RISE: Respectful infant
sleep education
Explore Anxiety Free Sleep Support with RISE.
I know how tiring it can be to have a new baby, with LOTS of unexpected nighttime parenting needs.
It can be especially challenging when we aren't getting good sleep ourselves!
As an Infant Sleep Educator, Id love to help you through education around normal sleep, and to guide you towards more sleep for your whole family. But before we dive in, it is really important to me that I am the right sleep support for you!!! With such a variety of opinions, research and programs available for families, I need you to first understand HOW I help new families, so you can be confident that working with me will get you the results you need!
The focus of an Infant Sleep Educator is on finding ways to help you as parents get more sleep, and thrive while connecting to your baby’s authentic and normal needs.
We assess the potential causes behind your sleep concerns, where our expectations are leading us, and realistic solutions that incorporate the whole family.
We might discover and work on feeding concerns, environmental disruptions, difficult expectations, food intolerances, connection activities or even reflexes! Sleep is influenced by so much, and we’re experts at sorting out the underlying cause of your childs disrupted sleep. We will then brainstorm ways for you to all find more sleep by addressing the needs that arise from our exploration together. Every piece of advice I share, tidbit of education I provide, and plan we realize together will always come from an attachment-focused place that honors your infants connection to you, their infant mental health and wellness, and their learning process.
INDIVIDUAL SLEEP-FOCUSED CONSULTATIONS
Initial investment starts at $200 (office or virtual) or $250 at your home. Up to 90 minutes.
Follow up visits start at $125 (office or virtual) or $175 at your home. Up to 60 minutes.
Enrolled clients can access text, email and/or phone check-ins (max 5/month) for $100/month.
*Sleep assessments are individualized to your families particular structure, challenges and needs. Please expect up to 3 hours together for our first meeting, adding $25 per each 15min additional time.sleep consults for infants and children
Parenting is hard, and is especially hard when everyone you know has babies who seem to sleep differently than yours! Concerns around our children’s health and well being deserve loving attention, education and guidance. You may feel fear if your baby doesn’t sleep like the stories you hear, when your nighttime parenting routine is vastly different than others, or if you read about ‘sleep deficits’ and ‘delays’ due to a lack of restorative sleep. Or maybe you are loving all of the cuddles but aren’t sure if you should be doing something different at this point. Whether you have a new baby and want to set up good sleep habits, or have a toddler who loves to sleep with you and wake all night, reach out for guidance, education and a plan. In these sleep-focused visits we aim to assess your baby and your family’s current situation and help you build a good understanding of your baby’s attachment, feeding and sleep needs. After this, we will talk in depth about your overall goals as parents, and come up with plans and strategies to help us meet them in an attachment-focused way. Expect lots of insight into your growing baby or toddler, and some out of the box solutions to get everyone the best sleep and most joy out of your relationship!
INFANT FEEDING AND SLEEP PACKAGE
Initial visit - discuss feeding patterns and challenges, assess impact on sleep
Follow up visit - discuss changes to sleep, and re-assess plan to address sleep challenges directly
4 virtual or phone check-ins
Investment is $450 (virtual, or at my office) or $500+ (your home, depending on location).
*Please expect up to 1.5 to 3 hours together for our first meeting and 1-2 hours for our follow up.
INFANT Feeding and Sleep Package
Feeding, airway health, and musculoskeletal tension can impact sleep quality. When working with babies 0-12 months, we start with an airway and feeding assessment to rule out some of the more physical contributors to poor sleep quality. We will enter a series of two visits focused on sleep to ensure the most comprehensive solutions possible.
FIRST VISIT: In our initial visit, we walk through a full feeding assessment to rule out and address common feeding issues such as intake, timing, structural feeding challenges. We can often improve sleep when a feeding challenge is involved, by managing your breast- or bottle-feeding. Even thriving babies can have feeding patterns that interfere with good sleep and good news - it is something we start to shift.
SECOND VISIT: Our second visit is all about finding YOU more sleep, while we work through the long term plan to reach your infant sleep goals. We will also discuss the brain science of infant sleep, and how to help your baby fall into anxiety-free sleep as often as possible. Stress and distress around sleep is reduced, and your ability to model good sleep habits for your baby are improved. If you are desperate for more sleep, just let us know! We can organize our time in our first visit, to include sharing adult-focused strategies to find more sleep asap.
NEED QUICK TIPS ASAP??
Phone consultations : cost $2/minute
Initial phone consultations are booked for 30- or 60- minutes, however please expect to be billed for extra time if we need it.Follow ups are booked for 15, 30 or 60 minutes as needed
Enrolled clients can access text, email and/or phone check-ins (max 5/month) for $100/month.
help me now! phone support
Sometimes, we need help YESTERDAY! If you are feeling desperate for change right now, and need some quick tips to feel better until we can have a full visit, a phone or virtual consultation can be arranged. We book 30-60 min to start, and 15-30 min follow ups. I will ask you to send me a short summary of your concern, and we will come up with an immediate plan of action to help you get more sleep today so you can start to feel better. There are many strategies to consider, to feel more rested and to give time to recoup before making big decisions about your next steps.
