Nicky Barker

 

Nicky is a Paediatric Sleep Specialist and co-founder of Little Ones™.  She is jointly responsible for having dreamt up the idea of a company where parents can access reliable, trusted, proven advice and methods to help their children sleep better, without having to spend a fortune on private consultants, without limiting the support a person can get to the area they live in.

Nicky graduated from the University of Auckland in 2003 with a Bachelors Degree, following it up with a Graduate Diploma in Education in 2006.

Before Little Ones, