Your Sleep Support

Baby & children's Sleep Consultant helping families with sleep from newborn, toddler to school age.

04/11/2026

A good routine should give you more freedom to say yes, not less.

When your day revolves around guessing the next nap, a routine can sound like another restriction. I focus on helping you understand your child’s sleep needs, not squeezing family life into a rigid timetable.

The aim is a predictable rhythm with room to adapt. That can mean feeling clearer about when to make plans, or helping your partner understand settling so you can take a break. Your needs belong in the plan too.

Send me a message to explore a sleep routine that fits your family.

04/11/2026

Why are we telling exhausted parents they might have to wait 2 or 3 years for decent sleep?

Some children do continue waking frequently into toddlerhood. But that doesn't mean every family has to accept years of severe sleep disruption without exploring what might help.

Ask me how I went from sleepless nights to 11 to 12 hours.

04/11/2026

Yesterday they napped beautifully.

Today?

Twenty-seven minutes.

And now you’re staring at the monitor thinking:

“What happened?!”

Short naps can feel disproportionately stressful because they immediately make you start calculating the rest of the day.

Do I rescue the nap?

Do I add another nap?

Do I move bedtime?

Are they overtired now?

Have I ruined tonight?

First: one bad nap is data, not a disaster.

Babies and toddlers aren’t machines. Sleep varies.

Before changing the entire schedule because naps have suddenly gone sideways, look at the pattern.

Has this been happening for several days?

Has anything else changed?

Are they approaching a nap transition?

Has the time they can comfortably stay awake changed?

Are they unwell or uncomfortable?

Has night sleep changed too?

And how are they actually coping when they're awake?

Sometimes a short nap needs troubleshooting.

Sometimes it’s simply a short nap.

This is one of the biggest shifts I want parents to make around sleep: stop treating every imperfect sleep as an emergency that requires an immediate intervention.

Look for patterns before you make decisions.

If your child's sleep has become so unpredictable that you're constantly changing something and no longer know what to try next, comment DISCOVERY and I'll send you the link to book a discovery call with me.

We can look at the whole picture rather than you having to solve every nap one at a time.

03/11/2026

Parents who survived months (or even YEARS) of broken sleep… can I ask you something?

How did you actually cope?

I'm talking about the nights you were awake every hour or two. The mornings you had to get up and function when you'd barely slept. The days when you wondered if you'd ever feel rested again.

Did you take shifts with your partner? Sleep whenever you could? Just somehow keep going?

And if your little one eventually started sleeping better, what changed?

I'm a children's sleep consultant, and I work with exhausted families every day. But I also think we need to talk more openly about what prolonged sleep disruption is actually like for parents.

Because yes, night waking is normal in babies. But that doesn't mean severe sleep deprivation should simply be dismissed.

Tell me your experience in the comments. I'd genuinely love to hear it.

03/11/2026

If bedtime feels heavy right now, I want you to know there’s a reason.

You’re not just imagining it.

I speak to parents every week who feel stuck in the same cycle.

Doing everything they can to help their child sleep…
but still ending the day feeling drained, frustrated, and unsure what to change.

And almost every time, I see the same patterns.

Bedtimes that come too late.
Routines that keep changing.
Needing to stay until their child is fully asleep.
Overcomplicating something that should feel simple.
And hoping it will suddenly click overnight.

Of course you feel exhausted. Anyone would.

But this isn’t about trying harder.

It’s about having a clear plan that actually makes sense for your child.

Sleep is something your child learns with the right support and consistency.

And once it clicks, everything feels lighter.

That’s exactly what I help you do inside my CALM framework.

Calm evenings. Clear steps. No more guessing.

If you’re ready to stop dreading bedtime and start feeling confident again, message me CALM or comment SLEEP and I’ll help you get started 🤍

02/11/2026

Before I change anything about a child’s sleep, there’s one question I want answered:

What problem are we actually trying to solve?

It sounds obvious.

But it’s incredibly easy to start changing sleep because something doesn’t look like what we’ve been told is “normal”.

Maybe your baby needs feeding to sleep.

Maybe your toddler still naps.

Maybe bedtime is 8pm rather than 7pm.

Maybe your child wakes once overnight.

And you’ve started wondering whether you should fix it.

But is it causing a problem?

Is your child struggling?

Are YOU struggling?

Is the current situation unsustainable?

Or have you simply seen another routine online and started worrying yours is wrong?

Because I don't want families changing things that work perfectly well for them just to meet somebody else's definition of good sleep.

