the 'settling in cot' phase because we didn't have anything where we thought 'but we could just do X and then we could all just go to sleep!'. I get that it must be much, much harder if you know you could just feed your child and they'd go out like a light, even if they would wake up again soon.

I wouldn't do a group if it was a full on clash with nap time, personally.

I cleared my schedule for the first 2 weeks while we actually sleep trained and then only missed classes that directly clashed with naps. If, however, it was possible to do shorter morning/afternoon nap in pram before or after class in the area, we did that. We made sure lunchtime nap was at home in cot almost everyday so didn't attend any classes forom 12-3pm. Once routine became established and she started to learn that sleeping was no longer negotiable, we then did move around schedule from time to time to accommodate social events but this wasn't too often as I found it wasn't worth the hassle until she was older.

Not for me, I am still very unclear in what qualifications or training they have. Because they are not psychologists, teachers
Whilst there isn't a formal sleep training qualification in UK, the majority have qualifications in psychology, as midwives, childcare providers. If you make an effort to research the person you choose, you will learn what qualifications they have and where they have got their experience from.

All children are different and sleep is not a measure of success or good parenting.
Sleep training my child isn't something I choose to brag about when I speak to other Mums . You come across as very ignorant - those who go down this route are doing so because they or their child are extremely sleep deprived and something needs to be done to resolve it. In my case, it was my child that wasn't coping but parents who recognise they are not functioning due to lack of sleep should be applauded. And FYI, recognising your child is missing sleep and attempting to resolve it or ensuring you are fit to parent them IS a sign of being a good parent.

Most my friends have used are around £300 and that is face to face consultation, then text and call support for 2/3 weeks thereafter.

That’s in London/Surrey.

Yes it is true that I was a bit when I heard this nanny’s “solution” was common sense (don’t leap in at the first cry, don’t cuddle to sleep) but it was the nanny’s structured planning and no nonsense attitude that sorted BOTH my friends children out as #1 was waking #2 again and again.

I would say for the quote you’ve been given you should expect some face to face. But do it for your sanity and the happiness of your family x