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About Me

Baby Sleep Consultant

I’m a mother and a grandmother with over forty years experience as a baby sleep expert, maternity nurse, child-care expert, parental adviser and author. As a baby sleep expert, I get to fulfil my passion of helping parents to look after their babies and young children. I provide a consultancy services offering help and advice with newborns, growing babies and toddlers.

Remember - as a parent you’re doing the most valuable and important job you will ever do in bringing up your children. Don’t underestimate the value of your time, love and care in helping your child to be secure in an ever changing world.

Love, Rachel xx

I am the eldest of six children and my youngest sister is ten years my junior, so I grew up in a home where it seemed that there were always babies and young children around. I helped my mother look after my younger siblings, so caring for babies and children came naturally to me from a very early age!

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When I was seventeen, I attended a Doctor Barnado’s residential nursery training college in Kent to train for my National Nursery Examining Board Diploma. I began my training in the 1960s, before the Abortion Act and before the Pill was widely used and therefore a number of babies were brought into the unit to be placed for adoption. I also spent time in St Thomas’ Hospital maternity unit; so much of my life was immersed in newborn babies which I loved.

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Having completed my training, I went to London to take up my first job as a maternity nurse, looking after babies for twenty-four hours a day.

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I married a farmer and we had three children of our own. Whilst raising my own children, I also helped and advised friends with their newborns. Demand feeding was becoming popular at that time and I could see that friends’ babies weren’t settled and they were struggling with sleeping and feeding problems. This confirmed my deep feeling that babies and young children actually need a loving, but flexible routine and structure in their lives from an early age.

I returned to work as a nanny and maternity nurse and have now gained many years experience in this field!

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I continue to work as a maternity nurse and also now run a Baby and Childcare Consultancy business called ‘Rachel’s Babies’. I have written three books ‘The Baby Book – How to Enjoy Year One’, ‘The Toddler Book – How to Enjoy Your Growing Child’ and ‘Sleep Solutions – Quiet Nights for You and Your Child’.   I also speak at many different events around the country and overseas as well as running ante-natal baby courses.

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I am a huge advocate of creating a flexible, loving routine and have seen this method work very successfully for many years with my clients’ babies as well as with my own children and grandchildren.

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Click on the Consultancy page to find out more about the different levels of help and advice I can provide; from the basic level of email help and telephone calls to a 24-hour maternity nurse.

What Well Rested Parents Say

"Dear Rachel - you gave me the gift of sleep, and I'd say that's a pretty bog one for a new mother! Thank you for your kindness and wisdom. I'm so grateful for you."

Minnie Driver

Singer & Hollywood actress

Alice & Baby Sienna

"Thank you so much for all of your support and reassurance. ur advice and kindness were greatly appreciated and made such a fference during those early months. We're so grateful for all your guidance and for helping us through those sleep-deprived days!"

Emily & Baby Orlana

“Rachel, Thank you so much for listening to all my worries, a hug after a tough night and providing reassuring and supportive advice along the way! You're wonderful!”

Sophie & Baby Jacob

Rachel stole a number of headlines in the week of her book’s press date with a major feature in The Daily Telegraph, which was then picked up the same day by the Daily Mail and the Irish Independent, with a piece in The Sun the following day. Marie Claire  and The Express commented on the story the following week. The article was also picked up on websites and in papers around the world, including:Stuff.co.nz IOL.co.za Essential Baby.

Rachel was interviewed on Vanessa Feltz’s show on BBC Radio London the day that the Telegraph piece was published: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03qxjj1#play

Other interviews and features linked to the new book, in the UK and elsewhere, include:

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Press & Media

Rachel is often asked to speak and comment in the media:

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ITV News (interview and comment regarding microplastics and baby bottles) – 20 October 2020

BBC Radio West Midlands – (discussion regarding face masks for babies and children) – interview with John Fox (Foxy) – 5 August 2020

BBC 3 Counties Radio – (Home Schooling during Coronavirus) – 25 March 2020

BBC Radio Newcastle – (How we discipline our children) – 17 February 2020

BBC Three Counties Radio – (Flying with babies) – 7 October 2019

BBC Three Counties Radio – (Parenting methods today) – 4 October 2019

BBC Three Counties Radio – (children and screen time) – 13 August 2019

BBC 1 Breakfast News (Live streaming bedtime stories) – 27 April 2019

BBC Radio 5 Live (Live streaming bedtime stories) – 27 April 2019

BBC Radio 2 – Jeremy Vine Show (about screen time for children) – 26 April 2019

BBC Radio 4 – The World This Weekend with Mark Mardell (screen time) – 26 April 2019

BBC Cambridge – (screen time) – 26 April 2019

Three Counties Radio – (screen time) 26 April 2019

Radio London – (screen time) – 25 April 2019

BBC Radio Devon – 1 March 2019

Unilad piece about Kylie Jenner – 6 February 2018

This Morning (ITV) – 2 June 2017

Huffington Post –  2 June 2017

Daily Telegraph – 29 May 2017

BBC World Service – 29 May 2017

Premier Christian Radio (interview with Rachel about crying babies) – 3 April 2017

Exeter Life (article by Laura Dale. Bringing up Baby) – August 2016

Daily Mail (Rachel’s contribution to article on clean-food) – 13 January 2016

Premier Christian Radio (Interview) – 1 October 2024

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