It’s with pleasure that I give some feedback with regards to my telephone consultations with Sleep Nannies. I was unsure how successful the telephone would be because I was unsure if I would be able to convey my situation and our individual needs to someone over the phone. Also I was nervous about telling a stranger (professional) that I was struggling with helping my daughter to settle herself to sleep. I was afraid that I would feel criticised and I was already feeling an inadequate mother! However, within minutes of my first conversation with our sleep nanny these fears disappeared. Mel really listened to MY situation and didn’t judge me. She was sympathetic and understanding and I felt that by giving me time to talk about my difficulties and how it was making me feel I felt ready to move on

I appreciated her honesty at the beginning i.e. that making changes would be difficult as I found the experience just that! However follow-up conversations with her (which I found essential) gave me the support and encouragement I needed to continue. I like the fact that she took a holistic approach and took into account other issues i.e. my struggle with breast feeding and my daughter being underweight. Mel gave lots of suggestions about my concerns which I have been able to put into practise. I felt that she was genuinely interested and concerned about me and my daughter. Her approach and attitude was just right for me – clear and uncomplicated, friendly, humorous, non-judgemental, supportive and encouraging. Her approach was to guide rather dictate instructions. This enabled me to be honest with her and tell her about times when I hadn’t been able to keep to all the recommendations – and I wasn’t ‘frightened’ about being told off!

I think it’s been 2 weeks since my first discussion. My daughter is now settling herself to sleep at night without any fuss. There are still things that I am having to work on e.g. settling her to sleep after night feeds, settling her for naps in the day but the work I’ve done with Our sleep nanny has given me the confidence to continue what we’ve started. It’s not been a ‘miracle’ cure but I’ve been delighted to have seen masses of improvement in such a short space of time. I also like that I can come back to Mel if I continue to have problems or have any other concerns. I hope this feed back will be useful to you. Please pass on my warmest thanks to Mel. She has been truely woonderful to work with, and I would be more than happy to recommend her to other parents. (Mrs A. C – North UK)

Best wishes Annie.

E takes more than an hour to settle at night and still wakes 2 or 3 times but only takes an ounce or so at each feed in the night. She is unable to settle herself and needs to be cuddled or stroked. We are concerned that she is becoming dummy dependent. She suffers badly from wind so we would appreciate any advice on bottle feeding techniques (she is bottle fed). But night time is the issue as my husband and I are very tired and he is away on exercise for 3 weeks in May and I am concerned about how I will manage without his support. Our overall objective is to help us set our daughter towards the goal of sleeping through and being able to settle herself.

“Mel came to us at a time when we seemed to be taking a step forward and two steps back with our 11-week-old daughter. She would only sleep on us in the day and getting her to sleep in her cot at night was a three-hour battle. Needless to say we were exhausted and my husband was due to go away with work for three weeks which left me panic stricken as to how I would cope. She came to stay at my parents house and so had a tired and emotional mother and worried grandparents to deal with as well as a ‘difficult’ baby but she fitted in wonderfully an instantly put us all at ease. My Mum and Dad loved her and were able to see an almost immediate effect on both E and on me. On the first night, Mel noted that E would wake herself up screaming when almost completely asleep which is something I had been told was common and just a sign of a baby who would rather be cuddled. Mel suggested however that it might be reflux and so we saw a Doctor who prescribed baby gaviscon and she suggested changing the formula we were using.

Almost immediately we saw an effect and although E is still not ‘perfect’ she is almost a different child and will now sleep on her own in the day and sleep far better at night settling within half an hour of a late night feed rather then taking two further hours of rocking and pacing. It also turns out that E often isn’t any worse than any other baby but she is exceptionally loud and so our sleep nanny was able to reassure me that although she sounds as though she is being tortured, that’s just her normal volume and we shouldn’t let it stress us so much as this was causing us to rush things and tense up which only served to wind E up further. In summary, Mel was fabulous and gave us a bit of a break, a lot more confidence and a far happier baby. I only wish we’d picked up the phone earlier! She has also been fantastic in helping us carry on settling E into a routine which is invaluable.

