Cradled - by Dr Heather Johnston

Supporting and empowering families in evidence-based gentle and responsive parenting.

Seeing families in clinic in Palmerston North, or online around Aotearoa New Zealand.

Specialised breastfeeding medicine and infant feeding support, however feeding looks for you and your family.

Managing sleep challenges, without sleep training.

Guidance with your unsettled or fussy baby.

A helping hand and a listening ear for parental mood and wellbeing, and support with birth and breastfeeding grief and trauma.

Education, reassurance, and empowerment.

Hi, I’m Dr Heather Johnston (MBChB, PGDipOMG, IBCLC).

Breastfeeding medicine specialist doctor & Lactation Consultant.

Holistic Sleep Coach, also trained in Neuroprotective Developmental Care (The Possums programs).

Registered Circle of Security Parenting Facilitator, and trained in Perinatal and Infant Mental Health.

You and your family are the experts in your baby - and I’d love to join your team, to enable you to enjoy each other and work through any challenges you may be facing.

I can help with the following, and more:

  • low milk supply

  • when breastfeeding hurts

  • blocked ducts and mastitis

  • oversupply

  • fit and hold/ latch and positioning problems

  • weaning and night weaning

  • fussiness at the breast

  • introducing solids

  • colic, reflux and gas

  • concerns about oral ties

  • formula feeding by choice or necessity

  • expressing breast milk

  • relactation

  • induced lactation

  • breastfeeding, chestfeeding or human milk feeding support for the LGBTQIA+ community

  • breastfeeding in more medically complex situations, and safe use of medications in lactation

  • frequent night wakings

  • nap challenges

  • prolonged bedtimes

  • other sleep concerns for parents and infants

  • fussy or unsettled babies

  • parental mental health

  • difficult thoughts and feelings

  • breastfeeding and birth grief and trauma

  • return to work

  • advocacy in workplace, childcare or healthcare settings

I want you and your baby to find joy in one another.

If you are facing challenges with breastfeeding, sleep, an unsettled baby or parental mood, I can help. I use a combination of approaches that are all based in evidence from researchers specialising in neuroscience, attachment psychology, lactation science and evolutionary biology. As a medical doctor, I have a set of skills and a background knowledge that sets me apart - I can help you look at multiple angles that could be contributing to the particular challenges you’re facing.

I believe both parental and infant mental health are hugely important. When it comes to sleep and unsettledness, we can often make adjustments to your day using gentle and responsive parenting techniques, that will not cause you or your baby distress. I will never advise you to leave your baby to cry, or do anything that doesn’t fit your values.

Holistic Sleep Coaching certified

Certified as a Holistic Sleep Coach in 2022 (OCN Level 6 - a tertiary-level qualification in sleep), under Lyndsey Hookway’s Holistic Sleep Coaching Program. Trained to use a truly gentle, family-centred approach to infant and child sleep, while examining the wider picture - including age and developmentally appropriate sleep patterns, health and barriers to sleep, sleep biology, temperament, attachment, relationships and more.

I want you and your little one to delight in each other, and I want you to feel that things are manageable - without using sleep training if it doesn’t align with your values.

Trained in Neuroprotective Developmental Care (or, the Possums Programs).

NDC is an approach to early life care that is built on solid evidence, and uniquely acknowledges the interrelatedness of breastfeeding and infant feeding, sleep, baby's sensory-motor and social needs, cry-fuss behaviours, and parental mood.

I became an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant in 2022. This affirms my specialised knowledge in lactation, breast/chest-feeding and infant feeding, and allows me to provide specialist care to families.

I am a breastfeeding medicine doctor (one of a handful across New Zealand), using my IBCLC qualification alongside my medical degree and sleep accreditations, to enable me to provide holistic and comprehensive care to all the clients and patients I work with.

Qualified as a Registered Circle of Security Parenting facilitator in 2023, I prioritise the attachment relationship and help parents to reflect and strengthen their connection with their child/ren.

I run COSP groups online every school term, and bring the underpinning tenets of COSP to all of the work that I do with parents and children.

In 2023, I have completed specialist intensive training in Perinatal and Infant Mental Health through the Australian Perinatal Training Centre, to truly and deeply understand and work safely with families in this vulnerable period of their lives and relationships.

I will always work with you as a dyad (a parent and child in relationship) and help to find strategies that prioritises you both, as well as your relational health.

I hope you’ll find the information you need on my website - but if you need to chat further, please send me an email to talk about what’s happening for your family, and see if I’m the right person to help you.

There’s no commitment, pressure, or obligation to book.