Sleep Online Course(s) & Continuing Education

Lyndsey is an experienced paediatric nurse, children’s public health nurse, International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, Holistic Sleep Coach, researcher and responsive parenting advocate. She has worked in hospitals, clinics, the community and within clients’ homes for 20 years, serving within the UK NHS, in private practice and voluntarily.
The co-founder and clinical director of the Holistic Sleep Coaching program, Lyndsey regularly teaches internationally, as well as providing mentorship for newer sleep coaches. She is passionate about responsive feeding, gentle parenting and promoting parental confidence and well-being.
With Professor Amy Brown, she is the co-founder of Thought Rebellion – an education and publishing company seeking to inspire, challenge and equip professionals and writers in the parenting, lactation and perinatal space with an evidence based revolution.
Lyndsey is currently a PhD researcher at Swansea University, exploring the needs and challenges of medically complex breastfed infants and children. In 2019 she set up the Breastfeeding the Brave project to raise awareness of the unique breastfeeding needs of chronically, critically, and terminally ill children in the paediatric setting. The mother of a childhood cancer survivor, she often talks about the impact of chronic serious illness on families, and seeks to support other families living through a serious childhood illness.
Lyndsey is a respected international speaker and teacher, and regularly speaks out against the dominant sleep training culture, as well as advocating for the rights of families to receive high-quality, compassionate and expert support. She is the author of Holistic Sleep Coaching (2018), Let’s talk about your new family’s sleep (2020), Still Awake (2021), Breastfeeding the Brave (2022) and co-author of The Writing Book (2022).

Christine is both a General Practitioner and senior lecturer in the Dept. of Paediatrics at The University of Auckland. She has taken a career long interest in Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy and is now a doctoral candidate with Prof. Ed Mitchell. She also has a Primary care liaison role at her local district health board and is a clinical editor for primary care web-based Auckland Regional HealthPathways. Her current programme of research involves implementing and evaluating a web-based SUDI risk assessment tool with wrap around care planning for babies at higher risk, in the Counties Manukau Health District Health Board area in Auckland, New Zealand.

Peter has a background in Medical Statistics and a particular interest in infant and childhood epidemiology. Born in Manchester, England, he studied Mathematics (BSc Hons) and Medical Statistics (MSc) before moving to Bristol where he completed his doctorate (Epidemiology of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) in 1998. From his work on several major observational studies he is a recognised expert with over 100 publications in the SIDS field and was made an honorary fellow and advisor to UNICEF (UK) on infant care practices in 2009. In 2014 the Queen’s Annual Prize for Further and Higher Education was awarded to the University of Bristol based on Peter and his colleague Peter Fleming’s contributions in this field. He is the elected Chair of the International Society for the study and prevention of Perinatal and Infant Death (ISPID) and chair of the epidemiological working group. He is also a senior consultant methodologist for both the University of Bristol Trials Unit and the NIHR Research Design Service. He lives with his partner Helen and two sons, Jacob & Sam, aged 19 and 21 years.

Cecília Tomori is Associate Professor and Director of Global Public Health and Community Health at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing with a joint appointment at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is a Hungarian American anthropologist and public health scholar whose work investigates the structural and sociocultural drivers that shape health, illness and health inequities. Dr. Tomori is an internationally recognized expert on breastfeeding, infant sleep and maternal child health.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, she has supported numerous organizations focused on maternal child health and health equity and advocated for equitable pandemic policies. She has authored three books on breastfeeding and reproduction, and published numerous articles on a range of public health and anthropological topics.

Joy MacTavish, MA, IBCLC, RLC is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant and certified Holistic Sleep Coach focusing on the intersections of infant feeding, sleep, and family well-being. Through her business, Sound Beginnings, she provides compassionate and evidence-based support to families in the greater Seattle area, and virtually everywhere else. She entered the perinatal field in 2007 as birth and postpartum doula, and childbirth and parenting educator. Joy holds a Master of Arts in Cultural Studies, graduate certificate in Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies, and two Bachelors degrees from the University of Washington. She enjoys combining her academic background, analytical skills, and passion for social justice into her personal and professional endeavors. Joy serves as an Advisory Committee Member and guest speaker for the GOLD Lactation Academy. When not working or learning, she can be found homeschooling, building LEGO with her children, or dreaming up her next big adventure.

JAMES MCKENNA (B.A., University of California, Berkeley; M.A., San Diego State University; Ph.D., University of Oregon) Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C., Professor of Anthropology

McKenna pioneered the first behavioral and electro-physiological studies documenting differences between mothers and infants sleeping together and apart and has become known worldwide for his work in promoting studies of breast feeding and mother-infant cosleeping. A biological anthropologist, and Director of the Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory McKenna began his career studying the social behavior and development of monkeys and apes with an emphasis on parenting behavior and ecology. He has published over 150 articles and six books including a popular parenting book Sleeping With Your baby: A Parents Guide To Co-sleeping. He has coedited Ancestral Landscapes In Human Evolution, Evolutionary Medicine, and a more recent co-edited volume Evolution and Health: New Perspectives (Oxford University Press. He won the prestigious Shannon Award (with Dr. Sarah Mosko) from the National Institutes of Child Health and Development for his SIDS research and is the nation's foremost authority and spokesperson to the national press on issues pertaining to infant and childhood sleep problems, sleep development, and breastfeeding.