I started The Holistic Sleep Mama in the Spring of 2021, after being deep in the sleep trenches for over a year. As a first time Mother, going into a global pandemic 12 weeks after giving birth, nothing could have prepared me for the sleep deprivation, the loneliness, the isolation, the anxiety, the sheer crippling weight of the maternal load on my crumbling shoulders and fragile brain.

Despite holding two university degrees in Psychology and having worked and studied in the field for nearly 10 years, I was still so vulnerable to Dr Google and sleep training accounts whilst desperately scrolling at 11pm, 2am, and 3 am, 5am... which told me I should be doing everything that I did not believe in or want to do with my baby, in order for her to sleep. All of the information I came across, led me to believe that I was doing something wrong, that it was my fault that my baby wasn’t sleeping, that I should have higher expectations of what she was ‘capable of’. I should leave her to figure it out herself, she’s waking because I am feeding her back to sleep every time, she is manipulating me, I’m making a rod for my own back (sound familiar?)

Fast forward 3 years and a diagnosis of sleep disordered breathing, enlarged tonsils and adenoids and waiting for surgery to remove both. My daughter sleeps for most of the night in her own bedroom, but still comes in with me if she needs some extra reassurance and we both sleep WELL.

I wish I had the information and guidance that is becoming more available now. I am so fortunate and grateful to be able to provide the support that I so desperately wish I’d had, for you x