Baby Sleep Consultants – What? When? Why?

Written by: Natalja Scheidegger Maia, Executive Contributor

Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.

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What is a Baby Sleep Consultant?

When you become a parent, a whole new world opens in front of you that certainly brings some new vocabulary into your lexicon. A baby sleep consultant/coach/practitioner becomes one of the new terms you may come across. How it is called may be slightly different, but the bottom line is the same it is an expert in pediatric sleep who offers help, support, advice, and education about a child’s sleep behavior.

When did it all start?

I would like to invite you back to the late ’80s, and early 90’s when the Internet did not exist (do you still remember those times?). Back then, parents’ source of information when it came to the questions of parenting or general care after their babies were primarily books, magazines, and family wisdom, that would have been passed on from generation to generation. Local childcare professionals played a big part, too, when the families needed advice on their baby’s sleep, routine, or feeding matters. However, it is fair to say that pediatric sleep was not the core of their day-to-day jobs, and they couldn’t provide the necessary support to all those families who needed it.

As a result, a new wave of specialists had started to play a more significant role in assisting families regarding sleep matters, amongst those were social workers, pediatricians, family doctors, neurologists, lactation consultants, nannies, etc.

At that time, there were no educational programs specifically dedicated to the organization of a child’s sleep and treating behavioral sleep disorders, so specialists relied more on their experience gained in the process of working with families, the knowledge gained from printed publications, and basic training offered by their professional institution or a local training program.

Thanks to the public access to the Internet in the late 90s, a new era of communication has emerged. It became possible to communicate online, participate in specialized forums and receive information. This was the basis for the development of the profession of a baby sleep consultant.

Participation in parenting forums has become an effective tool in the education of parents from around the world on the topic of a child’s and family’s sleep.

Professionals who drew knowledge and gained experience in the process of working with families gradually began to open their practices and earn respect and recognition in the field. By the year 2003, there were about 10 pediatric sleep consultants in the US alone. So, it is safe to say that this profession had its’ beginning just under 3 decades ago.

Up to this day, the profession of a baby sleep consultant is not regulated by law. However, the International Association of Child Sleep Consultants (IACSC) comes into play. This organization was founded in 2011 with the purpose to standardize the profession and control the quality of education of consultants.

I am very proud to be a member of IACSC and to be running my very own practice Natalja Maia Sleep Consulting, since the year 2021.

Why do we need baby sleep consultants?

Can’t you just get some advice from your local GP, family doctor, or a community health visitor?

The truth is that the subject of pediatric sleep has very limited coverage in medical schools across the world. For example, a national survey of US medical schools, conducted back in the’90s revealed that, on average, students had had just over an hour of teaching on sleep and sleep disorders. In the UK in the late 90, a survey of UK medical schools showed an even worse figure in the average teaching time spent on sleep, and its disorders in undergraduates were less than 5 minutes. The most recent research paper from 2019 suggests that not much has changed since the late 90s the average time devoted to teaching sleep science to undergraduates was 1,5 hrs. In comparison, the certification program I’ve undertaken to get my qualification to become a baby sleep consultant requires, on average, 250+hrs of studying.

Not only the current curriculum in medical schools across the world won’t satisfy the level of required knowledge to offer help with behavioral sleep disorders. The most recent study, published in the Sleep Medicine magazine (the year 2022), indicates a strong need on raising awareness of what is a norm and what is not when it comes to the sleep behavior of their little ones. The study shows that out of 2219 participants (96,5% of mothers) with babies aged from birth to 3 years old who completed a one-time online survey, 96% expressed a desire for a change in one or another area in regards to their babies' sleep. Not always the perceived problem was the actual one.

Sleep is a basic human need and requirement for survival. Sleep disorders must be treated like any other types of existing disorders. When it comes to children, often we are dealing with behavioral rather than clinical sleep disorders that are treatable and often preventable. That’s when the expert, a baby sleep consultant, can make a difference not just for families, but for the next generations.

Yours,

Natalja Maia

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Natalja Scheidegger Mai, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine

Natalja Maia is an expert in baby and child healthy sleep as an essential part of healthy development and well-being. After welcoming her first newborn, she experienced in first hands sleep deprivation and never-ending tiredness that would often interfere with the joy of being in a new role of mother. This experience made her realize that if she was on the verge of collapsing from tiredness, surely her baby was not resting well either. The topic of baby sleep became not just a new learning phase but a true passion that led to a change from a successful career in the world of corporate travel to a helping profession of a child sleep consultant. She completed her studies and accreditation by Family Sleep Institute in 2021 and became the founder of Natalja Maia Sleep Consulting. She has been helping families from all over the world to overcome sleep hurdles as well as raising awareness of safe sleep practices and healthy sleep habits. Natalja is a member of the World Sleep Society and the British Sleep Society organizations.