Thanks for helping us to begin to actually enjoy our baby! By SMS The night after she left. E is asleep! It took a while but she didn’t put up too much of a fight …. And no dummy! Fingers crossed for a good night. Speak soon, thanks again. Getting better and better. Day sleeps are still a bit erratic but last night she slept until 0615! She also had nearly 30oz yesterday. …We have turned a corner thanks to you. Speak soon, N x” (Nicola from Ipswich)

Our daughter E has difficulty settling herself to sleep and is becoming increasingly dummy dependent. She ends up sleeping with mum for second half of night. We would also like assistance getting her to take more food in the day.

“Admittedly I was a little nervous of having a stranger come into my house but it was the best thing I could have done. Before the sleep nannies visit I was sleeping in E’s bedroom and for the second half of the night I had E in the bed with me. E was also using the dummy to go to sleep so I was up and down throughout the night putting it back in her mouth. Ever since Mel arrived (5 days ago) E has not had the dummy to go to sleep or during the day, she takes her night feeds quickly and goes down straight after in her cot – even when she wakes at 6.00am she just lies there babbling away. I have not had to endure night time crying, but Mel taught me how to allow E to cry for her daytime naps so I am well prepared. She only cried for 1 min going down for her nap this morning! I know it won’t always be like that but I feel strong enough to deal with the longer spells of crying now. I really enjoyed having our sleep consultant here and she helped me gain confidence to lead E rather then the other way round. She gave me lots of advice and I will be forever grateful to her for helping me get back in control.

Many thanks Caroline” (Caroline from Harrow)

My daughter has never really slept well despite us implementing a regular routine from 6 weeks old. We have a regular bedtime routine, starting with a bath at 6pm, followed by a little massage, clean nappy, pyjamas and breast feed and then put down to bed by 7pm. Initially she goes to sleep, but will wake anything from 10mins to an hour later and is usually settled with a dummy, which takes a few goes. She then seems to wake a couple of times before her 10:30pm bottle feed (until recently this wasn’t the case) but will then sleep till around 2am. This is her longest stretch of sleep. She will then be awake on and off or completely awake till 3;30-4am – I don’t think she is hungry. Often she just wants to play – even though its completely dark and we never talk to her at night and don’t pick her up except to be fed. I give her a breastfeed at 3 or 4 am when I think she’s hungry, but she will then not go back to sleep till 5 or 6am.

I then get her up at 6;30-7am to start the day as she is on a 3 hour feeding routine, roughly during the day with breastfeeds at 7am, 10am, 1pm (bottle of formula, 6oz), 4pm then around 6:30pm before bed, and night feeds as outlined above. She is even worse at napping during the day – the most we get out of her is 45mins. Sometimes it takes me an hour to get her to sleep for only 20mins. She goes down in her cot for naps, same as nighttime. I try to get her sleepy before I go upstairs with her, by giving her a cuddle and playing quietly with a soft toy or singing and rocking. But when I put her down she instantly wakes up. I leave her with a kiss and try and let her settle herself and whinge, but when she cries I go in and give her a dummy and if this doesn’t work. I ssh pat her to sleep – like the baby whisperer. This is how I try and settle her at night too.

“I thought I should send a quick e-mail to let you know how much Mel has helped me with my daughter’s sleep problems. By the time she was three months old I was exhausted and stressed. She was waking up to 8 times during the night and it would take me anything from twenty minutes to over an hour to get her to sleep each time she woke. I was using the ‘baby whisperer’ technique of shh-patting her to sleep as she couldn’t seem to get to sleep on her own. Even with my husbands help it was really getting me down. Also she would not get very much sleep during the day. She was quite resistant to naps and would kick and scream as I tried to settle her for a daytime sleep which was both frustrating and upsetting for me. It would often take me over an hour to get her to nap for just ten or twenty minutes.

On numerous visits to my health visitor, I was told I was ‘doing all the right things’ and to ‘just persevere – it will get better’. As a new mum, I found this lack of advice alarming! My main reason for seeking help was that I knew the lack of sleep was not good for my young daughter and I wasn’t enjoying motherhood as I should because I was so tired and fighting a losing battle everyday trying to get her to sleep.

