Sleep consultants, worth it or a waste of money?

[Clemfandango95]

At my wits end with DD's sleep. She's 1 next week and it's only getting worse.

An example night (last night) which is standard and has been for the last few months.

Asleep 7:30pm (no issues settling in her own bed, understands her bedtime routine)
10:15pm wide awake, wants to play
Doesn't settle until 2:30AM
Back awake at 3:30AM
Settles 5AM
Wide awake 6:45AM

This combined with her 1 hour of naps totals 7ish hours sleep in over 24 hours - this surely isn't healthy for a walking 1 year old....

Anyway...we are extremely sleep deprived and I'm genuinely wondering how my daughter is functioning. She goes to nursery and is mobile, eating is ok for her age...

Health visitor doesn't want to know, when I expressed concerns at Christmas time she said "she's a baby not a robot"....

I've priced up a couple of sleep consultants some of which are local - seems to be around £300/£400 for a full "plan" and into the thousands for home visits 🥲

Im also trying to arrange paeds appointment through my work private insurance

DH is emergency services so I'm alone 4 nights a week... really want to pay the money, he says its just exploiting desperate people.

They can be worth their weight in gold. Pick one with good references and an approach that you can get on board with. It most frequently fails when the parents just can't bring themselves to follow through with the routine/plan that the consultant sets.

Alternatively, do some research yourself on different techniques, find one that works for you and stick with it.

The thing to remember is that sleep consultants are not magic, they just know the techniques and have the will power to follow them through. You can do it yourself, it's just harder work.

If you have the money then it’s got to be worth it for your DD and yourself.

My friends daughter paid for one and fixed the problem in 3 days. They'd had no sleep for months.

Absolute game changer and well worth it for us

Gosh it must be hard for you.
She probably has low sleep needs but even so it is not a lot of sleep at all.
Is she grouchy all day or in good spirits?
What does she do during all the time she is awake at night?

Is she your first? I would go to see a sleep consultant but in your case I am not 100% sure it would work as it sounds like your dd is able to put herself to sleep on her own? She doesn't need to learn how to self settle which is an important part of what sleep consultant do.

I would see a paedriatician too.

It was brilliant for us. I was at breaking point having gone back to work.

I was terrified of how difficult it would be but our DS took to it extremely well and within days we had a much better routine. Nearly two years on we still use some techniques but that’s just because it’s now part of our routine.

Ours was online/zoom so not face to face and it was fine. It didn’t need to be in our home.

I looked around before deciding on the one we’ve used as I didn’t want a super strict/cry it out approach.

This was who we used and she was brilliant - I’ve now recommended her to other people who have gone on to use her services: https://www.sleeptightbaby.co.uk/services

What do you do at 2.30? Just go on a say sleepy time / dark and leave again. Make it boring and don’t engage with her.
it will just be a gap in a normal sleep cycle and she needs to learn how to get back to sleep.