Services and support
Whether it’s baby or child sleep support without sleep training, infant feeding or breastfeeding medicine, helping with your unsettled baby, or providing a listening ear when it comes to other parenting challenges - I’ve got you.
Cradled services
To keep it really easy, my sessions are based on time with me rather than organised by type. I wear lots of hats, and often we end up covering multiple domains in each consultation - medical, sleep, feeding, emotional and mental health.
You can book a one hour initial consultation (either in my clinic in Palmerston North, or via video call/ Telehealth) and add on extras that you might need as part of that - such as email support periods after your consult, sibling support, or pre-pay for a followup session.
I also have a 30 minute quick consult option for the little questions or confidence boosts that you might need, that don’t require the time or the detail of a full consult (or if I’m seeing you in person, that don’t need a full feeding assessment or an examination).
Fees (all GST inclusive):
First specialist appointment - $329
Followup appointments - 30min $169 / 60min $259
30min quick chat/ confidence call - $169
Add-ons to first appointment:
email support - $70 for one week / $120 for two weeks
30min followup prepaid at the time of booking - $150, and booked later at a time that suits you
sibling add-on - $80
(written plans not currently offered, apologies!)
Some examples of things I can support you with:
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For infant sleep support that is responsive, age- and developmentally-appropriate, and doesn’t use behavioural sleep interventions (sleep training) that encourage separation or leaving your little one to cry. Support available for children from birth into school age.
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For support with breastfeeding or infant feeding that’s proving tricky (maybe it’s sore, or you’re dealing with low milk production or oversupply), or for antenatal education and making plans to support you going forward.
I also offer breastfeeding medicine support antenatally and postnatally, if you need help around inducing lactation, allergies, or any number of more complex breastfeeding challenges!
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If you’re struggling with the transition to parenthood, things are feeling tricky emotionally, or you need support to process birth trauma or breastfeeding grief, I can work with you - let’s get things feeling less challenging for you.
If you need someone to talk to about the highs and the lows, or to help give you some guidance about bringing all the pieces together of the parenting puzzle, I’m here.
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Babies can be unsettled for any number of reasons, and it can take some untangling. They need support - and YOU need support too, this is really tough. Let’s figure out what’s going on with the crying, and give you some strategies to manage it.
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You might need a plan going forward when it comes to breastfeeding or mood, or you may want to have a chance to really dig into the sticky things that you’ve heard about when it comes to sleep, before your baby gets here.
My approach to sleep support - gentle and responsive, without sleep training
Hi, tired parent. Thank you for being here to learn more about some support with sleep - I’d love to help you and your family. Before we begin, it’s important to know that my approach to sleep support is different to the dominant one.
I’m not here to change your child, to condition them to behave in a different way around sleep or signalling.
I am not here to sleep train your baby.
I’m here to help you work with your little one to maximise sleep and well-being for your whole family.
You are the expert in your child - I’m just here to help gently guide you using the skills and knowledge I have gathered through the past years of training.
You have probably found me because you’re struggling, or you need some reassurance - but you don’t want to use sleep training to get you through. I totally get that - and that is exactly what I’m here for.
There are so many other sleep trainers out there if you are looking for standardised routines, behavioural settling methods based on separation, ditching “bad habits” or how to teach your baby to “self-settle” - it’s absolutely your choice (and none of my business!) if that’s what you want to do. My approach is different, and it’s really important to me that we are clear on that before we start to work together.
I encourage you to have a read through to really get to understand what it is that I do, and how it’s different to what you’ve heard about before.
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My philosophy is that your baby or child’s sleep doesn’t exist in a vacuum - often, it is the least interesting thing about them! Sleep is a complex interplay of a whole lot of other factors - it is influenced by temperament, by family dynamics, by health, feeding, relationships and connection - and so much more. I want to get to know your family to help make things more sustainable for you, in your unique context.
I’m a big believer in understanding normal sleep, and using that understanding to shape our expectations of our little people. We can’t fix something that is normal! There are a whole lot of weird and wonderful myths and stories out there about sleep (and sleep training) and falling into a lot of these can make us miserable, and make our child’s sleep feel much more problematic than it truly is.
I believe that a baby falling asleep alone, or going back to sleep on their own if they wake (“self-settling”) is as much developmental as it is temperamental - some babies do it more easily than others, some need a lot of support with sleep for a lot longer. We can’t hurry normal development, and we can’t change temperament. But we can support our babies to sleep as long as they need us to, and trust that they will grow their independence in time, as we support that development.
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I’ll work with you to understand your challenges in your unique context.
I’ll teach you about what is biologically and developmentally normal for your child, and compare that to what’s happening for them.
We’ll cover health and wellness, and I’ll use my IBCLC and doctor background to see if I can identify any underlying health conditions that may be impacting sleep - and help you manage what I can, or refer onwards for support in your area.
We’ll look at other factors that might be impacting your child’s sleep, to really try to get to the core of the issue.
We’ll go over physiology, how sleep works and how we can optimise some of our sleep biology.
We’ll also cover lifestyle, emotional needs, and psychology, including relationships, attachment, temperament and more.
