Baby Sleep Consultants – What are they and do you really need one?
To save you time and money, the answer is a 100% NO. Baby sleep consultants are a complete waste of time and money – and here is exactly why.
What exactly is a baby sleep consultant? A baby sleep consultant is a person online who claims to be an expert in sleep for babies – sort of a “baby sleep whisperer” in simple terms according to most of them. If you describe your baby sleep problems to them, they’ll supposedly whip up a solution for you. They’ll hand-tailor your answer for you based on your unique situation. You’ll describe your specific issues that you’re having, how you’re putting them to sleep and so on, and they’ll put together a solution that you’re supposed to take and apply and watch the magic happen. All of your baby sleep issues are supposed to be resolved just like that! Sounds a little too good to be true? That’s because it is!
You might be asking if hiring a baby sleep consultant is worth solving your little one’s sleep issues. The entire point of this site is to help improve your baby’s sleep. I’m just going to start out by saying I don’t care what these sleep consultant and sleep consultant companies think about me or the site. I’m here to give you guys the entire truth and nothing but it and that’s always been this site’s goal. I’m going to go over exactly why sleep consultants are a waste of time, money, and are actually scams. I’m doing this in the absolute best interest of every parent out there who is looking for advice on this and I’m going save all of you your time, and money, and headaches.
Sleep consultants are not worth your investment. They aren’t worth it at all! Not only do they not know what they’re talking about most of the time, but you’ll most likely end up losing your hard-earned money…AND time!
Why exactly do I think that they’re useless? Well for one, most can only be reachable via online, and what good is that going to do for you? Exactly none! How are they supposed to provide you with a solution if they’re not going to be right there to figure out why your baby’s not sleeping or is awake when they should be sleeping? If you look around online for quotes, you’ll be in shock and disbelief. Prices range from $40 to the over $1000 for consultants who aren’t doctors, but they claim to be professionals & that they really know what they’re doing. (Hint: most of them have no idea what they’re talking about)
At the end of the day, the only person who knows your baby and how they act, what they like, and how to take care of them – is YOU and/or your spouse/husband/SO. People who spend the most time with your baby know best, certainly not some stranger that has never met you or your baby, and never will. I’m not saying that there is nobody online out there that knows what they’re talking about. There are definitely some of them who are knowledgeable and want to help, (shout out to me! Hah!) but most of them have no clue what they’re talking about. You’ll very likely realize that you just wasted a bunch of money if you do try to hire one. I would say that in today’s world, parents definitely have enough resources available to them get helpful, useful advice – FOR FREE! Maybe not in every situation it’ll be free, but you won’t be spending hundreds of dollars for not even a guarantee that your baby will sleep better. Things like doctor’s visits are inevitable, but at least you know doctors are credible!
Baby sleep consultants only exist for one simple reason. It’s as simple and cut and dry as that. They really just want one thing, and that’s your hard earned $. Yes, they can hype up their page and everything and make it look like they know what they’re talking about. But, at the end of the day, the only thing that you can do is try to learn and understand why your baby sleeps the way they do and try to figure out what you can do to personally improve that.
If they truly were a sleep expert, they wouldn’t be going around calling themselves baby sleep consultants or baby sleep experts. Instead, they’d call themselves doctors/pediatricians/etc. – right? Considering the gigantic amount of time it takes to actually obtain a PhD, doesn’t calling yourself a silly title such as a “baby sleep consultant” sound ridiculous? It’s actually quite insulting to yourself and all of your studies/experiences/accomplishments. Pediatricians and other doctors are the experts here and there’s no secret it!
There are plenty of resources available to you that you can use instead of hiring a baby sleep consultant. You can even give the other experienced Mom friends a call and ask them for any advice that they might have. A lot of moms have a lot of experience and knowledge and I’m sure a lot of them would love to share that with a fellow struggling mother. Experience and trial & error are extremely valuable knowledge.
I’m not suggesting you should avoid using a baby sleep consultant because I don’t like them, I’m suggesting that you don’t use them because I’m talking from my own negative personal experience.
My Personal Experience with a so called “Baby Sleep Consultant”
When my daughter was born, she had an extremely rough time sleeping. She seriously barely slept! Sure, I expected that she would have a tough time sleeping at the start, but I eventually learned that newborns don’t sleep throughout the night because they are constantly hungry and need to be fed and/or changed. I read a few books and learned a few pointers that I thought would be helpful to share. I tried implementing various strategies that I learned on my daughter. However, it reached a point where my methods weren’t working on my daughter and because of this, sleep was becoming a difficulty for both me and my daughter.
