meet lori - certified child sleep consultant

Meet Strong Little Sleepers

Hi! I’m Lori Strong and if you’re exhausted, I’m so glad you’ve made it here. I’d love to tell you about myself and how I became a child sleep consultant.

I’ve always had a passion for teaching and helping people. I received my BA in English and Elementary Education from Colgate University and my Master’s in Education from SUNY Cortland. I was an elementary school teacher and reading specialist for 8 years in New York and Pennsylvania before I had kids. My husband and I moved to Austin, Texas when I was 34 weeks pregnant. We were told at a birth class we attended that most first-borns are easy babies and would normally sleep well. The birth of our son, Jonah, brought a lot of confusion. Why did this child need to be held all of the time? Why did he scream every time I put him down? And why did he want to only sleep on me for the first four months of his life? I was exhausted and had to figure out all of this on my own because we didn’t live near any family.

I read every baby book and sleep book I could find and in time, I had a child that was sleeping on his own for naps and sleeping 12 hours at night every night. Friends and family told me I was just lucky that I had a good sleeper, but I knew that it was something I worked hard to have.

I was determined to give my daughter, Simone, a better sleep foundation from the start. Putting into practice what I learned a few months too late with my son, we paid careful attention to her sleepy cues and began placing her in her crib for naps early on. I was amazed at how easily she was able to put herself to sleep because I provided her with a good sleep environment from the start. She also became a great sleeper. Beginning at three years old, she was aware enough about the importance of sleep that she told her dolls “they need to have good sleep at night and it will help them nap better”.

For many years, I worked with friends who asked, “How do I get my baby to sleep through the night?” I helped them organize their nap schedules, gave them advice on how to handle traveling in different time zones (we travel a lot!), taught them how to swaddle the right way, and how to get over other bumps in the sleep road. When the opportunity arose in 2011 for me to become certified as a sleep consultant by pioneer sleep consultant Deborah Pedrick of the Family Sleep Institute, I jumped at the chance because I knew I could do more than just help my friends and family. I believe it is important to have as much knowledge as possible in your profession. Being certified through the Family Sleep Institute gave me the chance to not only read and do more research about sleep, but it also gave me access to many case studies and discussions that I would have never had.

I continuously seek professional development so that I can give your family the most up to date information about infant and toddler sleep. In 2013 I became a Certified Happiest Baby Educator through The Happiest Baby Education Association so that I could teach parents how to use the revolutionary calming techniques developed by pediatrician, Dr. Harvey Karp. These techniques have been proven to decrease newborn crying, reduce the risk of post-partum depression, increase breastfeeding success, and boost parental bonding and confidence. Other areas of study include sleep and potty training, sleep issues in children with special needs, sleep and post-partum depression, adult sleep issues, sleep safety and child care, SIDS, treatment of GERD in infancy, behavioral pediatric sleep disorders, bedtime battles and their basis in research, parent coaching, and working with the entire family to promote healthy sleep.

We offer child sleep services in Austin, Texas, but are able to help families around the country through Skype, email, and phone. When I am not helping other families get a good night’s sleep, I enjoy traveling with my family, cooking, gardening, reading by myself and with my children, and kickboxing. I also love the occasional weekend when I get to sleep late. I am excited to welcome you to Strong Little Sleepers, the go-to baby sleep site, and I look forward to helping your entire family get the sleep they deserve.

meet sara - certified child sleep consultant

Welcome! My name is Sara Strong and I’m the other half of Strong Little Sleepers. Lori and I have been sisters-in-law for over 15 years and friends even longer. It is my privilege to work beside her, helping families achieve the much-deserved sleep that we all need to be our best selves, whether parent or child.

Like many of our clients, I’m a mother, too, and have experienced the sleepless nights and the frustration and worry over why my child isn’t sleeping the way I thought she should be. I remember Lori going through her journey with her son’s sleep challenges and trying to apply what she learned with him to my own daughter, and feeling like it was my fault when I didn’t get the exact same results. I just didn’t realize that helping a baby learn healthy sleep habits is not always a one-size-fits-all endeavor! My daughter was so different from her son, but still had sleep difficulties that confounded me. She had jaundice when she was born, making her too sleepy and weak to nurse properly for a few weeks. That meant we fell into a pattern of my constantly holding her, her falling asleep nursing, and screaming whenever I tried to put her down.

We survived 5:00 AM wake-ups for months on end, her falling asleep every time she was in a car or a stroller, and waking every time the binky fell out of her mouth. When she entered the toddler years, my husband and I went months without spending any real weekday time with her as she fell asleep in the car the moment I picked her up from daycare and slept straight through until the next morning. That was what she needed and wasn’t really a sleep “problem,” but I sure had mixed feelings about having so much unexpected free time on the one hand, and missing so much of her life on the other.

Now, my daughter is ten years-old and can stay awake in the car for hours-long road trips and easily soothe herself back to sleep when she wakes at night, but we’re starting to deal with shifting circadian rhythms in pre-adolescence and learning to calm the mind at bedtime from new anxieties that come with this stage of development. Watching her grow and becoming an expert in childhood sleep, I have a powerful awareness of sleep being just as important for health and wellness lifelong as exercise and nutrition are. I feel driven to help our society shift its cultural attitude from viewing sleep as a luxury and the need for it as a sign of weakness.

And so joining Lori at Strong Little Sleepers has been a fit that feels meant-to-be. I live in Nashville, TN, with my husband, daughter, dog, and cat, but am able to help parents and children all over the world through consultations via phone, e-mail, Skype, and other electronic platforms. Lori and I are so grateful to have a relationship that is both personal and professional so that we can put our heads together to come up with the best ways to help families get the sleep they need to live the lives they want.

I joined Lori’s practice after spending 10 years as a speech-language pathologist working with adults in a hospital setting. I loved my job. I have always felt driven to work directly with people who need my help, and a passion for all things related to the science of health and wellness. As a speech-language pathologist, much of my work involved working directly with adult patients in crisis, gathering information from them about what difficulties they were having, using my knowledge to educated them about how their bodies work, and creatively coming up with a plan to help them improve their speech, thinking, or swallowing.

Eventually, as much as I loved my patients, I wanted to get outside of the healthcare setting and have more freedom over my career to help people the way they needed it most. I’m a huge advocate of personalized healthcare and wellness plans, and I wanted the ability to tailor assistance for a client to the needs, philosophies, and goals of an individual family. Lori knew of my search and aspirations, and also noticed that there were more and more parents out there needing help establishing healthy sleep habits in their homes. She helped me make the connection between my skill set as a therapist, my dream of helping people reach their goals in a different way, and the reality of the shortage of help there is for parents looking for a child sleep consultant to improve the health and happiness of themselves and their children.

I come from a background that heavily emphasizes evidence-based treatment and individualized care plans. Staying on top of the latest research is exciting to me, but I also am realistic about the difference between a research lab and a real family’s lifestyle demands and resource limitations. My happy place is the overlap between those two priorities, and making them fit a family’s goals is the most rewarding part of this work for me. Lori had been certified by the Family Sleep Institute and now is part of their faculty. I pursued and earned the same certification because I knew their approach matched my priorities for how to approach sleep science and health.

I would love to work with you and your family on reaching your sleep goals. Lori and I look forward to hearing from you and finding the sleep consulting package that best fits your needs.

Here are some child sleep success stories in Austin, Texas and other parts of the country.