The Gentle Village

The Gentle Village Need support? Book via the link below or email [email protected]

Helping families navigate infant feeding, allergies, refluxy & tongue tied babies by offering experienced IBCLC care in-home, in-clinic or virtual consults worldwide.

08/09/2026

Maddy Barrett wanted to feel empowered enough to make informed decisions after becoming a first-time mother. But after receiving inconsistent advice from multiple practitioners while struggling to breastfeed her newborn daughter, she was left feeling "frightened".

Ms Barrett says nurses, lactation consultants and midwives gave her conflicting advice on how to get her daughter to latch. After multiple attempts, she ended up triple-feeding her daughter, which she says "broke her".

Her postnatal experience was similar to several other women the ABC has spoken to, who report inconsistent advice from care providers after they'd delivered their babies.

By Zena Chamas.

05/09/2026

Watching your baby uncomfortable like this is so damn hard. đŸ„ș💔

The really sad cry. The stiff little body. The way they just can’t settle after a feed.

Then to make it worse, you’re being told it’s “just reflux” or something they’ll grow out of. You’re left trying to figure out what to do because when your baby is hurting, it doesn’t feel like something you should just sit back and wait on! I know I struggled to just sit by and “wait” for things to get better with my babies!

Reflux isn’t only about milk coming back up. Remember, visible vomit or spit up is a late cue because those refluxy signs are happening DURING your baby’s feeds!

Your baby might be clicking or making little lip-smacking noises, gulping loudly, swallowing a heap of air, pulling on and off the breast or bottle, twisting away, getting increasingly fussy
or simply working their entire little body ridiculously hard just to keep up with feeding.

Then afterwards you may see the wind, squirming, grunting, arching, hiccups, congestion, unsettled sleep or that heartbreaking cry as they keep trying to nestle into your chest for comfort.

Remember, reflux is a symptom and there can be more than one thing contributing to it. How your baby breastfeeds, what bottles or teat flow is used, air swallowing, oral function, tension, gut irritation and other factors can all be contributing factors!

When you start looking at the whole feed, the “why” often becomes a lot clearer. And once you understand what your baby is actually showing you, you can stop randomly trying everything and start figuring out what might genuinely help YOUR baby.

If you’re still trying to piece it all together, my Gentle Infant Reflux Guide walks you through the common reflux patterns, what those early clues can mean and where to start when you’re trying to help your baby.

👉 Comment REFLUX and I’ll send it through. 💛

31/08/2026

For 14 weeks, breastfeeding had hurt this mama! 💔😭

So much so that this beautiful mama had been predominantly bottle feeding
because even with a ni**le shield, it still hurt so much. So she’d stop, just to heal her ni**les.

When I met this little guy, yes he had oral ties. But honestly his oral function wasn’t so terrible! What stood out to me so much more was his birth history and how much tension he was holding through his little face, jaw and through his whole little body.

So before we even attempted a breastfeed, I worked on that first.

And honestly
look at him! The moment his eyes close while
I’m joking about giving him a Bali massage absolutely melts me !đŸ„č

After this, mama offered him the breast again for the first time in weeks
and he latched beautifully with the shield! But, most importantly pain free for the first time!

This was our very FIRST consult together! Little man still has many oral ties and we’re only just getting started on his plan
so this isn’t a few minutes of facial work magically fixing breastfeeding or making a tie disappear.

It just means sometimes we need to look beyond the tongue tie! This is exactly why I named my practitioner workshop “beyond tongue tie” 😉

How much tension is your baby carrying, how are they actually using their tongue, what are they compensating for
and what can we change to make feeding feel easier for them right now, while we work on the rest?

These are the questions I ask myself with every single baby and they’re exactly what I teach in my Beyond Tongue Tie workshop
because the ties are almost never the whole story and knowing where to look next is what changes things for families like this one!

Because what’s often so easy to see isn’t always what’s actually getting in the way!

Comment FLAGS and I’ll send you my free feeding red flags guide, so you know what to look with your own baby’s feeds
and when it’s worth getting a proper assessment!

