Frequently Asked Questions

I would love to share about the approach we will use to understand and support your child's sleep which can be found here: https://www.babyofmine.com.au/ourapproach

The services are based on the level of support you wish to have and with respect to varying budgets rather than the age and stage of your child. If you are struggling to find your way with your child's sleep, feeling frustrated or uncertain but your situation is not complex then Sleep Connect is for you. You may be feeling you just need the reassurance of a full review and clarity on your next steps with your child's sleep and a confidence boost in the right direction. This is a streamlined and budget-sensitive service that will provide you with a full review of your sleep situation, the opportunity to discuss options, to ask questions and have the reassurance of some email follow up support as you begin the journey of changes. If you are feeling more overwhelmed, stressed, anxious and that you're struggling with your confidence around your child's sleep, the Sleep Nurture service provides the opportunity to walk closely together over a number of weeks with ongoing tailored support. This is the most popular service and is focused both on understanding and supporting your child's sleep as well as supporting your journey through this as a parent. This service provides offers an intensive support period over 6 weeks as you adopt the recommendations and we can observe, review and adapt along the way. The Sleep Nurture enables you to receive intensive guidance and support, enables us to break down the recommendations into phases of changes and to take things at a pace that is suited to your situation and your child. If you would like the added value and confidence of more support, more guidance and more contact with me then the Sleep Nurture offers the highest level of support across an 8 week period.

My focus is on empowering parents to have clarity, calm and confidence in understanding and supporting the sleep needs of their children. This is done through video consultations, phone calls and text support. I highly value building warm connections with the families I work with in this way as that rapport is something I value. Whether it’s releasing some tears, sharing a laugh, gaining insight, busting myths, having challenging conversations about struggles……the focus is on understanding you through these video consultations and ensuring you feel comfortable and confident in the process. Parents often provide feedback about the warmth of our connections which is lovely!

There are times where a few simple changes will have a profound and fast impact. There are other times when the changes will take time to show impacts. And working with integrity as an evidence-based sleep coach with a deep knowledge of sleep science is that I do not offer guarantees with sleep outcomes. You might expect me as a Sleep Coach to say that I can help you achieve anything with sleep but if I said that I would be dishonest and would not be evidence-based. I encourage parents to have a cautiously considered approach to anyone guaranteeing results with infant/child sleep and/or advising that any sleep issues can be fixed or offering specific results in a specific time-frame. Why is this? Firstly, when we look at sleep it’s important that we view your child’s sleep in relation to what the evidence shows about infant and child sleep development and a solid understanding about sleep biology and patterns. I encourage parents to view sleep support in two categories. 1. Those aspects of sleep that we can tweak and change with the view to fixing a situation. For example, if a child is going to bed undertired and this is causing a challenge then we would change this with the aim to fix the problem. 2. Those aspects of sleep whereby the sleep is impacted by developmental changes. Sleep may become fragmented and a bit pear-shaped as a child moves through. We cannot ‘fix’ development so there are times when we cannot fix what is happening with sleep at that stage. However we CAN understand it with clear knowledge, we can have a solid plan for how to approach this stage to walk alongside our infant/child as they move through this stage and to avoid things becoming worse and more stressful through these times. It’s a huge stress relief for parents to take on this approach! For example, if a child is going through separation awareness or their sleep is fragmented due to having started crawling then we can’t ‘fix’ separation awareness or make them learn to crawl faster but we can support their development with some beautiful ways when they are awake and have a way to understand and support their sleep as they go through this. Secondly, every situation and child is unique. If we try to push every child or family into a certain approach without consideration of every aspect of who they are and the specific situation we move into a territory where we may not be gentle, we may limit the responsiveness and we are expecting all babies and children to be the same. The message to you is that the pace at which we go, the methods we use, the temperament of your child, the situation you are in, your approach to parenting, your views on feeding, the way you apply the recommendations, the health of your child, what you have been doing with sleep up until we meet, the age of your child ……all of these and other factors will impact the outcomes for your baby/child.

This question is typically involved with ideas around changing the way your child falls asleep. This may not be a part of what we do initially or even at all. If we do make changes to how your child is falling asleep or other behavioural changes then it will always be done in a way to minimise, and in some situations even avoid, crying. If we are changing how your child gets to sleep we recognise that sometimes children will cry when they do not get the same sleep strategy they are accustomed to. However, this will never be on their own. The way each of us as parents respond to crying is also so individual. Some parents will want an approach with zero crying. Others are okay to support their child adjusting to something being a bit different with a bit of upset. The approach and methods will always place your child's well-being and your family at the centre. Critically important is your presence near your baby/child to support them with warmth, compassion and empathy. To ensure absolute clarity, I do not support Cry It Out or any methods with periods of crying that feel inappropriate or disrespectful to a child or parent or where a child is left alone in distress. What is important is that we find an approach that suits your parenting style, is biologically and developmentally appropriate and takes into account your child’s unique needs and temperament among many other factors.

This is not a sleep program or a cookie-cutter approach to sleep. I don't offer one method with sleep rather each service is tailored to the child and family. I offer a toolbox approach to supporting sleep using the appropriate methods and ideas on a case-by-case basis and in collaboration with you. I also support many ways parents wish to support sleep whether that’s feeding to sleep, bedsharing, cuddling to sleep or a child getting to sleep in their own sleep space. Lots of different ways we can support sleep! On this basis, the services are suitable for all children from newborn to 6 years.

Given the consultations are online this means I provide our services to anyone across Australia, New Zealand and anywhere across the globe where we can accommodate time zones. I also am part of a global network of Holistic Sleep Coaches so can connect you to someone in your timezone if our timings don't align.

Whether you're pregnant, have a newborn or have a child up to 6 years of age, I can support you and if your child is healthy then the answer is any time is a great time for support. However there are some considerations: 1. If you’re about to travel it may be harder to manage making some of the changes but this also depends on your travel plans. It may also help you have better clarity and some ways to support sleep in better ways while you’re away. This also depends on the types of changes we are going to make. 2. If you’re about to go through a major life change for your little one then you may want to press pause on anything with sleep but again, sometimes just working on some basics can make things easier too One aspect of timing that is important is also how you are feeling right now? Sometimes when we are really exhausted it can feel like a catch 22 whereby we want to get support and make some changes but we are frankly so tired it can feel overwhelming to even think about making changes. If this is you, then I encourage parents to get in touch before things become a total sleep crisis where things feel acutely desperate which can make it so much harder. Please know we can layer changes, we can break things down and we can also create strategies to help protect your sleep and mental health too.