Winners Directory

I am a mum to Sofia, an incredible 3 year old girl, and currently have my second girl due in March 2020. I have personally found being a mum the most rewarding, but hardest job ever.

As someone who's main goal in life was to become a mum due to strong maternal instincts, it came as a bit of a shock as to how poorly I was coping with motherhood. Sofia was one of those baby's that decided sleep was something only other baby's did, and from this point, me and my husband really realised how much we needed sleep. We were not coping. We were arguing all the time, I cried a lot, Sofia cried all night. However, she was the happiest little girl in the day. Laughed all the time, smiled constantly and was a very sociable and alert baby.

No-one really understood how bad things were, and you naturally feel strange telling other mum's who seem to be coping well that you are struggling so severely. You start to feel like a failure. In the end, me and my husband ended up in marriage counselling and individual counselling. Both of our mental health was suffering and my Ulcerative Colitis was flaring up and we were both mentally and physically weak.

We really didn't know what to do. Health visitors kept telling me I was an anxious mum and talked me through controlled crying. To get told repeatedly that you are an anxious mum doesn't make you feel any better. To sit outside my 7 month old daughters room and listen to her cry while I cried on the stairs in the hall was not helping anyone. Co-sleeping didn't work. Feeding to sleep rarely worked anymore. The dummy was a constant but still didn't help her sleep. We were at our wits end and divorce was on the cards as there was no other solution that we could find and we were making each other worse.

When Sofia turned 8 months, someone suggested hiring a sleep consultant. We couldn't afford it, but we had no other choice. It was a cheaper option than a divorce. Within 2 weeks she was sleeping and this was the point our lives changed forever. I am not saying she was a great sleeper, she wasn't. She has taken a lot of work to keep her sleeping OK and learning about sleep to be able to understand her and her individual needs, but without this starting point, I would not be doing what I do now. I couldn't stop talking about how much things had changed, and as I had always wanted to run by own business, but was yet to find a strong enough passion to make me risk everything, this seemed perfect.

Baby sleep became my obsession and I started to study it. I took out loans to pay for courses, and eventually I was made redundant from my employment so used that money to set my business up and to continue studying. Over 2 years later, I have helped countless families change their lives, saved marriages and relationships, grown families for those who thought they wouldn't have more children due to how stressful the sleep deprivation had been, empowered others to make changes in their lives to help them for the better and so much more.

Since finding out I was expecting our second child, notice there is a larger gap than the norm, she will be 4 when her sister arrives, we couldn't have coped with 2 any earlier, I started to develop solutions to support families while I am on maternity leave and unable to be on hand as much as I am now. I then created an online sleep plan for babies between 6 and 24 months, the purpose been to teach parents about normal baby sleep and offer sensible solutions to help and empower them to support their baby to sleep better. I can now continue to support parents that need help without them having to work with me on a one to on basis. Of course, parents can if they wish, but this is aimed at a majority that truly want to understand baby sleep, feel knowledge rich and make changes at times that suit them without it breaking the bank. I am very proud of this product and the feedback I have received from the parents who have used it and look forward to seeing it become the go to for parents.

My personal journey is changing and my business journey is developing and I look forward to continuing to support families over the years to come. www.baby2sleep.co.uk https://baby2sleep.myshopify.com/ https://www.facebook.com/Baby2Sleep/