Shared with mums permission đŸ«¶đŸŒ

**leshield

This photo says everything I’ve been dreaming and building for the last 6 years đŸ„čBecause no single profession has the wh...
29/08/2026

This photo says everything I’ve been dreaming and building for the last 6 years đŸ„č

Because no single profession has the whole picture when it comes to infant feeding, oral function and myofunctional therapy
and I’ve never believed one practitioner should be trying to.

So this is who you’ll find under The Gentle Village roof.

đŸ‘©đŸ»â€đŸ’ŒCheryl - IBCLC, who has worked alongside me since the mentorship days back in early 2024.

đŸ‘©đŸ»â€đŸ’ŒHayley - OT + OMT working towards her IBCLC certification through our mentorship program and will also be working with toddler and older kiddies for myofunctional therapy!

đŸ‘©đŸŒâ€đŸ’ŒKristy - Speech therapist and OMT from Illume Speech available every second Monday and every Tuesday.

đŸ‘©đŸŒâ€đŸ’ŒKarli from Form Chiropractic - Chiropractor with paediatric and tongue tie experience, available Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays
she’s helped SO many of our families (and me too!)

We each run our own little practice, but we sit under the one roof and we talk to each other about how best to support our families that we share
and that’s exactly the point! Continuity!

Because THIS is the bit that gets missed
especially when oral function and whole body compensations aren’t taught to us when we’re becoming an IBCLC (or even as a nurse/midwife, myself). You have to go and seek all of that out yourself, which is exactly why so many families get told everything looks fine! No matter what age your child is!

My vision for a very very long time has been to create a little “tongue tie hub”
somewhere you can access all the support your child needs under one roof for their oral and body function, feeding, digestion and sleep!

We have families that travel a long way to sit in our rooms
some drive for hours, some fly in. Which is exactly why it matters that everything they need is right here when they arrive!

I’m just SO incredibly happy that these women have helped bring my vision to life
what I always wanted The Gentle Village to be for our families is actually happening!

So much so that it’s inspiring me to grow! 🙈 I’ve got a couple of things in the works
so, watch this space! I guarantee you’ll all love it! đŸ„°

Who was part of your tongue tie team for your little (or big) one? 👇

26/08/2026

“My baby won’t let me anywhere near her mouth.”
“He hates me touching her face.”

Honestly, I hear this often! But, I want you to know that a baby refusing oral therapy or hating you touching their face is not because they are being difficult
and it’s definitely not because you are doing it all wrong!

Oral therapy should never feel like you’re wrestling a crocodile! If your little one is battling you every single time, something needs to change and it’s usually not your baby!

With babies, it’s all about distraction, play and finding whatever makes your little human happy enough to actually engage with you
The Happy Song by Imogen Heap, the dancing fruit on YouTube, silly faces and noises, singing, blowing bubbles, doing a little bit during or after a feed, heading outside, moving into a different room, changing positions
sometimes literally just changing their environment is enough to completely reset them and suddenly they’re happy to give it a go!

Timing also matters SO much! A tired, hungry, overstimulated grumpy baby at 5pm is not the baby who’s going to let you in their mouth
so it’s important to find the window where they’re happiest and work with that!

With toddlers and older kids, bribery usually works.😂

BUT the real trick for them is making therapy feel like something THEY want to do, rather than something being done TO them!

So if your toddler is obsessed with Paw Patrol
amazing! Let’s do Paw Patrol myo exercises. Obsessed with animals? Dinosaurs? Then every single exercise becomes an animal or dinosaur game. Suddenly there’s animals or dinosaurs involved in absolutely everything we do!

We work around your little one
what they love, what makes them laugh, what keeps them interested and wanting them to have another go!

So, after all of that we’re SO excited to reveal our secret
we’re opening our appointments for Toddler Myo Therapy with Hayley at The Gentle Village! đŸ„ł

If you’d like to register your interest, email [email protected] with TODDLER MYO in the subject line and we’ll let you know as soon as appointments open

So blessed to have a team always eager to learn and grow together! Today we’re at the Infant Oral Function and Feeding M...
22/08/2026

So blessed to have a team always eager to learn and grow together!