Sleep comes from a place of calm, so we’ll look at ways to help both you and your child get to that place.
We’ll look at ways to improve your own sleep and wellbeing, to make the challenges with your child’s sleep more manageable for you.
We’ll make some easy changes first, and use sleep strategies next if we need more tools.
You’re probably here because you’re exhausted and you have hit a place where you need some help. Because you’re having a really hard time with your little one’s sleep challenges, whatever they are in whatever your context is. I’m here to listen and support you, and to help you meet your own needs as well as support your child.
We were never meant to do this alone, and we were never meant to be “on” 24 hours a day.
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I cannot and will not make guarantees that you will see a specific improvement in a particular time period - if a child isn’t ready for change we can’t force that. Truly gentle approaches often take time, and involve laying foundations for change to happen when your child is developmentally ready.
We’ll work together on some realistic goals - and often, if things are challenging right now, sleeping “through the night” is a long term outcome, rather than a quick win.
I don’t use particular age-based routines or schedules, or teach the same settling strategies to everyone, or tell you when you should put your baby down for a nap and for how long, or when their bedtime should be based on how old they are. I do talk about the rhythms to your day, and look at ways to make your days flow more easily and be more enjoyable.
I want you to love spending time with your little one, not feeling like you need to spend your days focussed on their sleep.
I’m not going to use any strategies that involve leaving your baby to cry for any length of time, or not responding to their cues, or that encourage separation of you from them before both of you are ready.
I’m not going to tell you to stop feeding at night, or feeding to sleep, or safely sharing a bed with your baby if these are things that are working for you - I’m totally here for them.
If what you’ve been doing has stopped being sustainable or enjoyable for you, we can work together to gently shift things into a more manageable space.
What is breastfeeding medicine?
Some breastfeeding issues experienced by families, parents or babies can be complex, and require the specialist input of a medical doctor.
There are a number of medical problem that can impact or interfere with breastfeeding, for both the breastfeeding parent and their baby. Historically, and continuing today, most medical doctors don’t receive a lot of education on breastfeeding and lactation, and can fall into a lot of the same traps and myths that parents experience when it comes to advice. This means that it can sometimes be hard for families to get the breastfeeding-affirming medical advice that they need from their regular doctors.
A breastfeeding medicine doctor fills that niche - with specialised knowledge into medical conditions that impact breastfeeding, and vice versa, we can support families with challenges experienced when medicine and breastfeeding intersect. We can also support healthcare professionals with some of the trickier situations or questions about medications or medical conditions, and how this impacts (or is impacted by) breastfeeding and lactation.
What about lactation consultants/ IBCLCs?
Lactation consultants provide an invaluable service to breastfeeding families, supporting, educating and managing common issues and challenges.
An International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC), is a health professional who has undergone extensive training to support families with breastfeeding.
Not a lot of IBCLCs are doctors - but many breastfeeding medicine doctors are also IBCLCs. It’s within scope for a doctor to diagnose and treat medical conditions, prescribe medications, and provide medical advice - this is outside the scope of most non-doctor IBCLCs (with the exception of some IBCLCs with other healthcare qualifications).
Not everybody needs a breastfeeding medicine doctor to support their breastfeeding journey - but I am very happy to work with you even if you just need some help with positioning, some education, or a listening ear with a cup of tea, chocolatey snack, and box of tissues for the tricky bits.
What is involved with an in-person consultation?
If you’re local to me in Palmerston North, I would love to see you in my clinic space for your consultation - especially for infant feeding or breastfeeding medicine appointments.
Bring your baby, any feeding accessories or supports that you need help with or that you usually use (like pumps, bottles, pillows etc) and your WellChild book. Our consultation time together follows your baby’s needs - if they need to feed first, we’ll do that, if they’re asleep, we can chat first. Breastfeeding medicine is slow medicine - your appointment is an hour long, not 15 minutes, and I consider there to be three patients - you, your baby, and your relationship.
In the hour we have together, we will talk about what’s challenging you, examine your baby and/or your breasts, and weigh your baby if that’s relevant. We’ll do a feeding assessment where I can observe your baby feeding, and we can make adjustments to fit, hold, and positioning. We can make a plan together with some action steps. If you need investigations, tests, referrals or prescriptions, I can organise those for you, and I can write to your GP, LMC or lactation consultant to update them. You also get up to two weeks of email support after your consult.
We can also do other appointments in person - if your baby is unsettled, bring them in to see me and we can have a look at what’s going on (often feeding, sleep and unsettledness interlink!) and connect you with other services if required. We can do sleep consultations or parenting support consultations in person too, if you would prefer that to Zoom - your baby may not need to come with you for these, but they are always welcome to be with you for any of our appointments.
You can come in to see me when you’re pregnant, planning pregnancy, or expecting a baby via surrogacy/ in a same-sex partnership (such as if you’re wanting to induce lactation), for breastfeeding education or for a detailed consult and plan if you need to put things into place.
I can also do half hour consultations in person - this is most suited to the less complicated questions or issues that don’t need a full baby and parent examination or a feeding assessment/ adjustments.
A lot of families benefit from followup appointments after initial consultations, and we can discuss that during our time together.