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Baby specialist training

Become a Certified Parent Consultant: Baby specialist

Offer the BabyCalm Education programme
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Join a community of change-makers 

Change the world...

Do you want to tell parents about babies and how awesome they are?

Baby specialist consultants have a width and breadth of knowledge about baby development and behaviour that is completely unrivalled with any training I have ever found.

You will be able to support and educate parents on neurological, psychological and physical development, normal infant behaviour, communication, reflexes and common health issues (from a non-medical perspective). You will be able to cover infant sleep from a normal, biological perspective and in the context of modern society, infant feeding and nutrition in all forms, carrying and handling babies in arms and in slings, the use of infant massage and movement, a whole toolkit of calming techniques and providing solid foundations for having calmer relationships in the future. You can read a full outline below.

We are educators, consultants and specialists, but not experts. Families learn how to be experts in each other more and more as we facilitate their calmer relationship.
With this knowledge you will offer bespoke parenting consultations for parents of babies 12 months or under and a programme of workshops and courses under the BabyCalm brand (with membership of the community). These include:

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Select from the options below to find out prices, timescales, dates, how to book, and what membership is all about.

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Outline of the course

CalmFamily core modules
Module 1: About calmfamily
A relatively quick module that takes you through the history, structure, values, approach and programmes within CalmFamily, including information about our projects in development.
Module 2: Childhood and families
In this module you will gain understanding of the social, legal, political, historical and anthropological concepts surrounding child-bearing, childhood and family life. You will also consider the complexity of the concept of family in our modern society and how this impacts practice.
Module 3: Neurological development
A brief introduction to developmental neuroscience, the evolutionary process that created the human brain and factors influencing the development of the brain, and how motivation works.
Module 4: Psychological development
This module provides the basic theories of developmental and social psychology including attachment, human needs, motivation and resilience.
Module 5: Sensory regulation
In this module we look in depth at the science of the senses, looking at the most up-to-date concepts of the 5 external senses, the 3 internal senses and the balance of regulation.
Module 6: Human sleep and relaxation
In this module you will study the neurological and physiological processes of sleep, what is normal for humans and the issues society faces in this regard.

​We will also look at the science of the different states of relaxation according to various schools of thought and research.
Module 7: Human nutrition
In this module we examine the basics of nutritional biology, human infant feeding, introducing solid foods, how humans intuitively eat, and the science of taste.
Module 8: The CalmFamily approach
This module covers the fundamental principles of the CalmFamily frameworks for:
  • Calmer relationships
  • Trouble-shooting human needs
  • Mental regulation
  • Sensory regulation
  • Emotional regulation
  • Repairing relationship ruptures
  • Learning and development
Module 9: Being a consultant
This module will take you through:
  • The role and limitations of a consultant
  • Planning and running consultations
  • Running the education programmes
  • Facilitating groups
  • Managing challenges
  • Membership of the CalmFamily community
Module 10: Running a business
In this module we will take a brief look at:
  • Setting up systems
  • Business operations
  • Legal and regulatory aspects of business
  • Business with authenticity
  • Avoiding common business mistakes
  • Marketing your business
Baby specialist modules
Module 0: Literature review
We call this module zero because you will dip in and out of this as you go along. This amount of reading is not possible for everyone so we do not insist that it is complete for certification.

To complete this recommended, but optional module, you will read ten excellent books and answer specific, short answer, questions on them that will hopefully expand your thinking, understanding and learning.

