Not an expense, but a worthy INVESTMENT!
I had tried the CIO and modified Ferber with my 4mo and it was NOT working. We got into the bad habit of rocking him all the way to sleep, but then ended up doing some ninja maneuvers in an attempt to place him in his crib without him waking up. It was definitely not sustainable. During one of the early morning wakes at around 5 months old, I was helplessly googling and came across Batelle. I HATE spending money, and this seemed too good to be true (help until 6 YEARS old?!), but I decided to make the plunge. It wasn't magic, and he wasn't magically sleeping all night after 2 weeks, but things were MUCH improved, he was only waking 1-2 times for a quick feed, AND he would go back to sleep much faster than previously. I called that a win! The Ring camera that they included was super helpful, and I LOVED the 24/7 support. Sometimes, while I would be there working through a long wake period at night, I would just message the support team to keep me sane & busy so I wouldn't be counting the minutes--it helped time go by more quickly and with less anxiety. By 10 months old, baby boy had started sleeping on his stomach, and THIS was the magical key. He started sleeping 10-11 hours throughout the night, but I am convinced that if we hadn't done all of the hard work with the Batelle method prior to this, he wouldn't have been able to soothe himself back to sleep so easily. He is now 13 months old, and I have been able to use their maintenance support team to work through some sleep regression stages, travel, sickness, and most recently trying to switch from 2 naps to 1 (and they helped me do some trial & error to where I realized he wasn't quite ready to drop a nap yet). I am SUPER thankful for this program. Getting a full night's sleep is crucial for both us and baby boy. I am comforted to know that I can reach out when he gets a bit older and we need to work on transitioning him from crib to toddler bed, if/when he tries to come out of his room into our room, if/when we have another child which will alter his sleep schedule, etc etc until he is 6 years old. I encourage you to look at Batelle not as an expense, but as an INVESTMENT. It's been worth every penny!