About BabyCalm

Sarah's Story

Sarah is a mother of four who initially studied Psychology, specialising in baby and child development, at University. Since then she has undertaken training in hypnotherapy, psychotherapy, homeopathy, HypnoBirthing, infant first aid and baby massage. She is also a birth and postnatal Doula (birth companion and new mother's supporter). She also enjoyed a five year long career working in the Pharmaceutical Industry in Research and Development (Clinical trials) and so understands the importance of scientific research.

Sarah's passion has always been for babies and children and she chose to specialise in this area professionally in 2002 after the birth of her firstborn. Since then she has worked with over 1000 families; helping them to settle into life as a new family as well as adding to her brood herself. BabyCalm™ started life in Sarah's living room in 2007, soon the uniqueness of Sarah’s BabyCalm™ work was realized in 2010 and the phenomenal demand for her services meant that Sarah needed to expand her company and train new BabyCalm™ teachers all over the UK. The response for this training was phenomenal with over 100 UK BabyCalmers being trained in the first year alone. 

Sarah believes strongly that all parents and babies deserve the calmest start in life, no matter what their beliefs or parenting styles. Sarah was struck that many of the subjects she talks about on her courses only seemed to belong to the realms of earth mothers and alternative types; whereas mainstream parenting products and advice given by the likes of Gina Ford, Tracey Hogg, Tizzie Hall and Supernanny, focussed on prescriptive routines and products to aid separation of mother and baby. She was also struck by quite how many parenting gurus gave strong opinions with little or no scientific evidence (or even parenting experience of their own!) to back up their claims. This, she believes, disempowers new parents who feel they lack this natural empathy and understanding, feeling the need to look to others to advise them on how to care for their own baby when in fact our best experts are our own instincts! Sarah strives to help parents to not only calm and understand their babies, but to help them to trust their instincts and make their own parenting decisions - confidently - without relying on somebody else's routines or manuals.

Sarah is currently writing a series of easy to read books about instinctive and gentle parenting, which she views as an antidote to the myriad of "parenting expert" books aimed at new parents currently available. Her first book, "BabyCalm™ - A Guide for Calmer Babies and Happier Parents" was published by Piatkus (part of the Little, Brown Publishing group) in October 2012 and a copy can be ordered HERE.  

 Sarah with Chantelle Houghton and Alex Reid at the ExCel Baby Show 2012.

Charlotte's Story

Charlotte graduated with a history & politics degree and worked in corporate business development, before setting up her own business at the age of 23. Over the last ten years, her business activities have taken her on an international journey through motorsport, manufacturing, distribution and retail. Charlotte is passionate about business and thoroughly enjoys the thrill of making a great concept come to life.

Having been terrified of giving birth, Charlotte took Sarah’s HypnoBirthing™ class; she went from considering an elective c-section to giving birth at home in a pool with no pain relief. She says that it was the most empowering experience of her life and enjoyed every minute of it. No one was more surprised than she, that she had given birth in such a way. And so began a great passion and interest in natural childbirth and rearing. Having taken Sarah’s BabyCalm™ class, the realization that being in tune with one’s own baby meant that her baby was content and so was she and her husband, further reinforced her belief that there was no need for instructions, regimes and charts telling her what to do when; just tuning in to her instincts and viewing the world through her babies senses meant that everyone was happier.

Charlotte met other mothers and saw firsthand how parents with fractious babies were able to gently sooth and calm them through the BabyCalm® Techniques and was overwhelmed with its success. With so many books and practitioners doing the rounds, spouting the do’s and don'ts of good parenting, disempowering the mother while programming the baby; Charlotte felt that there was more than a space for BabyCalm™ in the market, there was a social responsibility for it to be more widely available.

Jo's Story

BabyCalm^TM and ToddlerCalm’s Teacher and Training Liaison manager Jo is a mother to two young children, a girl and a boy.  Jo worked in The City in the Recruitment Industry for 7 years before having her daughter.  During her first pregnancy Jo was very focussed on reading up on the birth, but neglected to read anything on what to actually do with her newborn once she'd brought her home.  Having muddled through for the past few years and greeted the arrival of her son in that time, Jo always felt a little like she was just "winging it" and not really knowing what she was doing, constantly fretting over whether she was getting it "right" or not.  Discovering BabyCalm^TM helped Jo realise that she had simply been listening to her instincts all along, enabling her to relax and enjoy mothering her children whilst tackling the daily challenges that they pose! A graduate with BA Hons in Economic and Social History, Jo is a meticulous administrator responsible for keeping Charlotte and Sarah organised - no mean feat!

BabyCalm™ was awarded silver for "Best Baby & Toddler Class" in the 2012 Loved By Parents Awards