All day and night, for about three months – I’d be pacing back and forth while holding my daughter. I’d be rocking her and trying to get her sleepy. Regardless of how tired I tried to make her, once I put her in her bassinet she began to cry. My husband and I tried various different ideas and weren’t making much progress. It was getting really, REALLY difficult. We became extremely desperate for much needed sleep. I was very sleep deprived and was starting to lose it. Thus, I did some googling and came across someone who claimed that they were a baby sleep consultant. I decided to put it all on the line and try to address the situation right then and there, hoping that they would help me solve all of my baby’s sleeping issues.
So, to start out, I hired them to give me advice that I desperately needed. Just for a 20 minute consultation…I threw $45 down the drain. If I wanted a much more in depth, extended consultation, the total price was around $150 for an hour-long consultation. Not only were these prices extremely high, it felt like I was calling a scammy 800 number because I felt like I was being rushed. Knowing that I was on the clock, I had to be aware that every single minute I spent talking to them cost me money!
The “expert” I spoke to was actually pretty nice to be honest. However, being nice doesn’t mean that they’re knowledgeable or helpful. One red flag to me was that the consultant didn’t ask me specific questions about my daughter. Nothing in the conversation included things like weight, how much she was eating, or anything unique that pertains to her. Mostly what the consultant covered was baby sleep – but not anything specific, but rather their sleep in general and told me to make her tired and then place her in her bassinet when she was drowsy. They told me to say my goodnight then leave the room. She also said that if my daughter began to cry, just let her cry herself to sleep. However, my daughter was only three months old at the time. How could this baby sleep consultant expert claim to know what they’re talking about when babies younger than four months old shouldn’t be using the “cry it out” method. They are not the stage where you’re supposed to let them do this. At this point I was thinking to myself “How do I know more than this person who is supposed to be an expert?”
When my session was nearing to an end, I felt like I hadn’t really learned anything that I didn’t already know. I still wanted answers to a lot of unanswered questions. I wasn’t able to address any other questions because the session was so short. The consultant basically said time’s up and that if I wanted to ask more questions, I would have to buy another pricey session. At this time, I did not have a lot of money to spend and felt like the entire thing was a complete waste of time and money.
After that, I made it my goal to find out what exactly I needed to do to get my baby to sleep. This included starting out by educating myself as much as possible on the subject. The resources I used were my daughter’s pediatrician, my own extensive research, (online and offline) and talking to other experienced moms who’ve been through my situation before. These are all great resources and they helped me get to where I am today. Slowly but surely, I began to start sleeping again because my daughter was finally sleeping through the night.
My main goal here is to help other moms who were/are as desperate as I was. Suggestion number one – don’t ever use a baby sleep consultant. They are a waste of time and money and I don’t want anyone else go through the same experience I did. It was a frustrating, annoying, and USELESS experience that I never want to repeat again.
So here I am! My goal is simple. I’m going to give you the advice that I needed at the time. These are the tips/advice that I received from my pediatrician, as well as other experienced moms who helped me get through a very desperate and tiresome period of my life.
Tips to Get Your Little One to Sleep Throughout the Night
Because a newborn has their own internal clock, they can’t go by a typical schedule. However, here are a few methods that you can start right away to help your newborn understand there is a difference between day and night. You can start these methods right when you welcome your baby to your home from the hospital. Here are my top recommendations:
I know that maybe now – you might be desperate, tired, and overwhelmed because your baby isn’t sleeping. If you follow everything I mentioned, your baby will eventually sleep. Also, be aware that they’ll eventually go through sleep regression which I talk about in this post here. Even if everything above didn’t help you, I hope that eventually SOMETHING can help you. If nothing helps and nothing you try is helping, I suggest you talk to your baby’s doctor/pediatrician. Their goal and entire job is to answer those questions and help you and your baby.
Regardless, whatever you choose to do, don’t ever go to a baby sleep consultant for advice because most have no clue what they’re talking about. Even if they are knowledgeable and know what they’re talking about, the amount of money that you’ll need to spend to obtain it isn’t worth it for the amount of resources that you have your disposal. Basically, even if they do help you, you still probably could have found out that knowledge on your own if you look hard enough. Remember that the only person who knows your baby as well as you is YOU (and your SO/family/etc). How to deal with them and their sleep is something that you acquire over time. It’s not something that you can learn and put to the test and fix all of their problems in a day!
I really do hope this post was helpful to you. I hope you will now realize that baby sleep consultants are a waste of time, money, and are a big headache. Doing your own extensive research and figuring these things out will be the best solution long term for you and your child. I’d love to hear about and learn from any of your experiences below with working with sleep consultants and if you had any good or terrible experiences too.