If you aren’t able to read any of the books, it is a good idea to ask a colleague or friend to summarise it for you in a quick chat so that when parents ask about it, you have some knowledge and can talk about it.
Module 1: Infant development
An in-depth module exploring all aspects of infant development, including the application of what we learnt in the neurology and psychology core modules to babies specifically. You will also explore how our understanding of infant development impacts parenting.
Module 2: Understanding babies
This module will provide a good understanding of what it is like to be a baby and how we can understand and continue to understand them, in order to better meet their needs and have the relationships we want to with them. This module covers:
  • The fourth trimester experience
  • Infant states
  • Infant communication
  • Play and learning in the first year
  • Common infant health issues
Module 3: Practical baby care
In this module we take a quick look at some important information and options around the remaining basic practical baby care activities, including:
  • Bathing
  • Changing and elimination
  • Swaddling

Module 4: Calmer relationships with babies
With the underpinning understanding from previous modules, we will explore how we approach having calmer relationships with our babies, and how we use our frameworks to support parents in an empowering way.

Module 5: Introducing nurturing practice
This module introduces you to the principles of CalmFamily's nurturing practice. Nurturing is designed as a practice that meets needs to the extent of nurturing, rather than simply meeting basic needs. This involves stimulating and soothing babies with touch techniques, movement, containment and by creating the right environment. During your training days, you will use the principles you have learned to gain confidence in supporting parents to use these techniques for nurturing babies.
Module 6: carrying babies - sling peer support
​This module will give you a solid base of understanding around carrying babies in arms, and in slings. This will be followed up during the training days with practical experience of using two specific slings in some detail, and to gain a basic understanding of how to (and how not to) support parents and encourage them to carry their babies in a variety of ways.

We cover:
  • The history of carrying
  • Carrying safely
  • The importance of carrying
  • A cultural perspective of carrying
  • Types of carrying tools
  • Your role as a baby specialist consultant in terms of carrying and slings

This module is brought to you by CalmFamily in collaboration with the Slingababy training school. It is co-written with Lorette Michallon from Slingababy and forms an essential part of receiving certification as a carrying peer supporter. having this certification will allow you to volunteer in support of sling libraries and offer other carrying services, in addition to your work as a baby specialist. To gain this certification, you must also attend the baby specialist training days.
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Module 7: Infant nutrition - birth to 12 months
This module was co-written by Emily Wilding, Sarah Oakley IBCLC, and Gill Rapley. (PhD), and on completion with practical elements taught by Emily on the training days, provides you with certification as a CalmFamily infant feeding practitioner. This is equivalent to being a breastfeeding or mother peer supporter with other breastfeeding organisations.

For infants of 0-6 months it covers:
  • The feeding guidelines
  • Types of milk and milk feeding
  • The science of human infant feeding
  • Normal infant feeding behaviour
  • Common feeding challenges
  • How to support parents with milk feeding
This section was written by Sarah Oakley.

For babies of 6-12 months this module provides an in depth understanding of the process of weaning, meaning the whole process by which milk feeding is replaced by solid foods over a period of several years.

It covers:
  • The guidelines on introducing solid food
  • The science of weaning
  • Readiness for solid foods
  • The practicalities of introducing solid food
  • Understanding baby food products
  • Our approach to supporting infant learning of food and eating
  • Our approach to supporting parents through this period 


Module 8: Infant sleep
This module takes you through:
  • The biological science of sleep
  • Gives a historical and evolutionary perspective of our societal sleep practices
  • Provides a good understanding of normal infant sleep
  • Critically analyses common baby sleep training strategies
  • Covers infant sleep safety in depth
  • Takes you through our frameworks for supporting parents with baby sleep​
Module 9: UNderstanding the baby "experts"
This slightly sadistic module makes you take a look between your fingers at the practices of mainstream baby “experts”. With no judgment at all, because I have followed their advice in the past, this can be challenging for some people. I do apologise, but as a Baby Specialist you need to know their techniques, so that you can properly support parents.
Module 10: Being a baby specialist
This final module, alongside your face-to-face training days, will prepare you for being a baby specialist consultant. You will gain a good understanding of the BabyCalm programme, of our principles and approach to facilitating learning for families, and you will have the chance to re-visit material covered in the face to face training.

Following completion of the modules (not including the literature review), and your training days, you will receive a certificate of basic training and will be bale to work as a consultant. You then have the choice as to whether you follow our recognition pathway to become fully certified.