Help, my baby won't sleep through the night

Maternity adviser Rachel Waddilove prescribes uncommon solutions for sleepless babies. A weary Anna Tyzack introduces her to her son, Hector.

Anna Tyzack and her baby
Much improved: after just an hour with Rachel Waddilove, left, Anna and Hector, above, were both sleeping for up to six hours a night Credit: Photo: Heathcliff Oā€™Malley

Six weeks after the traumatic birth of my son Hector, the maternity nurse and baby sleep expert Rachel Waddilove arrived on our doorstep. She was wearing tweed and sounded a little like Mrs Doubtfire. ā€œDearie, you look exhausted,ā€ she said, taking my griping baby. Celebrity royalty from Gwyneth Paltrow to Lady Ivar Mountbatten hire Rachel to live with them in the weeks following their babyā€™s birth; I had to settle for a one-hour home consultation costing Ā£85, though Iā€™d have paid almost anything for a full nightā€™s sleep.

Rachel is a Devon farmerā€™s wife and mother of four who, through word of mouth, has become an A-list maternity nurse and parenting consultant. Her list of ā€œgirlsā€ includes Minnie Driver, who gave birth to a son, Henry, in 2008. Sheā€™s written several parenting manuals, including most recently Sleep Solutions, Quiet Nights for You and Your Child (with that title, how can a new mother afford not to buy it?). She also runs a telephone service and counsels new mothers through their tears.

We drank tea and Rachel rocked an angelic-looking Hector in her arms, nodding sympathetically as I explained that heā€™d been born six weeks early and started out in intensive care, and, having been diagnosed with gastro-oesophageal reflux, was so unsettled at night that he rarely slept for more than an hour at a time. ā€œPoor dearie,ā€ she sighed. ā€œI really think youā€™d be better off putting him in a different bedroom.ā€

I practically fell off my chair. On the NCT (National Childbirth Trust) and NHS websites it clearly states the safest place for your baby to sleep is in your bedroom; weā€™d been told the same thing by the neonatal nurses in hospital. Hector slept ā€“ or rather didnā€™t sleep ā€“ in a Moses basket up against my side of the bed, enabling me to reach out every so often and check he was still breathing.

ā€œNeither of you are going to sleep if youā€™re doing that,ā€ Rachel said. It turned out that I was going to have to ignore the NHS, NCT and any other website Iā€™d read if I was to follow her advice. Rachel advocates swaddling babies and putting them to sleep on their sides. The NHS and NCT recommend instead that mothers position babies on their backs to sleep, covered with a blanket below the shoulders.

Given that Hector turned his nose up at breastfeeding, preferring a bottle of expressed milk or formula feed, I was relieved that Rachel wasnā€™t one of those evangelical breast-is-best campaigners that Kirstie Allsopp recently spoke out against. Her view is if breastfeeding works, great, but itā€™s not a problem if it doesnā€™t ā€“ she tried with her own children but gave up due to mastitis. ā€œBreastfeeding is great but babies do just as well on expressed milk from a bottle or formula,ā€ she says. She even, God forbid, suggests that those who can breastfeed introduce a bottle of formula at night to help their baby sleep.

ā€œIf Hector has a full tummy and heā€™s tucked up properly, he will definitely sleep,ā€ she says. With advice like this, itā€™s not surprising that Rachel has caused a stir within the baby-rearing community. Her local Exeter NCT branch recently informed her that a few concerns have been raised at the nature of her services and their possible contradiction to NCT policy. She was told that her advert would be withdrawn from the newsletter with immediate effect. When I contacted the NCT head office it immediately backed down and issued the following statement: ā€œWeā€™ve looked into this matter and canā€™t see any contradictions between Rachelā€™s services and NCT policy and weā€™ve advised NCT Exeter and East Devon branch to this effect.ā€

Rachel is adamant that her methods help anxious mothers to enjoy the first weeks and months of their childā€™s life. ā€œThereā€™s huge pressure on parents these days; theyā€™re told if they donā€™t do things in a certain way something bad might happen,ā€ she explains. ā€œThereā€™s so much fear around. Itā€™s all 'Donā€™t. Donā€™t. Donā€™tā€™ and I think itā€™s a kind of bullying. I say you have to trust your gut instinct.ā€

Women in their twenties, she continues, are generally better at this than those of us in our thirties. ā€œThey just get on with it. Help? What help?ā€ Meanwhile, older mothers with established careers worry so much about getting it right that they ignore their instincts. ā€œThey want to master babies in the way theyā€™ve mastered their job, but parenting is a lifelong job,ā€ she says.

The daily schedules Waddilove sets out in Sleep Solutions are less prescriptive than those by controversial baby guru Gina Ford (she doesnā€™t tell you what to eat for breakfast, for example). But she does recommend feeding babies regularly from early morning (7.30am is a lie-in) and putting them down for several naps during the day - then they will gradually start sleeping through the night.

Her mother used the regime, and she followed it at nursery training college and at St Thomasā€™s hospital, London, where she worked as a maternity nurse in the days when women spent more than a week in hospital following the birth of a child. ā€œItā€™s good old-fashioned advice that works but itā€™s not what the NCT teaches you,ā€ she says.

She also doesnā€™t see the harm in letting a baby cry, or ā€œhave a good shoutā€ as she calls it. This was the advice she left me with, after sheā€™d helped me to feed and swaddle Hector and tuck him up cosily in his basket. ā€œNow close the door on him and if he wakes let him have a good shout for a few minutes. Heā€™ll sleep for a few hours now, just you wait.ā€

Hector had other ideas. Rachelā€™s car had barely turned out of the drive when he began to howl. I lasted five agonising minutes before venturing in and finding him tomato-faced, flailing his arms in despair. Cursing myself that Iā€™d spent Ā£85 and failed to ask the one crucial question: ā€œwhat do you do if youā€™ve done everything youā€™ve told me to do and heā€™s still cryingā€, I offered him the bottle again, which he promptly drained. When I reswaddled him and put him back in his basket, he fell sound asleep for the rest of the evening. I could hear Rachelā€™s voice in my head: ā€œSee, he was still hungry, dearie.ā€

Apparently Gwyneth Paltrowā€™s daughter Apple, who Rachel looked after for 12 months, was sleeping through the night after six weeks, and napping in her cot during the day in several time zones. Iā€™m afraid the same cannot be said for Hector. Heā€™s now nine weeks and he still wakes once or twice in the night. Still, we do have our evenings back and get up to six hours sleep at a time. Things are much, much better.

Rachelā€™s visit did mark a turning point. Iā€™d left hospital overwhelmed and paranoid about looking after such a tiny, fragile baby. She was the first person to tell me I was doing OK and that Hector was a slightly small but otherwise perfectly normal baby who should be treated accordingly. She encouraged me to have the confidence to take charge and do what works, rather than what is considered ā€œsafeā€.

Poor Hector. A week after her visit he was evicted to the spare room. Heā€™s slept reasonably peacefully ever since, albeit with an Angelcare breathing sensor under his mattress. I know, I know...

'Sleep Solutions' by Rachel Waddilove (Lion Publishing) is available from Telegraph Books (0844 871 1514)at Ā£8.99 + Ā£1.10 p&p