My Approach
Baby-Led Sleep
The Baby-Led Sleep™ Approach places an emphasis on a mother’s instinct and a baby's cues.
Our mission is to help parents find sleep solutions through responsive parenting practices while building connected relationships.
We are passionate about helping families improve sleep without resorting to sleep training. We have developed a programme that:
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respects and nurtures the attachment system;
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supports the natural progression of development;
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gives parents an understanding of what “normal” baby sleep looks like;
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appreciates your baby’s still-developing brain and dominant survival instinct;
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encourages parents to believe and to follow their own instincts; and
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empowers a parent to make changes to improve the quality of their baby’s sleep.
"The Baby-Led Sleep™ Approach places an emphasis on a mother’s instinct and a baby's cues."
Why Baby-Led Sleep?
The Baby-Led Sleep™ approach will teach you how to connect with your baby on a deeper level and how to reinforce important feelings of safety and security so that when developmentally ready, your baby will be comfortable falling asleep.
The Baby-Led Sleep™ approach will help you learn about yourself as a parent and your impact on your baby’s sleep.
The Baby-Led Sleep™ approach will guide you to being a responsive parent by listening to your child’s cues and dealing with your child respectfully while supporting any distress, in an effort to build and nurture trust.
The Baby-Led Sleep™ approach will ensure you understand realistic, age-appropriate expectations about sleep.
Are your services in person or virtual?
All services are Virtual; with consultations completed via Zoom and follow-up contact either via email/WhatsApp or additional Zoom calls as indicated. A key element of my approach is to foster connection between parent and child, as well as to empower parents to build the confidence to follow their instincts. This is not possible with a stranger in your home telling you what to do in the most vulnerable and personal spaces.
What age babies do you work with?
I work with babies and toddlers from 0 – 36 months. Of course, each age and stage comes with its own unique challenges but my approach never changes. In saying this, my approach always remains tailored to each unique child and ensuring parents are empowered to remain responsive and connected to their children while accepting biological norms and maintaining realistic expectations.
Should my partner join the consultations?
It would be wonderful to have both caregivers participate in the consultations. This is a great way to ensure a proper team approach is taken and that everyone is on the same page when it comes to the decisions and boundaries put in place. However; it is not essential if logistically it can not be done. An email summary of our calls will always be sent to you which you can share with your partner.
How do we book with you?
Pop me an email on nicole@beyondtheirdreams.com to set up a clarity call or book a package with me.
Why don’t you use sleep training in your approach?
The concept of “sleep training” goes against everything I believe in. It is important to understand that babies who have been “sleep trained” have not been trained to sleep independently, they have not been trained to connect sleep cycles, they have not learnt a skill of how to sleep well. Sleep is not a skill we can be taught. These babies have purely learnt not to signal to their caregiver when they have needs; physical or emotional. They have learnt that when they cry, no-one is coming. So they stop signaling those needs. They still wake up just as frequently as the “untrained” signaling baby, and as such their sleep is no more restorative than their signaling counterpart.
Sleep training does not honour a parent’s innate instinct to care for their child and to remain connected. Sleep training uses separation-based techniques; no matter how gentle it is marketed it is still separation. And separation creates alarm in our babies. We don’t need to use such techniques to support families to get more sleep.