Isla-Grace

Welcome friends to this page My name is Lauren and I am the owner of Isla-Grace and the co-creator of the Baby-Led Sleep Approach . I wanted to share some thoughts around a comment that was made the other day that got me thinking. A parent came to this page and told me that I should be supporting ALL parents regardless of their parenting choices and it reminded me of a conversation I had with my therapist about what support means. There is this misconception that to b...Continue reading

Posted @withregram @thegentlemama Bedsharing is SUCH a contentious issue. But the reality is that education and preparation save lives, not the separation of infant from mother. For decades, we’ve been told that our babies need to sleep separately from us. Some even going as far as to say our babies should sleep in a separate room as early as possible. This is counter to our baby’s biology, which requires closeness for survival. ... So we end up with fraught parents, feeling like they’re failing, going to drastic lengths to ‘train’ their babies out of their very normal biological needs and behaviours. THIS can be dangerous (‘ignore your baby if they vomit...lock the door and return in the morning...pop a bottle in their mouth til morning...). We ALSO end up with exhausted parents, lying on the sofa or sitting in chairs at all hours of the night, desperately trying to get their babies to settle away from them. Not sure WHY it isn’t working, but getting more and more exhausted nonetheless. And these parents eventually doze off. With their vulnerable, tiny baby in their arms or on their chest. THIS is dangerous. Or we end up with parents bringing their baby into their bed, cuddled beside a partner who has been smoking or drinking, with a curtain cord dangling above the bed. THIS is dangerous. But informed, prepared parents, who have set up a safe space for bedsharing, if they choose to do it, or in case they fall asleep while settling their baby? THIS is safer. In fact, if you remove the sofa sleepers, the drug/alcohol/smoker sleepers, the unsafe environment sleepers, then bedsharing deaths are no different to crib deaths. Properly educated, prepared families make safe choices, and won’t risk falling asleep beside their baby accidentally, won’t risk laying their baby on an unsafe bedsharing surface just to get a few hours of extra sleep themselves, won’t risk laying their baby beside a non-breastfeeding partner. Education and preparation save lives, and ALL parents deserve to have access to bedsharing safety information. For more information head to the link in my bio and check out my safe bedsharing guidelines

Congratulations to Lisa de Miranda of @primalbabysleep for officially becoming a Certified Sleep and Well-Being Specialist. More about Lisa,Hi everyone! I'm Lisa-Marie and I'm a stay at home Mama to 2 energetic toddler boys. As a Mom who has suffered from Postpartum Anxiety and a panic attack from the obsession and stress of my first-borns sleep, I want to help other Mom's know that sleep shouldn't be this stressful. I want Mom's to feel empowered and always trust their ins...tincts when it comes to their little ones. My goal as a Baby-Led Sleep Coach is to educate and inform parents about safe bed-sharing and normal baby sleep. Follow my page to learn more about how I can support you. Lisa’s clients said, She was very kind, calm, understanding, knowledgeable, easy to talk to, non-judgemental and looked at all areas to help us out. And, The most helpful part of our work together was her readiness to work with us and understand our family and our needs was amazing. She was so quick to respond and provide us with support. She really educated us and was very patient. She made us a priority and gave us such amazing pieces of information, tools and techniques to use. The last month has been life changing for us When asked what she could have done to improve, they said, I honestly don’t know how she could. She was amazing. She used a great platform that allowed us to communicate easily and track our daily check ins. She was organized, clear and patient! She made sure we were comfortable and worked WITH us ! Lisa, you are such a beautiful support to your families Congratulations and welcome to the community

Photography by @love.little.sampsons If we simply treated every problem as a separation problem, whether we knew it or not, we would have the greatest probability of making a significant difference in the life of the child. There is no downside to doing this, no cost to the treatment, no side effects. If there is one thing to learn it would be to become an agent of attachment in a world that is coming undone. Dr. Neufeld. We chatted about this today in our webinar with Dr.... MacNamara. This quote is SO AMAZING, this message is SO IMPORTANT. It is absolutely my passion to help families (and now my new coaches), to get away from using separation, to understand that children don’t need more separation to sleep better, they need more proximity. When we increase proximity, increase connection, increase closeness, then children can hold on when apart - this is one of the very first things that we start with when working on sleep. As an experiment, if you are struggling with ‘problem behaviour’ in your home, try increasing contact/closeness and proximity and reducing separation and let me know what happens! Also, I hear all the time, I am with my child all day, there is ZERO separation, how can I add any more time? When this is the case I like to have parents really reflect ... am I REALLY present? I can say that I spent the first few years of my kiddie’s lives at home with them but my mind was always elsewhere. Blocking off solid periods of time where I put my phone away and played, especially before bed, made a HUGE difference.

Did you know that I teach a baby sleep certification course? I have spent the past three years building and teaching a Baby-Led Sleep and Well-Being Specialist Certification and it is amazing. I don’t often share about it on this account and instead over at @babyledsleepcertification but I wanted to share more with you today because the independent study is up and running! In this 18-week (you can move at your own pace in the independent study), fully online, worldwide baby... sleep certification, I will teach you everything you need to know to build a business as a sleep coach and support families to get #sleepwithoutsleeptraining. This program will certify you to become a #babyledsleepcoach and bring you into the community over over 300 + students that have been through this course. Working as a #babyledsleepcoach will allow you to set your own hours, build your own business, stay home with your kids, work 100% online, earn a full-time income in a rewarding career that is always needed. No prerequisites required, just a love and passion for helping new families In this course you will be learning from over 30 experts across various fields to give you a comprehensive understanding of everything around infant sleep, feeding, development, attachment and more ... Want to know what the coaches think? Swipe to hear from 9 of the coaches and what they thought of the certification course. If you are looking for more information, head over to @babyledsleepcertification, check out the link in my bio or send me a dm. There is a discount for people who are already certified to work with parents and/or children

Congratulations to Nirva Brown of @littlepeoplesleep for officially becoming a Certified Sleep and Well-Being Specialist. More about Nirva, Hi, my name is Nirva and I’m a mama to a 15 month old girl. Prior to becoming a Baby-Led Sleep Specialist, I worked as a Primary School teacher for 15 years in the UK and in Dubai and studied Child Psychology and Education to a Masters level. The early days of motherhood were more stressful for me than they should have been because of u...nrealistic expectations detailed by mainstream baby sleep books and apps! I wasted a lot of time worrying that I was creating bad habits and was obsessed about trying to get my baby to ‘self-soothe!’ I now know this is all rubbish! I’m passionate to help families with any sleep challenges they are facing by adopting a holistic approach, trying to get to the root cause, as well as empowering and supporting parents to follow their instincts. Nirva’s clients said, Nirva was amazing, she really listened to me and our needs. She quickly identified low iron and a tongue tie where many didnt pick up on the tongue tie. She replied to my messages with a lot of detail and has taught me a lot. Before Nirva we were stuck in a rut of constant tiredness and nap refusals, Nirva quickly made changes and now we get 2 solid naps a day which has my baby able to eat more which has enabled an increase of iron in his diet. We also have a lot more time in the day to practice skills as it only takes 20 minutes for my baby to go to sleep now. So he has learnt to pull himself up and much more." And,It was extremely valuable to have the support of a sleep coach who is knowledgeable in responsive and attachment based infant sleep and who treated our baby as an individual with his own needs. The baby sensory information was very helpful and I really loved the holistic approach of considering everything that could be affecting the baby’s sleep rather than just the physical aspects. Having the support without any judgement was truly a wonderful experience. Nirva is clearly very passionate about helping other parents and babies and has an authenticity and warmth that makes her the perfect person for this role.