Kate de Kock BEd

We were at our wits end before getting hold of Kate, our little one was waking up between 3 – 8 times a night. I was so exhausted and my work was starting to suffer from my exhaustion. Whilst it was tough to start Kate walked us through it all and her encouragement was great. We even saw a huge change on the first night with him sleeping all the way till 2 am. Literally the change was amazing he basically slept through right from the beginning with a couple waking’s that he didn’t even need our help with. We got extremely lucky with our timings too as we got COVID the week our sleep training ended. Thank goodness for Kate as we could all three rely on the fact that we were all sleeping through the night and having decent naps. Thank you so much Kate you are a rockstar!!

Dear Kate, I wanted to express my gratitude for your professional and supporting help! I honestly don’t know how we would have managed things without your help or for example hosting 12 people for the upcoming Christmas dinner if sleep time where what it used to be in the past – a horror! I can’t believe how only 2 weeks could have changed a baby that was so needy of a dummy (absolute addict!) and breastfeeding after EVERY 45mins EACH night to a baby that contently turns away after his night routine as if to say “thanks guys. I’m done for today” and falls asleep without a whimper by himself.

I find myself sitting on the sofa looking at videos and pictures of our baby on my phone because I am still not used to him not permanently being around to me. Being aware that there will be ups and downs in the progress of a child’s sleep development (teething, fever, illness, growth spurts), we now have a basis – something I was not able to establish before; I think I was too overwhelmed with just coping. Thanks to your help we finally feel in control!

Your guidance was super clear, fast, flexible and also understanding when having to postpone multiple times (sorry!). What touched me so much is that you were never judgemental – even when I was drifting off from the plan when feeling weak.

My husband and I haven’t sleep so well in a long long time! Before and after the coaching feels like two completely different lives that we led. The first being so desperate and controlled by our baby's sleep deprivation and frustration, the second being in control and getting our lives back.

We have already recommended you to others and would defo get back to you, if we feel a bit stuck!

I was initially a sleep-training sceptic...until I had a baby :)

As a newborn, our baby was initially a good sleeper, however, between 4 and 6 months her sleep started to regress and we ended-up with a 6-month-old that woke up 4 times a night, constantly wanted to be fed and relied on a dummy / pacifier to fall asleep. The daytime nap pattern was also erratic, and even though I thought we had a good schedule, nothing was improving. I realized that I did not have the knowledge and tools to improve this, despite my own research attempts.

When we started the 2-week plan with Kate, I immediately started seeing an improvement by just applying the principles that she helped me with. Within the first week our baby was sleeping through the night! I honestly did not think that it would be possible ("yes, maybe for other people, but not for us..."), but luckily I was humbled and pleasantly surprised at how things immediately improved. We went from being over-tired and constantly in survival mode, to being well-rested and able to give our baby our full presence and energy during the day.

I was really impressed with both the method that we used, as well as how Kate guided us. She is an excellent listener and communicator, pays attention to all the details and provides professional assistance with empathy. She tailored the plan according to our needs and what we were comfortable with, and was able and willing to answer all my questions (even beyond the sleeping theme!).

In short, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! Sleep is sanity and our babies need us to be present for them when we are awake.

Mum to 6 month old

Hannah was barely sleeping. She was up every 30-60 minutes most nights with the occasional 90 minute- 2 hours stretch. Her day naps lasted for 20-40 minutes. This left me feeling beyond exhausted and very emotionally overwhelmed as the limited sleep made her unhappy and very clingy.

My husband and I were anticipating a rough 2 weeks, however, Hannah settled in 9 minutes on night one and slept through on night two. She did moan occasionally but as Kate had explained the process clearly, we knew to let her try to settle herself and if she got upset to go in and reassure her. This only happened once or twice during the whole process, and she was able to settle herself in a couple of minutes.

Kate set up regular check-ins and this gave me confidence that if the night had gone badly, she would be able to reassure me and advise where needed.

