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The Unsettled Babies Clinic at the Centre for Community Child Health was established to support parents and infants aged 6 months or younger with common infant concerns including crying and sleeping difficulties. Patients are bulk billed for their consultations and therefore will need a referral from their general practitioner. The clinic provides one-on-one consultations but does not provide day stay or overnight stays.
Up to 20% of parents report problems with their baby's crying in the first few months of life whilst up to 30% report problems with sleep including difficulties settling their baby to sleep at the start of the night and re-settling them overnight. Many parents feel exhausted and sometimes frustrated by these issues which may or may not have a medical cause.
At the clinic, we aim to identify and treat medical causes of infant crying, discuss normal infant sleep and crying patterns, offer parents management strategies to encourage infant settling, help parents to better cope with infant crying, mobilise support for parents and screen for postnatal depression. Clinic staff include consultant paediatricians and senior paediatric trainees. There may be teaching and research activities in the clinic.
To make an appointment for this clinic, a referral from the child's doctor needs to be forwarded to the Community Child Health Specialist Clinic.
Forward a referral to the clinic via:
Fax: (03) 9345 5034
Phone: (03) 9345 6180
All clinics are held at the Specialist Clinics of the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne.
Visit the Specialist Clinics page for more information.