Are you a sleep coach, doula, IBCLC, breastfeeding counsellor, maternity nurse, GP, midwife, nursery teacher or other child or health care professional? If so, this exciting and dynamic 2-day conference will inform, equip and empower you with tools and knowledge to serve your clients and patients better.

Something for everyone

Whether you enjoy nurturing your inner geek – listening to International thought leaders and adding new information to your existing skills, or whether you are looking forward to networking with other like-minded professionals, the Holistic Sleep Conference has something for everyone.

Flexible learning options

Choose to attend in person, watch the live stream, or receive the recording – it’s up to you! The recording of the conference will be available for 14 days after the event closes, so you have plenty of time to access the talks if your time zone or work commitments present a challenge. If you attend in person, there will be opportunities to brainstorm ideas with your colleagues, talk to our speakers and form new contacts. If you’re accessing the live stream or recording, we want to make it possible for everyone to interact with and ask questions of their peers, and our speakers. You can do this by heading to our Facebook page where we’ll be continuing the conversation.

What you’ll learn

We have carefully hand-picked our speakers to deliver a well-rounded program of holistic content to inform your practice. Are you fascinated by the relationship between mental health, depression, trauma and sleep? Or are you more interested in how infant feeding concerns interact with sleep concerns? Perhaps the adaptation to parenthood and making things easier for new families is what you enjoy? Or maybe you’re hungry for more sleep science?

Who you’ll hear from

We wanted to cover 4 main themes during this conference and we have an international powerhouse of speakers to help us get there:

1. Mental health – Dr Kathy Kendall-Tackett will be speaking about post-natal depression and sleep, while Alex Heath will be speaking about how trauma can impact sleep and how we can help.
2. Infant feeding – Professor Amy Brown will be sharing her research about the impact of implementing strict routines on infant behaviour and the consequences for parental mental health. Fiona Lang-Sharpe will be drawing on her decades of experience as a doula and IBCLC to share ideas and practical wisdom into the confusing area of ‘comfort feeding’.
3. Sleep science – Dr Dagmara Dimitriou will be exploring the impact of insomnia on psychological wellbeing, and the impact on the family of having a child with a neurodevelopmental disorder who can’t sleep. Dr Vicky Thomas will be exploring the mismatch between the expectation that doctors are well-versed in sleep science, and the reality that doctors receive very little training in paediatric sleep. Lyndsey Hookway will be giving an overview of how societal and familial attitudes to sleep management have changed over the last 200 years, and why we need to consider a different approach to sleep.
4. The adaptation to parenthood – This theme will run throughout the conference, but Dr Suzanne Colson will be sharing her decades of both practical and academic experience within early parenting support to help us understand the transition from pregnancy to parenthood, and the infant adaptation from womb to world. Kerstin Uvnas Moberg – a global authority on oxytocin, will be speaking about the role of oxytocin in stress management, and how promoting practices which increase oxytocin can enhance parenting confidence and responsiveness.

So, over the course of the 2-day conference, we will be building on these key areas and allowing our speakers to share with you their experience, skills, and research, as well as their top tips and practical tools.

A holistic sleep experience

The Holistic Sleep Program approach is to consider all the contextual factors and variables that have an impact on family functioning and wellbeing. The transition to parenthood can bring many changes and challenges to families. Our philosophy is to care about all the multiple factors that impact emotional, psychological, behavioural, physical, biological, familial and relational well-being, and consider how addressing issues in these areas can bring about an improvement with sleep. We also enjoy demystifying sleep science to make it practical and accessible for both professionals and parents.

Making the profound practical

At the Holistic Sleep Coaching program and conference, we take pride in our comprehensive and evidence-based approach to sleep. However, we don’t just regurgitate facts and science! We translate research into practice, so you will leave our 2-day conference not only with an appreciation for how the topics explored can impact sleep and family functioning, but also how you can help. All our speakers will be providing take-home tools and tips for you to implement in your work with families, whether sleep is your primary focus, or just a part of the puzzle.