Dr Lauren Fisher - Baby Clinic

Struggling with an early riser?? 4am wake ups are exhausting!!

Swipe through for some things to consider and ways to combat this.

If you found this useful, comment 'sleep needs' and I'll send a link for a free guide you will love. Discusses how much sleep our baby's need and even includes a calculator so you don't need to do math 😅

Follow for evidence based advice for thriving in the first 12 months as a new mum!

Makes me quite fired up 🔥

Have you been given advice that you found out later was incorrect or outdated?

Doors close tomorrow! Last chance to get in on the Responsive Baby Sleep Program at an insanely low investment for the first testers! Trust me, it won't be at this low investment again.

And I am also adding in the option to do the program as a 1:1 for less investment that it usually is for a 1:1 consultation 🤯

This is purely because I value your feedback so I can make it even better for other parents next time.

Includes lifetime access, including any future updates :)

This is for you if:

✨️ You want to further understand your baby so you can support them to thrive

✨️ You want to feel confident among a world of conflicting information

✨️ You are struggling with your baby's sleep and want a clear path forward

✨️ You love breastfeeding to sleep but don't love the frequent night waking

The information every parent needs in their postpartum journey. Evidence based and designed to help you thrive together.

Comment 'program' for the link
Doors close tomorrow!

I just realised none of my posts from instagram were getting shared to Facebook. I have now shared them so you may have gotten bombarded with posts 😅 oops!! 🤦‍♀️

Are you struggling with a baby that wakes frequently in the night? Or wakes for ages in the middle of the night?

Responding to your baby important to you but what you are currently doing is taking its toll.

This might mean you need to reset your babies circadian rhythm and improve their sleep foundation.

You can do this with some simple, easy to apply strategies.

Want to know more? Comment 'science' for a 🔗 to more details

Ever feel pressure to stop supporting your baby to sleep because you are told babies should be able to self settle?

Are you made to feel anxious that you are creating bad habits or a rod for your own back?

This idea that babies can learn to self settle and that supporting them to sleep is setting you up for failure is completely false.

It really annoys and upsets me that mums are made to feel like they are doing something wrong, when they are doing everything right.

Babies do not have the ability to self regulate emotions, that part of the brain does not develop for many years. This is fact.

So if your baby or toddler is distressed and needs help to get back to sleep at night, do not feel guilty for providing that support.

You are providing them with what they NEED to sleep and feel calm and safe.

That is a beautiful thing.

Do not let anyone take that away from you.

Hi 👋 I'm Dr Lauren Fisher, a general practitioner and mum. I am passionate about helping mums improve their babies sleep using responsive, flexible and evidence based strategies.

Follow for more baby sleep tips :)

Are you struggling with a baby who wakes every 1-2 hours overnight?

You're a responsive, nurturing parent but the frequent night waking is exhausting and taking its toll.

You may have even tried multiple strategies without success.

Two of the most common mistakes I see is:

1. Putting your baby to bed at a set bedtime rather than when their drive to sleep is highest.

This means they are often going to bed before they are ready, which leads to frequent waking in the night.

2. Doing naps in the dark. This can disrupt the body clock, also leading to frequent night waking.

If you are struggling with knowing what to change to improve your baby's sleep but you just know you want it to be responsive, then I have the perfect solution for you.

I am offering my new Responsive Baby Sleep Program to my special founding members on the waitlist for 70% off. Doors open soon!

Comment 'program' if you want to learn about the science of sleep and how to encourage longer stretches of night time sleep while still being a responsive, nurturing parent.

Now is your chance.

Taking ages for your baby to fall back to sleep overnight can be caused by many different issues.

If it is occurring over a long period of 1-2 weeks and there is no obvious illness, there is a good chance their biological sleep regulators are disrupted.

Circadian rhythm is one of these, which I have a free guide you can have to learn more about it. Comment 'science' for a link to this.

It could also be due to a lowered drive to sleep due to too much day sleep, or not enough day in the day.

Struggling with how to improve your baby's sleep?

Get support with the Responsive Baby Sleep Program. Comment program for details or see pinned post.

You don't always have to have it together and have all the answers.

It's okay to admit you need help.

It does not make you a failure, it does not make you a bad mum, and you are not expected to know it all.

