A Coach at the Crib And a Consultant at the Potty

An initial consultation can cost $50 to $100. That doesn't include installation and products, which quickly add up: $30 to $100 for a baby gate, $3 for a cabinet lock, $12 for an anti-tip kit to stabilize dressers and wardrobes. In 2006, Americans spent $235 million on child-safety gear, according to the International Association for Child Safety, an industry trade group.

Some local childproofers are booked as much as eight months out. Nida Saavedra, owner of Children's Safety Care in Gaithersburg, said many clients hire her each time they move or have a child.

The pressures of work and time -- and the need for their own sleep, to function at work -- weighed heavily on Alex Perdikis, an auto sales executive, and his wife, Dresden Koons, an administrator and teacher at a local private school. Soon after the Potomac couple brought their second child home from the hospital nine months ago, they called Suzy Giordano, a sleep consultant in Carrollton, Va. Giordano's assignment: get their infant daughter on a regular feeding and sleeping schedule.

Giordano and her sleep trainers were a regular presence in the Perdikis-Koons home for eight weeks. The bill was at least several thousand dollars.

"It's a big investment, but it was well worth it," Perdikis said. "When you've got a 2-year-old and newborn and we're both full-time working parents, getting your sleep is important."

Staying up with your baby "used to be a rite of passage," said Barbara Kline, president of White House Nannies in Bethesda. "Now you outsource it." Her company places night nurses at a cost of about $400 for 24 hours.

Other service providers in demand are doulas, who assist women during labor or in the immediate weeks afterward, and lactation consultants. Nationwide, the membership of DONA International, an association for birth and postpartum doulas, has more than doubled, to 5,200, in the past decade, according to the group. Similar figures are harder to come by for specialized child-care workers such as night nurses.

Doulas and childproofers can be found in the Yellow Pages or through a Google search. But finding some specialized baby services requires being in the know. Holly Morse Caldwell, who spent several years researching "City Baby DC," a guide to parenting resources in the Washington area, learned of Zimmitti from other mothers. The words "toilet" and "potty" don't appear under the list of services on Zimmitti's practice's home page. She said she gets enough word-of-mouth referrals that she doesn't need to spend much time promoting her services.

Teia Collier, a personal shopper who works exclusively with parents of young children, also relies on word of mouth. For parents who don't have the time or inclination to sift through product reviews or bone up on the latest round of recalls, she charges flat or hourly fees, depending on the amount of time involved, to run down things like double diaper bags, breast pumps, strollers and tooth-fairy pillows.

"Everything requires research. You try lots of stuff and discover it doesn't work. So you've wasted your money. I do the research, and I find it," she said.

Collier spent a recent Friday morning up to her neck in tulle at a children's boutique in Alexandria on behalf of a client who, between traveling for work and planning her 2-year-old daughter's birthday party, hadn't had time to pick up one last gift for her little girl. So she paid Collier a $30 fee and gave her a budget of $50 to find something special. Collier emerged from the store with a pink tutu and a wand with a flower on one end.

Afterward, her client sent her an e-mail, saying the tutu and wand were a big hit.