Mel instructed me on adjusting her daytime routine and gave me tips to help her with her naps. She also gave me a new technique to settle her to sleep at night, which didn’t involve me assisting her so much to get to sleep, and so allowing her to learn to self-settle. She also advised us on how to remove her dummy – we had used one reluctantly on the advice of our health visitor, but it resulted in us spending most of our time running up and downstairs to put her dummy back in, as she often woke when it fell out. After removing the dummy, within a few days she had managed to soothe herself by sucking her fingers – no need for parental assistance! The result is that she now has three naps a day – two 45 minute naps and a one hour nap and there is no kicking and screaming involved. When she is put down in her cot or pram for her nap she normally gets herself to sleep within 5 minutes, which is amazing considering how bad she was before.

It generally only takes a few minutes now to get her back to sleep – so much easier than before! We are confident now that she is getting enough sleep, unlike before, which makes her a much happier baby during the day. I can now enjoy motherhood as I should!

It’s worth mentioning that she is 4 months old now and in our last conversation Mel gave me some useful advice about tweaking her routine as she gets older and some great tips for weaning. If I have any problems I wont hesitate to call for advice!

Many thanks to sleepnannies for all their help”

My daughter is resisting going to sleep during the day by screaming/throwing tantrums. Her eating has been erratic since chickenpox 4 weeks ago, and she seems to refuse/only have small amounts of food that I feed her off a spoon. She therefore eats mainly finger food, but only eats ‘well’ at one of her daily meals. I really want to know if she has got into a bad habit of waking up and only being soothed by milk, or if she is genuinely hungry and so I need to try and get her to eat more/be more structured during the day.

“My 13 month old daughter had always been a good sleeper – until a series of illnesses resulted in a pattern of nightly waking and screaming, which seemed to be only resolved by giving her a bottle of milk. And after 6 weeks it seemed to be getting even worse, as she began to refuse to sleep in her cot during the day. Being 7 months pregnant and with my husband spending more time abroad than at home, I decided I had no time to lose but to get some immediate, professional advice to break the cycle; and boy am I glad I did!

Mel, was just wonderful. She listened carefully to exactly what had been going on and gave me a clear path to follow based on my own situation. She explained the reasoning behind all her suggestions, and gave so much more advice than simply a one-stop ‘sleep solution’, such as lots of tips on food to give her / avoid, and how best to handle mealtimes. It was basically like speaking to a good friend about it all, but who just happens to be an expert in children and sleep!

Within 2 nights, my daughter was sleeping through the night again, happily going to her cot for daytime naps and was eating properly at mealtimes. I have no doubt that not only did the advice work, but that the confidence it immediately gave me by having a clear direction was also picked up on by my daughter; as she said; “she knew you meant business!”. I am just so glad that I contacted Mel from Sleep Nannies when I did, rather than try and muddle through on my own getting even more exhausted and stressed – I cannot recommend them enough. Thank you !” (Sue from London)

When we started formula milk at 6.5 months, we discovered that O was allergic to cow’s milk protein so he has been prescribed hydrolysed formula milk. He has also vomited when given cooked whole milk and yoghurt so we have been advised not to give him any dairy.

Specific issue: Our overall objective is to help O to learn to self settle and therefore, to sleep through the night without our intervention. We would also like to transition him to his own room if possible.

He has co-slept with me from birth and has never been a good sleeper. This is largely because I have been feeding him to sleep at night and taking him out in the pram during the day for his naps, so we have never helped him to learn to settle on his own.

Where we have tried, his crying escalates within seconds and he is hysterical for a long time. He has been exclusively breast fed until 6.5 months and we are now transitioning him onto formula as I have had to go back to work.

Currently, he is having a formula feed at 10.30am and breast feeds at 6/6.30am, 3pm, 6/6.30pm, 9pm (one side) and 12midnight (one side). In terms of solids, he is on 3 meals per day with meat for both lunch and dinner. We were told by our health visitor to ramp up the solids quickly but ever since starting solids he has been constipated so we think some of the night time waking is due to his tummy hurting.

He has been waking anything from 5-10 times per night, but in the last 3 weeks, things have improved a lot so on average, it is 3-6 times per night.

