Back in 2011, IPHI introduced the very first Holistic Pregnancy & Child Sleep Consultant Certification. It was created by our Founder, Mar De Carlo, and brought a lot more attention to essential topics that most sleep consultant professionals were not talking about at the time, and definitely weren’t evaluating as part of the overall child sleep work with families. That momentum helped Mar develop what we now call the Holistic Science of Sleep Method for Adult & Child Sleep, and later inspired her book, “Awakening Through Sleep.”
If your goal is to become a capable, deeply impactful holistic pregnancy and child sleep consultant, built to truly support families, we’re proud to be the first organization that launched a holistic no sleep training, team based approach in 2011. It starts during pregnancy, continues through the toddler years, and keeps a strong focus on the physical and emotional wellbeing of parents and caregivers, not just the child.
Most sleep training methods look at sleep through a mainly behavioral lens. They tend to center either the child’s side of things, or they lean toward a parent-led structure, sometimes even the “gentle” baby-led route. Our Holistic Science of Sleep Method works a little differently. It’s team centered, meaning we focus on what parents need as much as what the child needs. And importantly, we connect the parent’s patterns, routines, and day-to-day lifestyle with the child’s experience. Because a “child sleep problem” is rarely only about one child. It usually reflects a family sleep challenge that requires a full family review and support, something traditional sleep training approaches often weren’t built to handle.
A lot of sleep training models ignore the wider picture. That includes pregnancy and birth experiences, postpartum recovery, how families manage work and life demands, relationship dynamics, and how the child is developing and processing things. They may also miss the role of child psychology, plus the physical and mental health support that every family member needs to thrive during this season.
Where standard sleep training often uses behavior strategies to try to reach sleep goals, our Holistic Science of Sleep Method shifts toward health and lifestyle strategies that influence behavior. The idea is simple. When the body and day-to-day conditions are supported, sleep becomes easier to reach and maintain.
Instead of debating “baby-led” versus “parent-led,” we guide families using a team approach. We look at the whole family system and help everyone’s needs fit together in a way that supports healthy sleep.
We’re also excited to introduce the first developed, launched, and one-of-a-kind holistic approach to child sleep that begins before baby arrives. It’s rooted in our founder Mar De Carlo’s Holistic Science of Sleep Method and her book, “Awakening Through Sleep.”
“Our children’s bodies don’t need to be ‘trained’ to sleep. Human bodies are naturally designed to sleep, and they will, as long as we support the process. Our real work is figuring out what’s standing in the way.” ~ Mar De Carlo
Sleep develops in stages, kind of like how walking, eating, and talking do. And usually there are plenty of health and lifestyle influences at play. On top of that, parents often hold expectations that don’t match what their child actually needs yet, and they might not even realize those expectations can affect sleep.
The HSS Method doesn’t believe in one single solution for every family. We also don’t treat sleep as a cookie-cutter “sleep training” project. Instead, we use what our founder calls “Sleep Optimizing.” This means we take time to investigate imbalances in how people function physically, mentally, and emotionally, and we also look at outside influences like social, cultural, and environmental factors that can interfere with sleep. All of this matters because it may show up as adult or child sleep challenges during pregnancy, throughout parenting in infancy, and beyond.
When we look at sleep in full context, we consider physical, emotional, social, developmental, and environmental pieces. That’s how we support a family’s sleep needs with less frustration for both parents and children. And it’s also how we teach our sleep consultants to understand the natural factors that regulate sleep across a child’s stages of development, while still learning directly from the child. Too often, parents and professionals become so focused on books or rigid templates that they miss what their child is trying to communicate about sleep. In a way, the child is the “source,” offering information we need to keep noticing and learning from. They guide us as much as we guide them. We just have to be present enough to tune in.