Prioritise yourself sometimes. It is good for you, your relationships and your family to look after yourself and your Wellbeing.

It is not selfish!

Save this as a reminder to your future self. Next time you are holding back from reaching out, giving yourself what you need, or prioritising yourself.

Signs you would benefit from the Responsive Baby Sleep Program:

✔️ You are struggling with your baby waking every 1-2 hours and you are exhausted.

✔️ Being responsive to your baby's needs is important to you and your family but you are confused and overwhelmed by how to manage your baby's sleep.

✔️ You breastfeed to sleep and would love to continue, but the current patterns of sleep are not sustainable.

✔️ You would love a more flexible approach to managing sleep that doesn't lead to a baby waking a lot overnight

✔️ It takes you a long time for your baby to fall back to sleep overnight.

If you answered yes to any of these, you would benefit from the program.

Get 6 weeks of support, multiple bonuses, lifetime access to course content, and more for just $149.

Comment 'program' for 🔗 to get on the waitlist to get access to this deal. Doors open soon.

It is mother's day coming up so I want to gift a free consultation to mum needing support with sleep.

For those that don't know me - hello and welcome to my corner of the internet, I am Dr. Lauren Fisher, a doctor (General Practioner) from Dunedin who helps families improve their babies sleep using sleep science and responsive approaches.

I am passionate about getting the word out there about evidence based sleep strategies because most of the information given to mums go against what we actually know about sleep, development and attachment.

There are really effective ways to improve sleep AND they strengthen parental bonds, so it is a win win.

Interested to know more? I am giving away a free consultation to a lucky mum.

Tag another new mum in the comments, share this post, and follow me on instagram or Facebook.

I will announce a winner on Mother's Day.

They can be from any location as I will set it up by video call.

Get excited!!

I have decided to re-brand so my website is under my name rather than Best Beginnings. The reason for the decision is partly due to the existence of another business using the same name - so I want to avoid any future issues. Plus using my name for the business means I am less likely to run into problems in the future and it will grow alongside any future changes.

With this change is a change of logo and website domain name.
The old website address will still work, but will be slowly updating the links! Let me know if you run into any issues.

Would love your thoughts on the new logo! (Doesn't include the yellow background but do I love yellow so you might be seeing more of it 💛 😍 )

Just giving everyone a heads up if they start seeing different logos and colours popping up and wondering what is going on haha :D

Day-care still predominantly do naps in the dark because that is what is mainstream through sleep training strategies.

I would encourage you to talk to daycare if you do naps in daylight at home! Ask if they can accommodate this. This is a great thing to ask about when looking for a daycare too. It is important they are able to be flexible to support your families needs.

Wondering why naps in daylight is recommended? Comment 'sleep' and I will send you more details about why this can improve night time sleep! :) but in summary it is an important way to optimise both important regulators of sleep to allow longer stretches of sleep at night

Have a set wake up time for your baby and wondering what to do for daylight saving this Sunday?

Incrementally shift their wake up time later by 15 min each day. It is easier to do this ahead of time (starting Wed or Thursday) if they need to be in day-care by a set time the following week.

If you are like me and their wake up time has got gradually later, you can also use it as an opportunity to make their wake up time an hour earlier! For example if they normally wake at 7.30am, wake them at 6.30am on Sunday when the clocks change.

It works out great for us as we need to start waking my daughter earlier for day-care anyway!

Want to know why you should have a set wake up time for your baby if you are not already doing this?

Comment 'sleep' and I'll send you a free guide that explains all about it (plus some other great tips)

You are not failing as a parent if you ask for help. Whether that is from friends, family or health professionals.

There are health professional experts in the area you are struggling with, that have spent many many hours learning what you need to know. There is no shame in not having all the answers and needing advice.

You cannot know everything and sometimes you just need some useful, accurate information to steer you in the right direction from someone you trust. That is okay!

Happy Easter everyone! Enjoy today with your beautiful families

I haven't been posting as much as I am working on something for you all behind the scenes. I will get back to sharing some great tips and tricks soon.

In the mean time, how are you all going? I'd love to hear what you got up to for Easter or how life is right now.
Comment below :)

Find out the five daily things I do to optimise my baby's night time sleep! The same strategies I teach many of my clients

Evidenced based, responsive, and simple!

