No, I will never suggest that you leave your baby to cry alone.  

This is probably the biggest concern of parents who I speak to, and it’s totally understandable. Only a few years ago, pretty much the only advice given to parents on the subject of improving sleep was to put their baby in their cot, leave the room, and let their baby ‘cry it out’ until they learned how to fall asleep independently. If you’ve got a baby, the chances are that you’ve had well meaning friends or family give you this advice, adding something like ‘...it will be tough for a few nights, but after that, they’ll sleep through and it will all be worth it’.

The truth is that even in the best of times, ‘cry it out’ sleep training is stressful for both parents and children. As well as this, despite what families are promised, there are no guarantees that it will work. Lots of parents come to me having tried a cry it out sleep training (often out of desperation), and it’s just been too stressful to continue. Or it may have worked temporarily, and then sleep has gone off the rails again. These parents often talk about feeling stuck between a rock and a hard place - desperate for sleep to improve, but with little hope of anything working. 

The good news is that there are LOTS of gentle alternatives to ‘cry it out’ sleep training.  I promise that whatever stage you are at with your child’ sleep, and whatever your sleep goals are, there will be a gentle path that you can take to get to where you want to be. When you have a path mapped out, you’re using strategies that feel right for you and your child, and with the support you need, you’ll reach your sleep goals, and you’ll be sleeping better before you know it.   

Lots of babies who come my way are described by their parents as going from 0-60 with little warning.  There’s no way they can calm without being held close, rocked, fed, or all of the above. 

For babies who do ‘dial up’ quickly, cry-it-out methods won’t work. They’ll probably start crying as soon as they sense you laying them down in their cot, and they won’t be able to calm by themselves.  

You’ll need to take smaller steps, and you’ll need to make changes at your child’s pace. However, with the right strategy, a clear path and a consistent approach, you and your child will both be sleeping better soon and night time stress will be a thing of the past.

Firstly, if your baby is under 6 months and you’re feeding hourly, I’d recommend that you speak to an IBCLC (lactation consultant). Sometimes, sleep issues are a symptom of a feeding problem such as a shallow latch, tongue tie, reflux or allergy, so it’s important to ensure that there aren’t any underlying issues at play.

If you’re happy that your child is generally feeding well, but their night feeds feel too frequent, then I can help you with this. You don’t need stop breastfeeding or introduce formula in order to improve sleep. Breastfeeding at night is completely normal and natural, but everyone has their limits, and if you’ve been feeding every hour or two at night for months on end, it’s not surprising that you’re exhausted.

When we work together, I’ll talk you through strategies to help improve your child’s sleep and increase the chances of them sleeping for longer stretches at night. As well as this, I’ll talk you through methods you can use to gently introduce other ways of settling, so that you can have an alternative to feeding when your child wakes. Also, if your partner has previously struggled to settle your child (which is really common), I can talk them through strategies that they can use, so that  night time parenting can be shared between you a little more and some of the weight lifted off your shoulders. 

Firstly, you’re definitely not alone - lots of parents reach out at the 8-12 month stage when they are about to return to work and I have extensive experience in supporting parents through this transition. 

In terms of support, I would recommend my Gold package. With this, we can take things in stages, and work at a pace that is right for both you and your child. We’ll often start with focusing on optimising sleep as much as possible, with a particular focus on attachment, and supercharging your little one’s buckets of love and attention before bed. Often these small changes can bring about big positive changes to the night. From here, if needed, we can work on reducing feeds or introducing alternative settling methods. I’ll be there to guide you every step of the way with limitless support, helping you both get the sleep you need so that you feel your best entering this new chapter in life!  

If you want to make changes either to where your little one sleeps, how you are settling them, or how you respond in the night, I’d suggest you have at least 3-4 weeks where you can be at home at night and be consistent in your approach. 

However, I know that waiting 3-4 weeks to start might feel like a lifetime when you’re utterly exhausted!

I can be flexible to help you with this. If you book a Gold package, you can get started with your initial consultation straight away and pause your support until your’e home. So, if you’d like to make a start on some easier tweaks that are likely to make a positive impact straight away, you can book your Gold package now and have the initial consultation straight away. During this call, we can discuss the easier changes you can make now, so that you can start making progress straight away. As well as helping you get some quick results, we’ll also be able to talk through some strategies to help sleep happen as easily as possible while you’re away.  

You can pause the support while you’re away, and get started back when you’re home to make the bigger changes to the middle of the night settling. With this, you get the best of both worlds! It’s worked really well for families that I’ve done this with before. If you’d like to talk it through before booking, just book a discovery call and we can discuss your plans.  

I don’t make any promises that if you work with me, your child will be sleeping through the night within a certain time frame, or that they’ll never have a bumpy night in the future. If anyone you speak to makes a claim along these lines, please turn away and run a mile! 

Every child and family dynamic is unique, and there is no ‘cookie cutter’ approach that can be applied to all babies to make them sleep through the night.  If there was, there would be one book about children’s sleep on the market, and no parents would be googling about sleep regressions in the middle of the night!

Every family who I support has their own unique story, their own starting point, and their own goals. When working together, we’ll prioritise your goals and work at the pace that is right for you. You may be at a crisis point and need to change things quickly. Or things may be less urgent, but you want to start making changes now in anticipation of going back to work, or a new sibling being born in a couple of months. Whatever your situation, we’ll find the balance between making change at a manageable rate, and making progress at the speed you need. 

Having said all this, the parents who I’ve worked with have given me glowing reviews and had vastly improved sleep. Even in the most extreme cases, some of my clients have had peaceful sleeps within the space of a few weeks. I've been doing this for 10 years, so I'm pretty confident I can help you.