Has anyone been to PinkyMcKay seminars on baby sleep?

[HotI]

i get e-mails from Pinky McKay and have been considering going to a workshop to see if i can get some tips that might help my coming baby to sleep better. I don't find anything particurlarly inspiring in her e-mail newsletter, so not sure if a workshop is going to teach me anything. i have read couple of her books and agree with most of the theory but it didn't help with my DDs sleep habits, i was just comfortable in what i was doing.

So, have you been to one of her seminars? did you learn stuff?

[sloane]

i haven't - but i think it's mylitta that has because i remember asking the same question & i'm pretty sure she'd just been to one.

[BellyBelly]

Yes and they are brilliant! Get along... they dont cost as much as many others and you will be able to ask questions. There is no magic pill though, nothing you can do will instantly make your baby sleep, normal human biology, but you can get questions answered.

[Lenny]

This is going to sound wishy-washy, but a counsellor in my ABA group has been and she adores Pinky now and raves about the seminar. (Sleep comes up a bit at ABA).
Is that heresay enough for you?

[~ Mylitta ~]

i haven't - but i think it's mylitta that has because i remember asking the same question & i'm pretty sure she'd just been to one.

Yes, I've been. I went with DH, and DS when he was about 8 months old. To be honest I had high expectations that unfortunately weren't met. From what I read about her seminars I though that Pinky would give lots of advice on how to settle a baby off to sleep and basically give us some tips on how to improve DS's sleep habits. We actually left no more wiser than when we arrived. BUT, if you want affirmation that gentle sleep techniques are the best thing for a baby (rather than things like crying it out techniques) then she definitely does that. The seminar I went to focused on things like studies showing that gentle techniques are better for a baby's emotional and mental well-being both now and later in life.

My husband was extremely disappointed in the seminar, but I guess I at least came out knowing that while our DS was not a great sleeper and we had no more idea how to improve things, at least the way we were dealing with things was the "right" way according to Pinky and many studies.

In the end we changed absolutely nothing with what we did for DS's sleeping, and at 19 months of age he started sleeping through the night and has been a great night sleeper ever since. He rarely wakes through the night now, and if he does it's only once and there's usually a reason (like rolling over onto a toy he insisted on taking to bed, lol).

Good luck!

[~ Mylitta ~]

Lol, just remembered something funny though. They had some fruit out for people to eat, and during the second half of the seminar DS was getting a little unsettled, so we were giving him grapes halves. About half an hour later of constant grape feeding someone asked about foods before bedtime and Pinky mentioned some foods that aren't great before bedtime. Want to guess what fruit she mentioned first?

[Babyluv]

I've been. I love Pinky and all that she advocates but didn't get much out of the seminar I attended. It's great if you need reassurance but you don't really learn anything strategy wise. If you get emails do you get the ones regarding her conference calls? Everything you'll hear in attending a seminar you will hear in the conference calls and they're free and you can listen on your computer at home.

[HotI]

LOL at the grapes. Thanks for the review. I'm not really after affirmation, i know that crying techniques are not for me. I guess i have kinda realised with my DD that time is the biggest changer of things. Just started wondering if i had missed something early on that would have made a difference to her sleep....

mmm, will have a think about it. i liked her books, but similarly didn't get a lot of practical advice other than i was doing the right thing. i can see that it is working, and the advances in sleep improvement are happening, just very slowly...