Well I've had a more positive experience, so I'll share that one...

I went to sleep school twice, once with each bub. DD refused to sleep consistently day or night and we did a day stay programme, as in just there for one day. DS we were having the troubles over night and I really felt I needed some help as I as so exhausted so we did a residential stay, in for just two nights. The centre also offered a four night programme.

They don't do CIO or CC at all. If the baby cries, you go and settle/soothe. They work with you to establish what, if any, settling techniques have worked for you and then a plan of attack to help the baby settle. If you're out of ideas, they give you some new options. DS was 10mths when I went and was either fed to sleep or he'd be awake but would go to sleep fairly easily. My troubles were when he woke, he just refused to go back to sleep without a feed and then once I fed him he'd still be awake and screaming for hours. So that's what I wanted to work on.

When I said that I fed to sleep some nights, but I didn't have a problem with it (as in I didn't see it as a sleep association that I wanted to change), they didn't push it. They didn't tell me I had to stop feeding to sleep, which I was relieved about. The first night he fed to sleep, then woke around midnight. The MW was there outside his room before I even stumbled out of bed and she helped me try and settle him for an hour or so - he would settle and get drowsy, I'd leave, he'd wake back up and cry again, I'd go back in. After half an hour or so I said I wanted to pick him up and she said "He's your baby. If that feels right to you, you do it. Trust your instincts." Which I found really encouraging. (Said in a nice supportive way, not a nasty "what do I care, he's YOUR baby!!" sort of way) So then I cuddled him for a bit and he still wouldn't settle entirely.

At this point the MW suggested giving him a feed. She said that it had been six hours (bout 1am) since he'd had a feed and it might just settle him down and make him warm and full and send him off to sleep. I agreed, fed him and he zonked out til 7.45am

We talked about it the next morning - I was confused as I'd thought that by 10mths, he shouldn't need to feed overnight? And they actually told me that every baby is different and that maybe he just needs an extra feed overnight and that I shouldn't feel bad for feeding him. So the new strategy became try and settle without feeding for as long as I felt able, then I could feed if I wanted. And that's still what I do today - but now that feed overnight has become some time between 5am and 6am and sometimes he still goes back to sleep after, sometimes til 9am!

Also - there were only 5 other babies there and the layout was such that I didn't hear the other babies overnight, unless I really tried, which was great. The frustrating thing for me was DS was mobile, crawling and taking steps, and wanted to be on the go the whole time. He was having two day sleeps but the other, much younger babies, were having like 3 or more, so I spent most of my days chasing him away from rooms where babies were sleeping!

The process for us to get in was a bit less intensive than Kaz's experience - I got a referral from my GP, who basically said "What's his story?" and I said "Frequent night waking, being awake for 3+ hours overnight, not settling" and that was what she wrote in the referral. I then had a 20 minute phone consult where the MW asked about his sleep, I said the same as to the GP and then elaborated that my usual settling techniques weren't working and that I just needed some extra support and assistance overnight. She booked me in, then when I got there, I sat down with one of the MWs on duty that day and we had a brief chat - maybe half an hour? - where we discussed the issues, what I'd tried, what I wanted to fix, and organised our plan of attack. And that was it. We also didn't need to see a paed but it was still covered under Medicare.

TBH the nicest thing about being there was not cooking and cleaning and running around after DD. I missed her and DH terribly though and that was the hardest thing for me being there - I felt very lonely. The staff were lovely and the other parents were nice enough but they were all dealing with their own kids, obviously. So when we had time to chat that was nice, but for the majority of it, I was on my own and I found that really tough, after having two children and DH on me, around me, basically 24/7.

So I'd suggest, if you want to go down this path, do your research carefully and find one that fits, or closely melds with, your parenting philosophies. I found that I felt encouraged by them telling me it was ok to feed him overnight and to work with that, rather than against it. They also support bf beyond 12mths, which I think is good. Pretty much the only gentle parenting thing they don't support is co-sleeping, which is ok for me as that doesn't work for us anyway. They even knew what BLS was when they asked about DS's diet and I explained he'd had purees for about 2 weeks, at which he decided whatever his sister ate would be good enough for him thank you very much, and she said "Oh so you're doing BLS?" and then they gave him BLS appropriate food.

Oh and on that, the food wasn't fine dining but it was healthy, plentiful and best of all, cooked by someone else

If you're in Melb I can recommend it to you...

Good luck hun. As Kaz says, it is a difficult place to be in. I hope this has helped!