This process literally changed my life. I was going through a real tough time. Hannah was sleeping in my bed and my husband was sleeping with our son to try and maximize the little sleep we were all getting. I was always short with my family and would take out my exhaustion on them. We are now all sleeping in our own beds and have a good night’s rest. Hannah is so much happier as am I.

Kate was lovely and never made me feel that any question I had was silly. She was a true partner in this process and I will be forever grateful for her.

There is no value I would put on this experience as it has given me a happy family and much needed sleep for us all.

Mum to Hannah

When we decided to get Kate on board to support us, we were in a desperate place. I had not slept properly in 10 months! My baby napped brilliantly during the day but was up all night. She was waking every 2.5-3 hours, doing many false starts and not re-settling for ages. I was up about 3 or 4 times a night, latching her to get her back to sleep and occasionally falling asleep in her chair.

Kate led us through her programme and we started straight away – I couldn’t lose one more night of sleep!

On night one, I dropped all milk feeds (she was 10 months after-all) and although it was an interrupted night, we saw breakthrough even on the first night. On night two she slept 7.5 hours straight! Night three brought a joyous 11 hours straight, from 7pm-6am! Life-changing! My baby girl did herself and us proud and we felt SO accomplished.

We have now had an entire MONTH of our baby girl sleeping through the night. Why didn’t we call Kate sooner!?

Kate is the most genuine, approachable person and is so understanding and non-judgemental. She knows what it is like to be sleep-deprived and so she has walked this road and gets it. She was so supportive, through regular Zoom and telephone calls and was so encouraging throughout the two-week programme.

I was so scared to take on any form of sleep training, but Kate’s approach serves both the baby and the parents. I felt I could support my child in learning new skills. She now sleeps, on average 11-hours per night and my husband and I have uninterrupted evenings together and sleep soundly at night.

I am SO grateful to Kate for the gift of sleep and would highly recommend her. Don’t lose another night of sleep!

Mum to a 10 month old

Josh has never been a sleeper. From day 3 after being at home with him from the hospital he just couldn’t sleep, we’d be up all night, bouncing on the exercise ball, standing with him in the baby carrier or just bouncing and rocking on our feet. ANYTHING to try and get him to stop screaming and just sleep!

After countless x-rays, blood tests, medication etc. the doctors could not give us a clear indication of what was causing Josh so much pain. The only way he could sleep was on his stomach, for no longer than an hour at a time, if we were lucky. He had terrible colic, silent reflux and what seemed to be Dischezia. He cut his first two teeth at 4 months old. It has not been easy to say the least. Some days (24 hours) I’d get no more than 3 hours of sleep. I was beyond exhausted! Working from home with no maternity leave, a toddler and a baby who just wouldn’t or couldn’t sleep has been incredibly tough.

Once Josh’s stomach problems seemed to be alright, I contact Kate to please help my little boy just try and get some sleep. From night 3 of the sleep training program Josh was sleeping for 6 hour stretches. From night 7 he was sleeping “through”. He would still wake during the night, but was settling himself back to sleep. I cannot thank Kate enough for her guidance and her gentle approach to helping my little boy to sleep. My household is much happier, my little boy is much happier and we ow it all to Kate’s guidance and constant encouragement. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart!

Parents to Josh

Our daughter Annie was 17 months and had once been an ok sleeper. However she was quite poorly and during the recovery had got used to sleeping in our bed and not going down until she was absolutely exhausted and too tired to cry. If we tried to put her in her cot she would stand up and shake the sides whilst screaming the house down. It was awful and we would crack, keep her with us while we tried to have dinner and then do things like have her in our bed, pretend to sleep next to her and move her into her room when she was asleep. Invariably she’d wake up in the night and cry again, typically ending up back in bed with us. Early wake-ups (5am-ish) were common so all in all we were exhausted, all of the time.

