Anyone tried Annerley Sleep Clinic?

W

woodk6

Registered User
My 6 month old baby is having trouble settling herself at night because of separation anxiety and am thinking of trying Annerley's sleep clinic. Am curious to see if anyone has had success with it or if it's a waste of $$$. Please advise!!!
 
I tried the Annerley sleep clinic a month ago when my then 4.5 month baby was having trouble falling asleep at night. Walking and rocking him wasn't working anymore and since he was also a very big baby, I just couldn't physically do it anymore. I had already started sleep training him about 1.5 weeks before seeing Deborah from the center so some of the problems that we had before were already gradually getting corrected therefore I only had to seen her once. I found her to be incredibly helpful in terms of helping me tweek his feeding / sleeping schedule a little to try to eliminate some of the problems. For me though, it was especially comforting to talk to someone about my son's problems and reassure me that I was doing the right thing by sleep training him at an early age. I will most likely see her again if my baby starts having problems again.
 
My baby was waking up 8 to 10 times a night, essentially every hour, for nearly 4 months in a row. Few weeks after this has begun, we signed up for sleeping clinic. Unfortunately for us, it failed, and we had to endure another 2 months before the situation improved by itself. However, I do not think that this was Deborah's "fault", on the contrary, she has been extremely supportive, even after the sleeping clinic was over, proposing all kind of alternative methods to help us. She is very knowledgeable about sleep issues and routines for babies.
If you are a confident person and if you have some knowledge of babies sleep patterns (BabyWhisperer for example), sleep consultation with Deborah may be enough to help you, it is a cheaper option.
 
Hi elizaveta
How old was your baby till she/he eventually slept thru by herself/himself? My baby is 5 1/2 months and is still waking every 2-3 hrs throughout the night.
Anne
 
Hi Anne - she was about the same age, 5 and half or maybe 6 months. It was a very gradual process, so I am unsure of "the date". She is model sleeping baby now - 7 to 7 and 7 months old. However her wakings were never linked to feeding or wanting a cuddle. She woke up screaming many times at night and we have never found a reason for it. So you clearly cannot take her as "reference". All people I have consulted at the time (doctors, nurses, Deborah, midwives, homeopaths, osteopaths etc...) said they never seen anything like that. If I remember correctly, around 6 months is the period when they are in principle getting better. Good luck - it does get better, usually by the time you do not believe in it anymore...
 
wenyihsu

What did you do for the sleep training? how long did it take? We are also walking and rocking baby in our arms to fall asleep and he is getting bigger and bigger.
 
li555, since he was young (only 4 months), we did a modified version of controlled crying (gina ford). so i would put him in his bed and leave the room . once he would start to cry, i would go into his room every 5-10 minutes to check up on him. after going in 3 times, i would lengthen the time to about 15-20 minutes. most books do not recommend picking the baby up, but i actually did for the 4 nights. i would go pick him up, comfort him a little and just put him straight down again (staying no longer than 1 minute in his room). after the first 4 nights, if he did cry, i would still go in and check up on him but i stopped picking him up. i only patted him on his back to comfort him and rubbed his head to calm him down. for my baby, he learned to put himself to sleep for naps really quickly (within 4 days). for the evenings, it took a little bit longer - two weeks for him to stop crying all together. luckily for us, he never cried that long or hard. his normal pattern would be that he would cry for about 10 minutes, then quiet down and then if he weren't asleep yet, start up again in another 10 minutes. the first couple of nights were definitely the hardest and everytime he cried, i just wanted to give up. but honestly, thinking back now, it really was worth it. now that he has learned how to fall asleep himself, he sleeps so much better and is much happier during his awake hours. these days, for the most part, he happily goes to sleep without any protesting. he takes 3 naps during the day and sleeps from 7-7 at night (with a dream feed at 10pm).
 
Wenyihsu

Good to hear that your baby is sleeping much better and that you are getting sleep. Hopefully we will also get our little one to sleep on his own. I figure we have to do it sooner or later, though I'm crossing my fingers that he'll just learn to fall asleep on his own.
 
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