Meet ‘Baby2Sleep’

Meet 'Baby2Sleep'

Educating parents on normal baby and child development and sleep to support sleep and mental health through online video

I’m Nicole Ratcliffe, Founder of Baby2Sleep and a Holistic Family Sleep Coach. I live in Manchester with my husband and 2 daughters and have been running Baby2Sleep since November 2017.

Baby2Sleep came about after having an unexpected traumatic birth with my eldest in 2016, a breastfeeding struggle and a long running battle with severe sleep deprivation which nearly broke our family. We were not prepared for the difficult journey we encountered, and the support was extremely lacking. In late 2016 I was told about a sleep consultant and in a last-ditch attempt to save our marriage we hired her. From this moment on, everything changed. My baby started sleeping, my marriage was given time to heal, I found a passion for sleep, and it was always the topic of conversation with strangers at the park. In Summer 2017 I was offered the chance to train to become a sleep consultant with the lady we hired, and I just had to go for it. In late 2017 I was made redundant and was able to set up my business, Baby2Sleep. Over the years I have continued to be challenged by my eldest so have had to keep studying in order to keep her sleep on track, so luckily, when my happy accident arrived in March 2020, yes, 6 days before lockdown, I knew what I was doing, but I very quickly saw that so many others didn’t and what limited support there was pre-covid was ripped away and people were left trying to figure things out completely on their own. This is where my passion for supporting new parents came from, making a positive difference to their journey so they don’t have to walk into parenthood completely blind like we have all done before.

My children are my inspiration and my reason behind everything I do. I genuinely believe Sofia, my eldest, was given to me with the purpose to challenge me so I could change others lives, as without our journey, I wouldn’t be doing what I do now, and I wouldn’t have helped the thousands of people I have over the years. I don’t want my daughters to go through what me and my husband went through and countless other parents, so the only way I can see me making sure my girls get a better start to their parenting journey is to change it for everyone. Find a way to educate and support while fixing the broken system.

Prior to 2019 all the support I offered was personalised one to one support, and unfortunately this is something that ends up out of a lot of people’s financial reach. I know as we had to use a credit card to hire our lady. However, in early 2019 I was invited to do a sleep workshop at a nursery for the parents of the children they looked after, and the way I found myself breaking it all down and teaching the parents meant that they were all able to digest the information easily and implement the strategies I talked through. I then found out I was pregnant and decided I needed to find a way to keep supporting parents while on maternity leave and took my workshop and turned it into an online course using short videos on specific topics to help build on parents’ knowledge. These courses were for babies between 6 and 24 months and I had planned to create courses for older children and newborn babies, but we went into lockdown, and I wasn’t able to work much until my youngest started nursery at 18 months old. I then developed the Toddler2Child Sleep and Behaviour course for 2–6-year-olds and followed this with the Passport2Parenthood course to help expectant parents navigate the first 6 months of their baby’s life and prepare them for the things the antenatal classes don’t prepare them on.

I am more than a sleep coach for baby’s and children, I am an activist for making change happen. I want to see the support available to all new parents improve and be both accessible and affordable. I have multiple baby experts who have joined me on this mission and have contributed to my Passport2Parenthood course to help educate.

I don’t have an office or people working for me, I don’t have a marketing background or people who can support me financially, I do what I do because I believe it is the right thing to do. I would love to share 2 of my biggest achievements with you. The first is that my Passport2Parenthood course came in the top 7 Best New Parent Products or Services category in the Made for Mums awards, but of these 7 there were only 3 parenting courses, 2 of which share a following of over half a million to my 6000 and they have very established businesses. To know that I have done this all on my own and to be up there with 2 of the most established and well-known brands for parenting courses is just incredible. The second was that I was invited to be an expert speaker at The Baby Show in Manchester, something I could have only dreamed of. Their stage is filled with celebrities and well-known baby experts, so to be in the same line up as some of these people was just incredible, an absolute dream come true.

I genuinely believe that support should be affordable and accessible to everyone, and this is my mission. I have online courses that start from as little as £45 through to in depth handheld support. Nobody should have to suffer the way me and so many others have suffered. Education is key to helping your baby develop and sleep well without leaving them to cry alone.

If you would like to find out more about Baby2Sleep visit www.baby2sleep.co.uk

*This blog post is provided by the business owner featured – the views and opinions expressed on this blog are not our own.

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