hello, my name is nalani

MY APPROACH TO INFANT & TODDLER SLEEP.

I firmly believe as parents we should be encouraged to trust our instincts. To do what feels right to us and to listen when our gut is telling us something is off. But, as a first time mom myself, I also know it can be hard sometimes to even know what your instincts are, let alone trust and rely on them. Before I had Ruth I assumed my instincts would be all I needed - which was true to a certain extent but there’s so much more to our little ones and in my case, sometimes my instincts were missing.

When it comes to how I approach infant & toddler sleep and well-being, I always keep attachment, responsiveness, and biological needs at the forefront of my practice. My goal is to have your values and concerns heard and acknowledged, make you feel empowered and educated in your options, and confident in yourself moving forward.

I do not recommend sleep training or any variation of cry it out.

Buuuuut I also completely understand the sheer exhaustion it takes to get there. As a mama with a six month old who was waking every 20-45 minutes night after night week after week, I get it. And while we never attempted any sleep training with Ruth (luckily we found a baby-led sleep specialist who helped us out!!) I understand how exhausting and desperate abnormal infant sleep can be.

And while you can always “wait it out” (because believe it or not babies and toddlers actually will eventually sleep through the night with zero interventions *unless there is an underlying health condition) there are also lots of baby and parent led changes you can make to optimize sleep WITHOUT any form of sleep training,

In an age where sleep training is normalized and we’re meant to believe our babies and toddlers are manipulating us or have behavior problems that need to be “fixed”, I’m here to help you find an alternative solution. One that helps you trust your instincts and find them along the way.

I’m also here to help flip the script on what is and isn’t normal. Because if you’re anything like me, whenever you’ve googled something about infant sleep your baby always seems to be abnormal by societal standards, when in reality their sleep patterns are very very normal.

Night wakings well beyond a year, short cat naps, nursing to sleep, safer bedsharing, breast / chest feeding well beyond a year, home birthing, contact naps, not having a strict schedule, and so on are all very very normal concepts that have somehow been pushed to the wayside in our culture and I’m here to show you just how normal they are.

I make no promises or guarantees other than to help you trust your intuition.

All babies and families are different and therefore there isn’t a one size fits all when it comes to parenting. You know your baby best and are the best parent for them.