There are a lot of sleep consultants out there for children, babies and families!
While it’s wonderful to have choices, we know that having so many choices can make decision-making tough on parents.
After all, which sleep consultant should you choose? And why should you hire them?
Below, we’ve shared five things about Restful Parenting—including how we can help your family get the full night’s sleep everyone needs and deserves!
1. Our background is children
Restful Parenting is Elisa and Pam (nice to meet you!). And our whole adult lives have been centered around babies and young kids.
We’re both Early Childhood Educators and certified Holistic Infant and Child Sleep Consultants.
And even before establishing Restful Parenting, we worked as private nannies and ran our own childcares for several years.
We understand development issues, temper tantrums, and pretty much every other child behavior. We’ve seen the effects of sleep deprivation in a child’s everyday behavior, and met many parents who just don’t know what to do to help them.
So, you can probably understand why getting into sleep consulting was a natural progression for us.
2. We consider your child’s 24-hour day
Don’t let the name “sleep consultant” fool you!
We don’t just look at sleep.
Rather, we take into consideration many factors during the day that could be affecting your child’s or baby’s sleep, including:
- their nutrition,
- their development, and
- what’s going on within the family at that time.
In other words, we don’t just look at night- and nap-time. We take the full 24-hour day into account when developing a program for you.
3. We customize our approach to you and your child
Our customized programs are not cookie-cutter recommendations, taken from child to child to child.
We build our recommendations based on what we feel you (as parents) and your child will be able to handle. For example, we factor in:
- your child’s temperament,
- your parenting style, and
- your own sleep philosophies.
Then, we take our understanding of your needs and combine that with a number of methods and techniques that we feel will:
- best suit your family, and
- be the most successful in ensuring a healthy sleeper.
5. We’re not “no-nonsense” types (at all!)
We’re not like TV’s “Supernanny.”
That is, we don’t apply hard and fast rules to the way you should be parenting your child.
We always, always work with the parents, as long as it’s working for the child and improving their sleep patterns. For example:
- Not every parent wants to leave the room and have their child cry themselves to sleep. Some parents may feel more comfortable remaining with their child. Others may prefer a method that allows for checking in. Regardless, we customize our recommendations to build confidence in your child before weaning off any parental support.
- Moreover, if you have a baby, we won’t necessarily make you drop all night feedings right from the beginning. We also won’t force you to get rid of a soother right away. We can ease into all that, as long as it’s within your comfort level.
And of course, we can make changes to the program at any time!
6. We work within all parenting styles
When it comes to parenting style, we don’t prefer one side (e.g., attachment parenting, co-sleeping and bed sharing) over another (e.g., authoritarian parenting). Our sleep consultants are neutral. We take cues from the parents.
Here’s why: our job is to help you, your child, and your family. We genuinely want to help you meet your goals.
So we partner with you, rather than encourage you to change up the parenting style you’re using.
It’s good to be different!
We like being different.
Different feels good.
And different certainly seems to work for the many families and children we work with.
Healthy sleep is essential, and we are proud to have been a part of so many success stories!
Restful Parenting is based in Ottawa and North Bay, Ontario. For more information about our programs, approach and sleep consultants, contact info@restfulparenting.com, 613-447-7945 or 705-845-9209.
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