On the other hand, if you're exhausted, bedtime takes two hours, you're dreading every evening or night wakes are affecting the whole family, then yes — let's look at what's going on.

That distinction matters.

Sleep support shouldn't be about chasing perfection.

It should solve a real problem.

So before you change the nap, move bedtime, stop feeding to sleep or introduce another new routine, ask yourself:

“What exactly am I hoping this change will improve?”

If you can't answer that yet, gather more information before changing everything.

02/11/2026

5am wake-ups don't automatically mean your baby has developed a bad habit. 🌅

One of the first things I do when a parent tells me their baby is waking at 5am every morning is investigate why.

Because before we start changing bedtime, dropping naps or introducing a new settling method, we need to understand what's actually happening.

Early morning sleep is naturally lighter, and sleep pressure is lower after several hours of sleep. That means things that might not disturb your baby at midnight can make a difference at 5am.

☀️ Light: Is the room getting brighter as morning approaches?

🔊 Sound: Could the heating, birdsong or someone getting ready for work be disturbing them?

🌡️ Temperature: Is their room comfortable throughout the night?

And then I'd look at the bigger picture.

How much daytime sleep are they getting? What time is bedtime? Are they getting enough total sleep across 24 hours?

Sometimes a small adjustment makes a real difference. Other times, we need to look more closely at their sleep patterns and how they're settling.

The important thing is that we don't automatically assume every early waking is a behavioural problem.

And please don't start cutting naps or pushing bedtime later without understanding the reason for the waking. That can sometimes make things worse.

💬 Is your little one an early riser? Tell me what time they're waking and how old they are.

Or comment DISCOVERY if you'd like help working out what's behind those early mornings.

YourSleepSupport

01/11/2026

What’s the perfect bedtime routine for a toddler? 🌙

Here's the thing. It doesn't need to be perfect. But it does need to be predictable. It's part of what I help parents understand in the CALM Framework. If you want to know more about it ask me in the DMs or comment DISCOVERY.

Toddlers thrive on knowing what comes next. And when bedtime follows a familiar pattern, it can help reduce uncertainty, make transitions easier and take some of the battles out of bedtime.

But there's something I always remind parents…

A lovely bedtime routine doesn't automatically mean a toddler will fall asleep independently.

You can do the bath, the books, the cuddles and all the calming activities in the world, but if your toddler still needs you beside them to fall asleep, the routine alone might not change that.

That's where we need to look beyond the routine.

💤 Is bedtime appropriately timed?
💤 Does your toddler know what's expected when the routine ends?
💤 Are boundaries clear and consistent?
💤 Have they had the opportunity and support to learn how to settle?

A good bedtime routine sets the scene. What happens after the final cuddle matters just as much.

And remember, connection and boundaries aren't opposites. Your toddler can feel loved, supported and reassured while learning a new way of falling asleep.

01/11/2026

Midterm doesn't have to mean protecting every detail of your routine.

My approach is about fitting routines to your family. Try protecting one thing: a familiar wind-down before sleep. Keep it simple and responsive to your child's needs, rather than another task to get right.

The three expectations you can relax completely? Bedtime happening to the exact minute, completing every step of a lengthy bedtime checklist, and making every day look identical. That isn't about ignoring tiredness or skipping needed sleep. It's about keeping something familiar without holding the whole holiday to a stopwatch.

Save this for midterm bedtime, and choose which expectation you're letting go of.

31/10/2026

🎃 Halloween excitement keeping your little one awake?

Between the costumes, parties, fireworks, trick-or-treating and all the excitement, Halloween can be a LOT for little ones to take in!

And sometimes, that excitement follows them right into bedtime. 👻

You might notice:
🎃 They're bouncing around when they should be winding down.
🎃 They're taking longer than usual to fall asleep.
🎃 They're suddenly worried about monsters or scary things.
🎃 They're waking during the night and needing a little extra reassurance.

But here's what I want you to remember...

One exciting evening isn't going to undo all your hard work with sleep.

You don't need to rush home from trick-or-treating to make bedtime happen at exactly the usual time.

Enjoy the memories. Let them have fun. And if bedtime is a little later, that's absolutely fine.

Give them a chance to wind down, offer reassurance if something has frightened them, and get back to your usual routine tomorrow.

Because good sleep habits aren't about getting every single night perfect. They're about what happens consistently over time. ❤️

Has Halloween excitement affected bedtime in your house this week? Tell me below! 👇

YourSleepSupport BedtimeRoutine

Address

Derry

Website

http://www.yoursleepsupport.com/, https://linktr.ee/yoursleepsupport

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