Why Hire A Sleep Consultant?

The question of whether or not to hire a baby and child sleep consultant may be crossing your mind. There are obvious advantages (better sleep) and obvious disadvantages (it costs money). Ultimately only you can decide what is right for you and your family when deciding whether to hire a sleep consultant or not. In this blog we look at some of the benefits that hiring a sleep coach provides.

We don’t live in a village that raises the child anymore

You’ve probably seen the Insta post’s that quote the saying “it takes a village to raise a child.” For much of human existence we have lived in extended family groups where grandparents, great grandparents, siblings, aunts, friends, neighbours and so on would have been around and the child rearing and parenting was done by the group, not only by the individual parent (or parents, but I’m not sure how much child rearing Daddy caveman did!)

The point here is that information, advice and help was constantly on hand and on tap. This is contrary to our modern way of living where we live in our individual houses and the childcare we don’t do ourselves is done by someone we don’t know well and in an environment we frequently don’t even know (school, nursery, childminders).

We don’t have “the village” support we once used to therefore we need to source it where we can and when we need to.

Information overload seems to cause more confusion than clarity

These days there is so much information available online. If you know exactly what you’re looking for or stumble upon the right thing for your particular issue and you can sort it out, then that’s great. In reality that probably doesn’t happen very often.

Put baby down drowsy but awake...how many times did you read that holding an eight-week old wondering what the hell it means or how on earth you are meant to do it? If you work with a sleep coach then they can tell you exactly how to do this approach tailored to you and your circumstances. How old is your baby? What’s the sleep environment like? What temperament does your child have? What’s your approach/style of parenting? All these things make a difference and allow a childhood sleep consultant to be able to tailor a plan for your needs and during an online consultation we can go in depth as to how to approach it and make it work for you.

My aim as a sleep coach is to help parents and carers find the information that is relevant to them and their circumstances. To sift through all the confusion and provide clarity.

Better sleep for other members of the family and better relationship with partner

When there is a little member of the family who is having sleep issues it often means that other family members suffer too. I’m often dealing with cases where bedtime is taking up to three hours from “lights out”, until the child is going to sleep. Other children can end up baring the brunt of this as they have to stay out of the way and don’t get to see that adult whilst their sibling is being put to bed.

Likewise, if one parent is spending the whole evening listening to cries of “just one more story”, the other parent is sat downstairs on their own wondering when the grown-ups evening is going to start. It isn’t selfish to want to have adult time, indeed I think it can be very important. All relationships need to be worked on after all.

Health benefits to child

The health benefits of good quality and sufficient quantity sleep are numerous. I’m not going to list them here as you probably know them and if you need some reminding you can research yourself online. But the health benefits are real. Sorting out your child’s sleep issues now by working with an infant sleep consultant will reap benefits for years to come. Setting good foundations in regards to sleep is an amazing gift to give to your child.

Approximately 25% of children younger than 5 years experience some type of sleep problem. There’s no need to let your child be part of that statistic, almost all problems can be easily solved with behavioural intervention.

Tools to help with ongoing issues that may arise

Part of my job as an early childhood sleep coach is to leave parents and carers feeling empowered and confident in how they can best support their child with any future sleep challenges that arise. As with almost anything in life, how well your child sleeps each night is never going to be linear. There will be hiccoughs along the way.

For example: your four month old learns to roll only way and they get stressed because they can’t turn the other way. Your pre-schooler is moving up to big school and they feel anxious about the change which can cause night wakings. Potty training. Nap transitions. House moves. All these things can cause disruptions. I aim to sign off from parents leaving them with the skills to be able to navigate these times successfully and confidently.

Summary

Those are a few of the advantages to hiring an infant sleep consultant. You may find others along your sleep training journey. What will it feel like to get your evenings back? What will it feel like to sleep undisturbed? What will it feel like to wake up in the morning feeling refreshed and ready for the day instead of tired and groggy? How will it feel knowing you’ve helped your child with a life skill and knowing they are getting good quality and quantity of sleep? It is all within your grasp. Good night!