Comment five and I'll send it over :)

We are all told or given a list of tired cues and told to put our baby to sleep at the earliest possible opportunity. But can I invite you to experiment with an alternative way of thinking about your babies 'tired cues'.

Babies can get grisly for a whole range of reasons. Hunger and need for changing environment or experience are the most common reasons. Many parents assume their baby is tired when they start yawning, getting grisly, and it's been a couple of hours of awake time.

Did you know that babies have a huge drive for a rich and changing sensory experience? Sensory experience is just any experience which they can feel, touch, smell, see, hear. What they want to experience can change moment to moment. Do they want a warm connection with you? Or maybe they want a fresh environment they haven't seen before such as going outside or meeting new people.

I want to open up some experimentation for providing this rich and changing experience when your baby starts to 'dial up' (ie get a bit grisly) and see if this helps, rather than making the assumption they must be tired. Try stepping outside, does this calm them down?

Do it for a day and let me know how it goes in the comments below :)

Wake windows are extremely widespread, but are they helpful?
There are many reasons I don't agree with wake windows...

1. Babies have a wide range of normal sleep, from as little as 10 hours to over 18 hours in a 24 hour period. They can also last various lengths of time without a nap. So inherently, a strategy that tries to fit all babies into a single box is not going to work for the babies that don't fit into that perfect average . I have a blog post on my website which discusses this in more detail.

2. Nap times and bedtimes have variability depending on the amount of activity levels, the amount of recent sleep, sickness, sensory stimulation and various other factors which wake windows fail to take into account

3. It means parents are more likely to follow the clock than their baby. For example if a wake window suggests 2 hours and the baby starts getting grisly, rather than be curious about why and experiment with what they need, parents assume they must be tired because that's what the wake window has suggested. Or parents will put them down at the first sign of a yawn.
Will have another post exploring tired cues a bit more, so watch this space

Struggling with all the conflicting advice that doesnt work for your baby? Want evidence based solutions? I have a great guide which gives you the first step to getting a good foundation for your babies sleep, based off the science of sleep. Just comment science or click link I'm the bio. And follow me for more evidence based tips on sleep, breastfeeding and postpartum.

Struggling with a baby that wakes frequently in the night, leaving you feeling exhausted with little energy to do what you love? You have probably googled every strategy and analysed your babies sleep. There is so much conflicting advice that you have probably tried to navigate with little success. Unfortunately, a lot of the information we receive as mums has very little evidence behind it. I get messages from mums wanting some quick tips to try implement, so I have created a guide to share with you all.

This free guide which contains two really simple steps to create a good foundation for your babies sleep. I delve into the science in an easy to understand way so you can decide for yourself if it is something you want to try.

If what your doing is working then you don't need to change it! But if your baby is waking frequently in the night and you are exhausted then I highly recommend making sure you are doing these two super simple steps.

Just click this link for more info ... www.bestbeginnings.co.nz/freebie

I feel like I need to tell you a little bit more about the person behind the screen. I want to connect!

Besides what I do for work, I am also a mum to a 9 month old which keeps me pretty busy alongside my work. Most of you know by now I work as a GP but my real passion is helping mums postpartum, which is why I started Best Beginnings. I'd love to do this full time as the business grows but currently juggling many hats makes this a slow process! :) Good things take time.

Before being a mum I spent most of my spare time hiking, packrafting, sailing, or anything else I could get my hands on in the outdoors. Multi-day tramps were my favourite thing to do because I loved the peace it gave me getting into nature. I have just started getting back into longer walks with my daughter and am really enjoying it. I also love creating, writing and reflecting. I'm a deep thinker and I enjoy growing, which is part of why i love both writing and hiking, because it gives me free flow to do those things without the societal noise.

Since being a mum it has been very challenging to find time for the things that fill my cup, but I know how important it is to look after myself so I have energy to give my daughter. I do this by going for walks, heading to the local beach, spending time with friends or just sitting outside on the grass with a podcast while my daughter plays!

I want to know what your passions or interests are and how do you integrate it now you are a mum? If you are struggling with this, maybe think about ways you can integrate it in small ways. This is really important to do intentionally, otherwise time goes by and we have neglected ourselves for our family. To be the best for them, we need to give care to ourselves first.