Phone calls are scheduled as needed, or can be planned as a monthly call to help prevent anxiety and stress as you enter new stages and changes around your child’s sleep.
GROUP CLASS: UNDERSTANDING INFANT SLEEP
Single family private class - $200+hst
Four or more families semi-private class - $50 per family
**Consider organizing and hosting 4 additional families at your home or online, and my gratitude to you is inviting you to attend for free!Enrolled clients can access text, email and/or phone check-ins (max 5/month) for $100/month.
UNDERSTANDING INFANT SLEEP: ANXIETY-FREE SLEEP FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY
Infant Sleep is the topic of most mommy blogs, drop in groups and online threads... And when trying to learn about sleep, there is a world of conflicting information and advice. It can be so hard to determine what's right for your own family, especially when we don't yet know what normal is! Setting expectations that are realistic and workable is the foundation of anxiety free parenting! By the end of this class, you will have an understanding of why babies sleep (or don't sleep) the way they do, what is happening through different sleep phases, and how you can get your entire family the best sleep possible while maintaining strong, secure attachments.
Specifically, we will discuss:
Infant sleep, biological norms and cultural expectations
Brain growth, brain wiring and how responsiveness plays a role in brain development
Tricky times to watch for (sleep regressions, progressions, and disturbances, etc)
Various safe sleep environments and options
How to respond to outside pressure and advice that may not represent your own goals
How to determine if there is a sleep problem, and what you can do
Tips to help the whole family find enough healthy sleep
Class runs 90-minutes, and includes emailed handouts. Babies welcome when in person. Best suited for pre-natal families through the first 12 months.
No group classes scheduled at this time. Private classes or semi-private groups available, please contact me for more info.
How Am I Different from Most Sleep Consultants?
A majority of the sleep help available assumes that babies are experiencing bad habits, and use techniques to break those habits down. Consider an Infant sleep Educator an alternative to baby training! If sleep training using distress-based tools doesn’t fit into your parenting style, I’ve got you! Sleep training has become so normalized, that many parents just think it is a step on the parenting ladder like introducing solids and potty training! I’m here to share that there are other methods, other ways of supporting sleep, and loads of education available to help you understand what you and your baby’s true needs are, rather than setting unrealistic expectations that are stressful and sometimes emotionally painful to try to reach.
I believe that our tiniest humans a bit more credit than most of the sleep training industry allows them. Babies do like sleep, just like we do!
Often the disruption lies within their sleep environment, attachment needs, parental expectations or physical barriers to good sleep. Sometimes we just have to remove the barriers, and sleep develops on its own. I get excited about implementing my background as a lactation consultant and infant feeding expert, doula, and parenting coach with extensive learning in infant mental health and attachment to find your family the healthiest, most anxiety-free sleep possible! My wide background of certifications and trainings allow for a truly holistic approach to sleep support.
Here is a great infographic on the difference between a typical sleep trainer and an infant sleep educator to break it down further.
A large focus of our work together will be on how to get your whole family more sleep, with us working towards shifting your adult sleep and lifestyle habits that may be leaving you too tired to parent normal baby behaviour. Much new research has shown that distress-based sleep training doesn't actually help babies sleep more, and doesn't change their own night waking intervals or wakeful time enough for the effort and disconnect to be worth it. They may call out less, but they aren’t always gaining more restorative sleep. Babies are born with the expectation that when they need you, you will be there. Many methods of distress-based sleep training may not move you towards your long-term parenting goals, should they include creating empathetic, connected, inter-dependant little humans that trust help is there when they need it - and learn to help themselves when they are capable of it!
I’m happy to tell you that you simply don’t ever have to sleep train, if you don’t want to... AND your baby will be just fine, and will learn to sleep as biology intends to. Infant mental health experts are beginning to discuss and study whether causing distress in order to teach behaviour is connected to the growing amount of childhood anxiety and mental wellness challenges we are seeing. Other research has suggested that distress-focused sleep training doesn’t quite meet the intentions of many parents that try it. We don’t see a significant improvement of the duration or quality of infant sleep however, it may improve the duration of adult sleep as babies seem to learn that calling out at night is ineffective, they won’t continue to, even when they can’t fall back asleep. If behavioural modification methods don’t FEEL right for you, then you’ve landed in the right place. If you are hoping for baby-focused sleep training, then we’re simply not a great fit.
If you would like to focus on interdependent children who know when to ask for help and when to attempt it alone, my alternative to sleep training may be the answer. Together we can help your family teach interdependence while maintaining the trust needed to know that help is coming if it's needed. We can avoid possible unwanted consequences such as relationship and attachment concerns, and help you feel more rested at the same time. Many families simply feel strongly that their babies cries are meant to be responded to. If this feels like you, know that your instinct and your baby’s ability to learn to trust are valid and worth protecting.
That was a lot to read... however it is important to me that you know exactly what I offer before we work together. This isn't the path for everyone, and that's ok. What I offer is an alternative to sleep training for tired families. As we focus on helping you find ways to feel better and sleep better, we also maintain your baby’s developmentally normal sleep needs. If this resonates with you, then I can't wait to meet you and guide you into anxiety-free sleep!