Today we’re at the Infant Oral Function and Feeding Masterclass - with Justin Roche and Kate Roche

We’re super excited to bring what we learn back to The Gentle Village đŸ€“â€ïž

17/08/2026

It’s so hard to keep up with all the formulas changes that keep happening right under our noses! đŸ˜«

I work with infant formula every day and I genuinely wasn’t aware that Novalac Rice Allergy had changed until a mama mentioned it to me today. So, you know me
I went hunting for all the answers to my questions that kept popping into my head every two seconds.

Why did this change get me thinking so much?

Well, imagine your baby is clicking, losing their seal and swallowing a heap of air while they feed. All that air has to go somewhere, right? So, you may end up with a windy, squirmy, uncomfortable little baby who frequently spits up or vomits and showing all those symptoms we tend to put under the “reflux” umbrella.

So, instead of addressing how your baby’s feeding, we recommend you change their formula because we suspect a dairy intolerance. Suddenly they’re vomiting less and naturally you think, “Great! It must have been the cow’s milk protein.”

And yes, CMPI may absolutely be part of the problem. But what if we’ve just reduced one of the symptoms without addressing another reason it was happening?

Because now, with this formula, we haven’t just changed the food protein your baby’s consuming, we’ve changed their whole feed by introducing a thickening system
and thickened feeds usually only reduces how much milk we actually see coming back up.

So what if your baby is vomiting less
but they’re still clicking? Still swallowing all that air? Still working really bloody hard to get through a bottle? We may have changed the thing we can SEE without necessarily changing everything happening underneath it.

So don’t only watch what happens AFTER the bottle. Watch what happens while the milk is going IN! 👀

So, here’s my reminder this week
which I’ll happily pass on to everyone: KEEP READING THE BLOODY LABEL
even when you think you already know what’s in the tin. 😂

Did YOU know Novalac Allergy had changed? Or have you noticed another formula change recently that our team may need to go investigating? 🙈

đŸŒ Make sure to save this one and send it to a parent or health professional who needs to know.

14/08/2026

Have you been told that your breastfed baby doesn’t need to be burped after feeds?

🔊 Well, have a listen to the first baby. That’s a beautiful calm feed! When a baby feeds like this, you may not get a burp up after a feed like that and that may be completely fine!

Now listen to the second little bubba. You can HEAR all that air going down and hitting her belly like drum. 💔

Can you see why I have an issue with this blanket statement? Because “breastfed babies don’t need to be burped” gets handed out to you without someone sitting down and actually listening to how your baby is feeding.

Here’s the bit I really want you to know, because it’s what I find myself explaining to parents almost every single day.

That air your baby is swallowing doesn’t just sit quietly in the bottom of their belly. Think about drinking a coke, or anything fizzy, really fast. All that gas gets trapped and it has to go somewhere. When you burp, sometimes the fizz comes up with it, either the fluid or the gas and it will either make you cough or tickles your nose enough to make you sneeze!

That’s essentially what’s happening in your baby’s tummy after an airy feed!

Your baby’s tummy fills and stretches and that stretch is one of the main reasons for the little valve at the top of their stomach to open. That valve is meant to open, it’s how your baby burps! But when it does, milk comes up along with that air bubble.

That’s why so many babies who get labelled with “reflux” actually have a belly full of air that nobody has gone looking for. The arching, the firm swollen tummy, the stiffness, the crankiness, the spilling after every single feed. It isn’t always reflux that needs medication (if anything in these cases it can make the symptoms worse). Sometimes it’s the air swallowing that needs an explanation.

So wouldn’t it be better to say “try to burp your breastfed baby after their feed, but if the feed was calm and quiet they may not bring one up and that’s ok”? đŸ€·đŸœâ€â™€ïž That’s what we tell our parents.

❀ If your baby sounds like the second video, comment “REFLUX” and I’ll send you my reflux guide, so you can start helping your baby feel comfortable!

*for educational purposes only

Address

7/114 Cedric Street
Stirling, WA
6021

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 4pm
Wednesday 9am - 4pm
Friday 9am - 4pm

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Gentle Village posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Practice

Send a message to The Gentle Village:

Shortcuts

Share

Category