Day 1 (Post home visit) – It was so great to have you here and we really, really appreciate all your insight and experience, care and help. You’re brilliant at what you do. Thank you for taking precious time away from your family to help us, especially on a weekend. We’re both feeling optimistic and can’t wait to have a rested O so that we can finally catch up too!.

Day 2 – Morning. Something short of a miracle happened last night! After falling asleep, O woke at 21.40 for 6 mins (I didn’t go in as he was winding up and down so I figured it better to leave him), then he didn’t stir until 05.00! (he didn’t feed at all in the night!). I can’t thank you enough for getting us here. You’re amazing x x

Day 3 – Tonight another personal best for O. It took 2 minutes for him to go to sleep! (P.W.Y. from Surrey)

Until 8 months old T was a near perfect sleeper. going to sleep on his own – sleeping 11-12 hours a night from 16 wks and rarely waking. when he did wake he would be easily settled back. Since august he has been prone to night wakings – 1 to 4 times a night. Sometimes he can be easily settled back to sleep but more recently he will not. In fact he had taken to crying hysterically screaming, standing up at the cot and shaking the bars. He resisted going to sleep in the day or the night by “freaking out” every time one of us went o put him in the cot. We have over come this by doing the sush pat and moving away distance technique. However when he wakes he immediately starts hysterically crying. It is becoming increasingly difficult to settle him. Often he will just fall asleep as he is totally worn out. He usually sleeps through when he stays at his Nanas or when she puts him to sleep. He has a dummy but does not usually cry out for it if he has lost it. T used to be a predictable and steady sleeper but this predictability has disappeared.

“Thanks again to everyone there. We have not hesitated to recommend you. We arranged to have two telephone conversations with Mel after enduring week after week of sleepless nights with our 12 month old. son T. She asked all the right questions to quickly understand our family’s situation and the needs of our son. She gave us practical advice that we could put to work that very first night and made some suggestions about dietary changes that we have more recently made. Most importantly she helped us find the confidence we (and I particularly) had lost over recent months.

She helped me understand what is normal and what is to be expected and explained our son was not a “bad baby”. My husband and I came together with a renewed energy to deal with T’s unpredictable waking during the night, and her advice made us more determined than ever to follow through with the strategies consistently as and when we need to. Life improved within a week and significantly so within two. She helped us regain our confidence and most importantly I don’t dread bed times and am enjoying being a Mum again. I took the 2nd call today – I didn’t feel we needed it at all but actually wanted to feed back to Mel how life has improved and thank her for her advice. I would never have thought that a phone call would have been so helpful, but it was.

Everyone at Sleep Nannies has been great – we thank you all” (Lucy from Rochester Kent)

A is, generally, a very happy baby. She has been in a routine (Gina Ford) from about 8 weeks and she seems to enjoy it. She rarely cries during the day, she feeds well and puts on approximately 7oz a week (she is partially breast fed and partially formula fed). Our issue is bed time. We have a bed time routine, including a bath, dim lights, soft music and a breast feed. But when we put her in her cot at 6.45/7pm she does not want to sleep. We have been trying to get her to go down at this time for over 4 weeks now and I think we have managed 4 or 5 times. We cannot work out why it works some days and doesn’t work on others. We have tried leaving her to cry for 10 minutes at a time and then going to check on her, reassure her and then leave. She just cries more. We have tried rocking / cuddling her to sleep (it only works for one sleep cycle and after 30 minutes she s awake again and crying).

She has (without exception in 12 weeks) taken a formula feed at 10.30-11pm and gone down in her cot and gone to sleep. 9 times out of 10 she is awake when we put her down and she puts herself to sleep. When she wakes in the night (now usually about 5/5.30am) she has a breast feed and goes straight back to sleep. I don t think we have had a problem with her going to sleep after these feeds since she was 1 or 2 weeks old. We can hear her at other times during the night when she wakes but she puts herself back to sleep.

