Do you have to be qualified to be a sleep consultant?

When it comes to your baby’s sleep and your decisions around caring for them as a parent it can be so hard to know what to do. The world of Google (and social media) can be a really tricky place with tonnes of conflicting information and often people pushing their strong views. If want to hunt down some conflicting information check out some of the sleep training and the sleep without sleep training groups on Facebook - it’s terrifying!

The sleep industry is an unregulated industry so essentially anyone can call themselves a sleep consultant. I found this quite a scary thought when I started looking in to what I needed to do to qualify as a sleep consultant. This definitely didn’t sit right with me so I started looking at different courses. Again, this felt like a bit of a minefield with what felt like anyone being able to call themselves a sleep consultant teacher. I came across The London School of Childcare Studies and their course immediately felt right.

Their Sleep Practitioner Programme was made up of an intensive 10 week course followed by 18 assignments which for me totalled 19,000 words! The course covered babies and children up to age 10 and also had considerations for multiples and special needs.

For me, the course was also aligned with my feelings and views on sleep training and support, it would have been very uncomfortable to be on a course which advocated cry it out or prolonged periods of crying. My course was very gentle and focuses on trying to create the right sleep environment and good sleep habits first before looking at any sleep training. The sleep training is then very much on the gentle side and allows us to work with parents to including crying up to a level that they are comfortable with and even then crying is in very limited amounts.

I have had friends who have worked with sleep consultants who have suggested cry it out or leaving baby to cry for 20 minute blocks at a time along with going cold turkey for babies who have been feeding multiple times at night and yes, they saw results quickly, but the second their baby is ill and needs more support they end up having to go through sleep training again

The London School of Childcare Sleep Practitioner Course has given me the skills needed to help create happy independent sleepers who have better results for longer. The course was brilliant and I happily passed with Distinction.