We decided enough was enough and found Kate through a referral from a friend. Annie was 17 months old when we started and it was really tough to do so. We had some hope that we would get her back on track by the end of the two week plan but were shocked at how quickly the plan took effect and started working. We won’t lie, the first night was tough but we all got through it. We had had the pep talk from Kate before hand and we spoke to her again the next day for reassurance. Within three nights Antonia was sleeping within 10 minutes of being placed into her cot and now, three weeks later, she is going down with only a few moans or two minutes crying at worst. On top of that, we got rid of her dummy(s) within two nights of starting the two week plan and we never thought we’d manage that at all, let alone in such a short space of time.

As anyone reading this testimonial will know, sleep deprivation is the worst. It ruins the nice daytime moments with children and makes everything harder. Since we did the two week plan we’re sleeping so much better and Annie is down for 11-12 hours per night and isn’t crying for us until 6am at the earliest. Its such a big improvement from where we were just a month ago so we are incredibly grateful. Kate was very good at talking us through the plan before we signed up and then covering it in much more detail once we had. She was on hand for a call every couple of days which was as much as we needed. We did feel that we had a direct line to her if something was going wrong which fortunately, it wasn’t.

All the best

N & L. London, February 2022

“Thank you Kate! Complete game changer for us and cannot recommend you highly enough. With a 10 month old still waking up numerous times throughout the night and having to feed/co-sleep in order to get some much needed sleep, we were completely desperate, particularly as I was due to go back to work very soon. Our baby could only be breastfed to sleep or by walking in the pram and I couldn’t ever envisage her just being able to fall asleep on her own – absolutely no way! So every nap time I was having to go out (rain or shine) for a walk round the block in the pram and could never get on top of household chores or get any sort of rest generally. We had tried some “sleep training/controlled crying” as heard of via friends/on the internet but this was exactly what we needed as it was a structured plan with ongoing support and advice. Was expecting a long haul and lots of anguish but literally on night 1 the results were in evidence and Kate had given us the confidence we needed to really make it work. Now I am back at work and she is going to sleep at bedtime in her cot on her own until we go in the next day at 7am to say good morning. The effects of sleep deprivation should not be under estimated and we are all visibly happier and healthier now. My biggest regret in life is not doing it a lot sooner - we took back control of our lives!.”

Mum to 10 month old

Having a baby was the best thing that happened this year. Getting Kate to help with our baby's sleep training was the second best thing. Like all new parents, my husband and I were not prepared for the lack of sleep we would get smacked in the face with while raising a newborn. We turned to the internet for help and were inundated with far too many different voices and advice.

Kate's newborn plan got us started on the right track by setting really good patterns in place and her actual sleep plan was great in that it was personalised to fit our baby's specific needs! I liked that Kate never made me feel like we were wrong because we did something a particular way but she did explain to us what those consequences would be and we needed to decide what outcome we wanted.

Our baby has slept through the night since 3 months old and he currently takes two 1+ hour naps in the daytime. We've been able to have people over for dinner, have other people babysit him and travel abroad together as a family all because he sleeps so well through the night. People remark that he's quite a chilled and happy baby and I know that a lot of factors affect his personality but I think that one major factor is because he is so well rested!

This is not to say he's been a perfect sleeper every night since we've sleep trained. But we've been able to brave through every teething issue, illness and major milestones like flipping himself over in the night and sitting up because Kate's work laid a foundation for us to understand the importance of staying consistent and that that consistency pays off and after a few days (or yikes, weeks!), our little boy will eventually go back to loving his sleep and sleeping well!

Mum of 3 month old

Katie was an absolute life-saver! We started working with her when our second son Louis was 3.5 months old, and his sleep was just going from bad to worse. The long, sleepless nights were really starting to take their toll on me - I lacked the energy (and patience!) I needed for my baby and my super active toddler! But working with Katie changed all that - Louis was sleeping through by night 3! What a relief to be able to put him down and know that he could hone into those internal skills he's always had, and put himself soundly to sleep. I don't think we quite realized how anxious we were before, and how much our lives were dominated by his restless sleep until he actually started sleeping well! Louis is a much happier baby since the training, and of course, so are we!

Katie was so amazing throughout the process, giving us the support and encouragement we needed every step of the way. I would recommend her and the Baby Sleep the Night plan in a heartbeat!

Mum to 3 month old