A’ s daytime naps are in or around the same time each day (9am, 12pm and 4/4.30 pm). The 9am nap is easy, she goes in her cot, sleeps for 30/45 minutes and wakes up happy and smiling and talking to her cot toys. The 12pm nap is a bit hit and miss. Sometimes she can sleep for 30 minutes, wake up for an hour and then sleep for another 45 minutes. In general she falls asleep on one of us and cries and cries if I try to put her in the cot for this nap (I gave up trying about 6 weeks ago as I wanted her to sleep more than I cared about the location of the sleep). She will happily sleep in her car seat or pram for this nap. If I am out and about she may sleep for the whole 2 hours (because of the movement of the car or pram). The afternoon nap is about 30 minutes and is almost always on one of us (though once she is asleep it is possible to transfer her).

We would really like advice to understand where we are going wrong. We have obviously got something right at 10.30pm and the 9am nap but now need to find a way to extend those good habits to her other naps and (most importantly) an evening bed time.

“I called Mel out of desperation. One conversation with her and that evening my daughter went to sleep at bedtime and stayed asleep. After a dream feed she slept until 7am the following morning. Its now a week later and she has done the same thing every night for a week (and without any fuss or crying). She will now go to bed awake and put herself to sleep for naps and at night.

I really liked Mel’s approach, she didn’t judge us for having done anything wrong in the past. All of her recommendations made clear, logical sense and she didn’t tell me I had to leave my baby to cry it out (something I was totally against). I am so pleased that we called. We’ve benefited and so has our baby, she now sleeps properly in the evenings, at night and for naps which means the time she is awake she is a happy, smiley baby who is bundles of fun. Thank you again for all your help” (Sarah from London)

Our ultimate objective is to get N to sleep through the night in his own cot. Currently he goes to sleep in his cot at about 6.30pm with me sitting beside him (tried “controlled” crying, but he screams for over an hour, like his foot has been cut off!) He then wakes at about 11pm and I feed him then and put him back in the cot. At about 12 he will wake again and from that point on just will not settle. He can’t be hungry but is not happy unless I breastfeed him (screams if I give a bottle, try to put him back in the cot etc) – if I wake him up properly (put on the lights etc) I can then sometimes get him back to sleep without breastfeeding and get him back in the cot but he will then wake again, generally within the hour, and we have to go through the whole process again. If I take him into bed with me he will drift off after feeding but still wakes regularly and screams unless I attach him again. He has never once slept through the night and this current behaviour has been going on for about three weeks now. He does have sleeps during the day but length of them is somewhat erratic. He doesn’t take a dummy – has never been interested.

“Hi, Just to let you know that your advice is working very well. My husband was away last week, when we started with the advice, so was very impressed on arriving home yesterday to wake up this morning after a virtually undisturbed night of sleep (N only woke once, at 4, for 5 minutes then slept through until 6.30)” (Sam from Kent)

My 11 month old daughter has always slept quite well from an early age. She has always happily gone to bed at 7pm and maybe woken once in the night for her dummy. She would always wake at 7am. I am now having lots of problems. She is not settling at 7pm anymore. Wakes up screaming in her cot about 3 times a night. She is also waking at 5am and wont settle back to sleep. I understand this is due to separation anxiety as I have gone back to work and we have a nanny looking after her. I am extremely worried as she has never had problems before and I am exhausted! I am not sure what to do because the Nanny only started 2 weeks ago so I don’t know if I should implement sleep training or whether I should be reassuring my daughter at night whilst she gets used to the nanny. She has also recently learnt to stand up in her cot so stands screaming until I go to her. It is really upsetting seeing her like this. She is also screaming when I put her down at nap times (9am and 1pm). This was never a problem in the past. I really need some help to sort this problem out as I believe she is now using me as an aid to get back to sleep which I know is wrong.

“I was recommended sleep nannies by a friend and was slightly sceptical at first – however after the second night of putting the advice into practice my 11 month old daughter L was sleeping from 7pm until 6am. Last night she did 7pm – 7am and I really couldn’t ask for more. It was great and so reassuring hearing the sleep training advice from a professional. It really helped at 4am when I was so confused how to get her to sleep. It definitely has been the best £80 I have spend since having my daughter!! I have recommended sleep nannies to my sister and friends who are having problems with their babies sleeping. I just wish I had contacted them earlier.” (Annie from London)