After experiencing the exhaustion of wakeful nights and contact naps with their first children – and realising that much of the problem lay in unrealistic expectations about “normal” infant sleep – Charlotte and Sophie bonded over their shared struggles. Passionate about helping families get better sleep whilst nurturing children’s development, they launched The Nurture Narrative to support families in understanding and embracing biologically normal infant sleep. They use an attachment-focused, holistic approach, drawing on child neuroscience and exploring the root causes of sleep challenges. Here they talk to The Natural Parent Magazine about the passion behind what they do, the challenges they have overcome, and their hopes and dreams for the future.
The passion: What inspired you to set up your business?
Both of our first children were “terrible” sleepers – we say “terrible” in quotes, because we know now that what was actually terrible was our lack of understanding of biologically normal infant sleep. It so happened that both firsts just seemed to have quite different temperaments (and were therefore lower sleep needs) than the other babies around us. Between them, we had a variety of “issues” – fighting naps, would only sleep on us, split nights, false starts, waking 10+ times a night… you name it.
We were both incredibly sleep deprived, but also knew we didn’t want to do any sort of ‘sleep training’ (meaning any non-responsive methods). We bonded over this (amongst other things!) and began chatting about doing some formal training in infant sleep.
The launch: How did you start out in the beginning?
In 2024, Charlotte qualified to be a holistic sleep coach and Sophie completed her training as a Nurture Neuroscience Practitioner (led by Dr Greer Kirshenbaum, author of The Nurture Revolution). We didn’t really have any plans to do anything with our qualifications until one day, we were both at lunch, and Charlotte said, “Shall we just set it up now?”. With no pressure or build-up to it, we sat at the restaurant and made a list of things to ‘do’, firstly starting with taking a selfie and choosing a brand name. It all snowballed from there!
The innovation: What was the biggest breakthrough for you with your business?
Not sure if we’ve had a breakthrough yet – we’re very new (we started in May!).
Yin and Yang: How do you balance work and family?
By having a fantastic “village”. Both our husbands are incredibly supportive and we each have parents willing to step in when they can. We definitely couldn’t do it without them! Although almost all of our “business meetings” are with toddler/s running around in the background and/or a baby attached to one of us!
