I don't think I'll waste anymore time and effort on this situation, but please look elsewhere for your sleep needs. This is by far the most money I have EVER paid for this service thinking I was going to get something unique and holistic. Unfortunately, not only was it hard to maintain consistent and regular communication, but the training advice was such a one-sized fit all plan. It's like Rachelle has a program that she plugged in information and then you are told to never deviate. There is no skill building, just a quick cessation of all night feeds while you are told to soothe. I tried a few times to get my money back, and they asked if I would try again. I said yes and that was a pretty big mistake on my part. Over Thanksgiving break, I just did it without her help, and after I emailed saying I had done it on my own, she just about took all the credit and hasn't checked up or tried to see if I would like anymore of that $1500 service I paid for. I tried being kind and polite, and that was mistake. Please go elsewhere, the help here is very minimal but very expensive. read more

I'm very disappointed to have to leave this review here but here it goes. I hired Rachelle to help with my five month old's sleep in August. I paid over $800 for her "sleep consulting" package in addition to paying for ten nights of sleep trainers over a four month period ($4,500). My baby is now ten months old and still not sleeping well. This is my third baby and I've worked with other sleep consultants. Rachelle's "method" consists on eliminating night feeds. It does not teach your baby any skills for sleeping independently. Not all babies wake due to hunger. My baby (and so many babies) struggles to connect sleep cycles. Her plan gave me no tools to help with this. When I reached out to her for help, I would often receive extremely delayed responses (often days later) and when I did get responses, they were difficult to understand, and I would have to text back many times to clarify what I was supposed to be doing. If I was having an issue, I was often made to feel like I was doing something wrong, and I did not feel supported in this process. For example, her plan says that the baby needs to nap in his crib once a day. But my baby would cry anytime I put him in the crib for the nap. When I asked her how to accomplish this, she just repeated that he needed a nap in the crib. Other sleep trainers will be much more responsive, troubleshoot when things are going wrong, and shift the plan to adapt to your baby instead of constantly just repeating the plan that isn't working. As a client, I felt like we were an afterthought and not a priority. Unless we were scheduling night help which she helped with promptly (this was probably because we paid a ton of money when we used the night help). I reached out to Rachelle over a week ago to explain my concerns and have had zero response back. We had a few stops and starts due to illness, which is a normal thing to occur and each time we were starting from scratch because we hadn't actually given our baby any skills to put himself to sleep. After spending thousands of dollars with her, a response feels pretty necessary. I will say she did a good job of placing sleep trainers when we needed them. But having sleep trainers didn't really help us because as soon as we needed to take over our baby behaved completely differently (because, of course he does). Additionally, it didn't seem like she communicated what the sleep training plan was with the sleep trainers because every night they arrived, they asked me what they were supposed to be doing. There are definitely other sleep trainers in the area that will provide more support, respond in a timely manner, ad actually help your baby learn how to sleep not just how to not eat at night. I'm honestly in shock that we spent this much money and I am still sleep deprived. I would definitely not recommend using Rachelle. read more

Maternal Instincts came recommended to me by a friend of a friend and while the cost was a lot for our family, we made it work because I really needed the support. So, needless to say, my expectations were high and I ended up being extremely disappointed with the service I received. From the beginning Rachelle was flakey and unresponsive, no-showing on scheduled calls and not responding to me for days on several occasions. I had to send her multiple texts, emails and voicemails in order to get her to respond to me. Fast forward two months and my daughter is still struggling with sleep, so I texted her a week ago for help and have yet to hear back. I really don't like having to write a negative review, especially since I really enjoyed Rachelle in-person, but I tried to talk to her more than once about my expectations and disappointment in her communications and she didn't even reply. I wish I had known this before hiring her, so I feel compelled to share my experience. I'm saddened when I read her other glowing reviews because I wish I could've hired a sleep coach who extended that type of service to me! read more

If you're not interested in reading my long testimonial about how horrible my experience has been with Maternal Instincts, all I want to convey is don't waste your time or money with this company! I never write negative reviews but I don't want any new mom to feel the way that I have felt prior to the delivery of my baby and after bringing him home. Maternal Instincts is disorganized, deceitful and non-communicative as soon as you give them a deposit. I switched to NIGHT NANNIES FOR NEWBORNS and they have been SUPERB!!!! Maternal Instincts was recommended to me by a friend who had used them a few years ago. I met with Rachelle, the owner of the company within a week after inquiring about more info and she seemed enthusiastic, helpful and knowledgeable. I gave them my credit card for the $2500 deposit that day and from this point on, EVERYTHING CHANGED. From the moment they had received my money, Rachelle never answered another email and her assistant Beatrice would take days or even a week to respond to my calls and emails. For the next few months, my life was a stressful nightmare trying to deal with them. They were supposed to set up multiple interviews of potential night nanny candidates and I ended up having to continually ask for them to set up these interviews (this took weeks). After our chosen night nanny relocated back to Texas 6 weeks prior to my delivery, Beatrice sent me this info in an email and said she would try to find another good provider for us. Yet again I had to continually badger them to set up potential night nanny interviews ASAP. Beatrice said she had coordinated a number of 'perfect candidates' but the first one that showed up said she wasn't sure why they had sent her for an interview because she didn't want to drive to Littleton anyways and wasn't interested in this position. The 2nd potential candidate never showed up for 2 scheduled interviews stating that Beatrice hadn't even told her about the 1st interview and then 25 minutes before the 2nd interview, she texted me saying that Beatrice hadn't given her our address so she didn't know where to come (this was a lie since I had been directly texting with this night nanny & even talked to her on the phone just the day before our scheduled interview and had given her our address and confirmed our appt time). I found this whole situation to be bizarre and completely unprofessional, but neither Rachelle nor Beatrice thought it was a big deal and they would 'try to find me someone else soon'. The next night nanny they set me up with wasn't available to start until my baby was 4 weeks old. After finally securing someone just 3 weeks prior to my scheduled c-section, I confirmed with Beatrice that our night nanny would start Sunday July 14th which was our discharge day from the hospital. On my way home from the hospital on Sunday July 14th, I emailed and texted Beatrice to ask what time our nanny was coming that evening and she responded with "Oh she can't come tonight but will start for you next Monday" (our scheduled nights had previously been decided upon to be T/Th/Sat). I started bawling crying and felt so defeated and exhausted from dealing with the nightmare that is Maternal Instincts!! I tried calling them multiple times but instead of answering my phone call, I received a text from Beatrice stating she was 'sorry for mixup'. She then had the audacity to say that she didn't know we had wanted our night nanny to start on Sunday the 14th and that no one would be coming that evening. She then told me that she had switched our previously agreed upon evenings because our night nanny was working for 2 families and the other family had just decided to switch their scheduled nights so now I would have to take M/W/F. On Sunday night, I get a text from our night nanny saying she will see us TUESDAY. I feel as though I'm reading this incorrectly because I had just gotten off the phone with Beatrice who said she would now be working for us on M/W/F. Our night nanny said she knew nothing about this!! I felt complete despair and exhaustion at this point.. there is ZERO COMMUNICATION THROUGHOUT THIS COMPANY AND THE DISORGANIZATION IS SO SEVERE THAT IT'S CONCERNING!! Additionally, let me be very clear: they apply $2000 of your deposit to your night nanny coverage BUT THE OTHER $500 is only applied to SLEEP TRAINING SERVICES WHICH DON'T START UNTIL AFTER 12 WEEKS. It's a ploy on Rachelle's part to make more money by coercing you into hiring them for her official sleep training services after 12 wks. Every other company has providers who use sleep training techniques from the beginning to progressively help your little one develop healthy sleep habits. Maternal Instincts has providers who are merely warm bodies in a nursery to feed your baby and put them back in their cribs. I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS MISSING UNTIL I FINALLY SWITCHED TO NIGHT NANNIES FOR NEWBORNS!! read more

Bottom line: I used Maternal Instincts (MI) for the first 8 weeks after birth. MI has access to night nannies with good experience, who are helpful at a stressful time. However, MI's administrative processes are broken, leading to unnecessary heightened stress for new moms at a critical time. They have trouble communicating with their specialists and with the moms and need to invest in full time administrative support for scheduling and invoicing. The Good: - Their in person nursery check before baby is born was helpful in making me feel like I was set up for success and had all of the right things for when baby arrived. - 3 of the 4 infant care specialists I worked with were knowledgeable and made me feel confident as a new mom The Bad: - Problems started right away. They convinced me I needed someone to be there the first 5 nights after returning from hospital, which I felt could be a good idea as a first time mom and not knowing how recovery would be. I was set to be induced on my due date and communicated that to MI. I checked in on my due date to make sure that we were all set for when we would come home and was told they were still working on finding someone to cover the dates because it was a holiday weekend. Morning of my second day back from hospital I got a call to say that they did not have anyone who could cover that night, so I would have to skip that night. Seemed strange that they were not more prepared and I think that they had just started planning for care when I hit my due date instead of thinking through things before. Very frustrating that it was communicated last minute. - Probably 6 of my 8 invoices were incorrect, with rates higher than what I was originally quoted. Even after pointing out the errors, subsequent invoices were still incorrect. The reconciliation process to get things trued up was unnecessarily confusing with them. - They have one email account and different people will use it to communicate, which is confusing. There can be long lapses before you hear back from someone. Their focus seems to be on social media, so you will see multiple posts while you are waiting for a return email. - My first specialist had an extended vacation planned after the first month of working with her. She had told me and MI about this, however MI did not find a replacement for her and therefore I got a call from them one day to let me know "there had been a schedule change" and no one was available to come that night. This was completely preventable, as she had told them almost a month before that she would not be available. - Once my first choice was no longer available, they filled the rest of my schedule with my third choice. When I called to question why my second choice was not used, they said that I had told them I didn't have a preference, which is not true. They seem to have a hard time matching up specialists and their schedules with your preferred days. Any time they messed up the schedule they came back to me the day of to say that "there had been a schedule change". This was code for "we messed up and I know you're supposed to have help there in a few hours, but there will be no one coming". It is disruptive to have a revolving door of people in your house and caring for your newborn, but MI does not seem to think this way and is more concerned with trying to fill slots than they are in thinking through schedules ahead of time - I had one night nanny who did not observe safe sleep practices with my baby. I discovered this one morning at 3am and I was very upset and didn't sleep the rest of the night. Apparently I should have asked her to leave, because after talking to Rachelle about my dissatisfaction and the fact that I was up crying from 3am onward, I was still charged for the full night. When I emailed them to say that I had paid the invoice but found it interesting that I was charged for a full night, I never got a response. - As mentioned in another review, $500 of your $2500 deposit goes to sleep training. I didn't realize what that meant when I signed up because my assumption was that if I had infant care specialists with me for 2-3 nights a week, they would already be helping me get my baby on a good sleep schedule. Instead what this means is that at 12 weeks Rachelle will work with you on training. When I realized this, I did have them apply that money towards my regular care and declined the sleep training. read more

Kyanne is a godsend! 4 days after getting home with my new little one I was on the floor in tears and exhausted with no clue what I was doing. After describing what we needed, Rachelle sent Kyanne who put me to bed, calmed me down and took charge (exactly what I needed). I don't know how a new mom could ever manage those first days at home without her. She talked me through all my questions and was warm and loving with our family which gave me a sense of security in a time with so many unknowns. I highly recommend not only using a night nanny, but get the best--Kyanne! read more

Such a lovely company to work with. They truly treat their employees with care and kindness, and take newborn health and development very seriously! Highly recommend read more

Maternal Instincts completely saved my family! Our 6 month-old girl wasn't sleeping through the night, waking every few hours and demanding to be nursed. Our days were crazy and unpredictable as well. We finally called MI when my husband and I were at the end of our ropes with exhaustion. Brittany came for 3 days of in-home sleep training, and lovingly soothed our baby girl, essentially teaching her how to get HERSELF back to sleep. Since then, our (now 9 month-old) sweetheart sleeps a solid, uninterrupted 10 hours a night, which means a happier baby during the day...and a happier mommy and daddy! Endless gratitude to Rachelle & Brittany (who still checks in with us, three months later). read more

Maternal Instincts came into our family's life during a time of crisis, as our newborn son was experiencing feeding difficulties. We later learned that he was born with a medical condition that made it unsafe for him to eat without a feeding tube without treatment. Maternal Instincts was truly a blessing and a miracle for our family the moment they entered our lives. Every nanny, nurse or doula that came to our home provided relief; allowing us to sleep so that we could more effectively care for our family, but also a relief from the constant fear, as we knew our son was being provided the most loving care and observation. Maternal Instincts not only cared for my son, but also provided our entire family with the support we needed during a very challenging time. There were many special late-night conversations and encouragement to advocate for the medical treatment our son needed. I will always feel blessed for everything they did and that were a part of our family's journey and our son's path to recovery. read more