Gentle and Holistic Sleep Coaching

Everyone is unique and has their own stories. The stories affect their preferences. Some may want to breastfeed/chestfeed while others may prefer bottle feeding. Some would love to bedshare while others would prefer not to. 

I think it is important to respect parents’ choices as long as they are safe and responsive. The gentleness shouldn’t be just for the children. For all the struggles parents are going through, they should be treated with lots of gentleness too. 

Children’s sleep can be affected by many factors. Their diet, health, temperament, development, etc. could all have an impact on their sleep. It is therefore important to look at all areas to optimize their sleep. The sleep problem, if any, could also just be a mask of an underlying health or anxiety issue. Without addressing those root causes, sleep won’t have much room to be improved. 

The holisticness doesn’t just end here. We need to be responsive to children and at the same time consider how parents can handle different situations and their parenting styles or temperament. They are part of the family. Just focusing on the children will not lead to a balanced family dynamic. Just focusing on one parent’s preferences also won’t work. 

We all get children sleeping advice or suggestions from different sources. Some of them are true while some are just old wives’ tales. In this age with the Internet so developed, all information should be at our fingertip. Claims which are not backed up by evidence shouldn’t continue to be burdens to our parenting. I will be giving you evidence based guidance so you can make well informed decisions.

As much as we all want our children to be happy all the time, it’s inevitable that they get upset especially when changes happen. For younger children, crying is their only way of communication to let you know that they are not happy, or having a difficult time dealing with the situation. It is not our job to prevent them from crying at all but it is our responsibility to respond to their crying to let them know that we are there for them as their safe space.