Making her very welcome return to the Sleep Like a Baby? podcast is the one and only midwife and lactation consultant Olivia Hinge! You may well know her from much-loved Instagram account (@olivia_lactation_consultant), I know I am a super-fan. In this week's episode we talk a lot about the pressures that mothers put on themselves and celebrate the importance of imperfection. If you think you're not a good enough mother because you find crafting torturous or you find life with a small baby boring a lot of the time - you've come to the right place. But how do we practise self-acceptance in the ..read more

Helen Davies is a health visitor, PICU nurse and sleep specialist as well as a mother of four. She has 22 years of parenting experience and also runs the very funny, very real Instagram account @Essential_Parenting. TW: domestic abuse and mental illness In this week's episode Helen shares her story of overcoming a toxic relationship and mental health challenges. With such generous (and often hilarious) honesty, she talks about how these things have shaped her professional life - having now worked with thousands of families - as well as her mothering and personal healing experience. We reflecte ..read more

Can you be a responsive parent when you've got more than one baby? How do you get two or three babies to sleep at the same time? Do they 'have to' self-settle? Is it possible to co-sleep with twins? And what happens if you've got a big family and the youngest is a highly sensitive soul that needs a lot of extra support? Kathryn Stagg is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC for short!) and qualified sleep coach. She's also a mum of four and runs the brilliant Breastfeeding Twins and Triplets group on Facebook. https://kathrynstaggibclc.com/ https://en-gb.facebo ..read more

We really don't hold back in this week's episode! Is it ok to live sleep train a 4 month old baby on Instagram? Do paediatricians have the right to tell new parents they should leave their baby to cry it out? Are we shaming other mothers by saying controlled crying isn't for us? Rachael runs HeySleepyBaby - the largest biologically-normal infant sleep account on Instagram - and as a result, she receives a lot of DMs from people who think differently to her. So I knew she'd be the perfect person to dissect the baby sleep industry with. These are really important conversations, especiall ..read more

Sometimes the biggest change we can make to our family's sleep situation is to find acceptance and surrender to the present. I sat down with Ana from The Octopus Club to talk about how she found peace and patience over her own son's sleep (and frequent waking) over the last 3 and a half years. If you have a very wakeful baby or toddler, it can feel so lonely... and you might even blame yourself. If we can let go of that extra burden of responsibility and guilt over how our children sleep - and understand our kids for who they are - it can be a really powerful mindset transformation. For more a ..read more

It might be common for a baby to spit up, but if you're the parent of a little one who is super unsettled with reflux or colic, being told it will pass isn't good enough. I spoke to holistic reflux specialist Faye of Rockabye Reflux all about the emotional cost of reflux and what we need to understand about digestive discomfort in babies. Reflux is common, but not normal - and help is out there! It all starts with figuring out the underlying cause... For more information about Faye see www.rockabyereflux.co.uk or follow her on Instagram @Rockabyereflux ..read more

What kinds of sleep challenges do people with training in infant sleep face? The same ones as anyone else, of course! In the last year Lucy and I have navigated dummy drops, cot to bed transitions, separation anxiety, parental preference, dropping naps and bedtime battles. So we wanted to get together and talk about how we have personally figured these issues out as mums. Lucy Bagwell is a holistic sleep consultant also based in South East London and is the mum to a spirited 3 year old. She is the founder of Second Star To The Right Sleep and you can read more about her approach at www.seconds ..read more

Kerry Secker has one of the most successful holistic infant sleep companies in the UK and ever since this podcast started I have been itching to sit her down and find out more about why she went down the care-it-out route when all her peers were putting their kids on naughty steps and leaving babies to settle themselves. We talk about what crying means and why it's not necessarily a bad thing - but also why cry-it-out and controlled crying are very different strategies to how we approach sleep. For more information about Kerry, go to www.careitout.com ..read more

Feeding and sleep are completely intertwined for babies and toddlers. And regardless of how you get milk to your baby, whether that's boob, bottle or a bit of both, tongue ties can and do impact little ones. Carmelle is an independent midwife and IBCLC infant feeding specialist as well as a tongue tie now expert on a mission to raise awareness of how tongue ties impact babies. For more information about Carmelle see gentlebirthsandbeyond.co.uk or her IG @Gentle_Births_and_Beyond To find help and support for your little one's possible tongue tie in the UK see tongue-tie.org.uk ..read more

Neuroscientist, infant sleep specialist and mother of two Rocio talks to me all about the enormous changes in our brains that take place when we become parents. We learn a lot about how our babies' brains develop but know very little about our own enormous neurological shifts. Rocio is on a mission to correct that! As she says: "when a baby is born, there is also a rebirth of the new parents through the remarkable brain plasticity that accompanies their journey. Newborn Parents is a movement that informs and empowers families to take advantage of these brain changes so that they can create a l ..read more