Help us turn tiny ripples of change into waves
Image Credit: Vida Images
Hi Little Sparklers community,
Just me with my countdown calendar hat on, only 3 sleeps til June 30.
Have you made your decision about where your tax-deductible donation will go?
If you haven’t, then I’ll rattle the tin for our Little Sparklers community again.
We have so much we need to do.
I’m sure there are many of you out there who know what the weight of responsibility feels like. It is a powerful but sometimes heavy force.
As the founder of our thriving peer support community, The Beyond Sleep Training Project, I am shouldering an immense responsibility to our volunteers, members and their families.
They trust me, our volunteers, our space, our voice to stand up for them in the broader community.
To ensure their needs, their struggles, their hopes and dreams for themselves and their families are not only seen by society, but also honoured, valued, and respected.
We cannot keep new parents breaking down with stress, anxiety and unrealistic expectations for themselves or their babies. We can’t.
It’s not okay. Especially not when we know the relief, we can provide simply by being upfront and honest about the realities of life with babies and toddlers from the outset.
How on earth are families meant to set themselves up for what’s ahead when we gatekeep the information from them?
How are we to address the growing mental health crisis before us if we don’t first allow families to nurture and protect their little one’s growing brain with connection and resilience?
We are shifting the parenting paradigm and families are coming to us in droves, because they NEED this shift to happen. It’s a matter of urgency.
Do you know we’ve never actually tried to grow our community?!?
That growth you see, that 0—165,000 people figure in 5.5 years … that’s happened organically. People found US and through their word of mouth, we grow.
Our members trust US with their family and friends, they send them our links and words of encouragement to come and check us out.
And that is huge.
They trust us because they believe in us and because in many cases, we have shifted their family’s whole experience with their babies. We’ve shifted it from a stressful, mismatch to a connected and warm relationship.
We’ve done that.
And it is with this reality that I have to accept my very great responsibility to try and reach the full potential of this shift.
Our volunteers are our lifeblood, but they are well beyond capacity.
We need to support them more thoroughly if we have any chance to try and keep up with the relentless need of our community.
We also need to get our backsides on seats at as many tables as possible to raise the issues and options we see for change each and every time they present.
We need to rally everyone who knows and believes in our work to throw your support around us and push this building momentum along.
When I started this work, back in the earliest versions in 2016, I felt like I was casting the tiniest rock out into the water and trying to create a tiny ripple in an effort to reach what I imagined was a small niche of people who, like me, couldn’t fit with the mainstream version of sleep for babies. I think it’s safe to say those ripples are fast becoming waves and those waves are propelling us forward faster than I ever thought possible, but I am intent on riding those waves until we’ve reached the shore.
Families need our world to recognise and value a baby’s normal sleep and feeding behaviours as expected and respected elements of development, and in turn recognise, respect and honour the very real need for support for families as they make their way through this critical, though exhausting time in their life.
Will you help us realise a world that has moved beyond sleep training?
Donate today to our ‘we need our village, we need your help’ appeal.
With love,
“The Beyond Sleep Training group meets an otherwise unmet need of parents around the world who have decided to parent gently, and allows them to meet virtually and exchange, learn, grow, and be all the more present for their children. It is the ‘village’ of support needed to parent that much better. Thank you.”
With love and appreciation,
Carly and the Little Sparklers team
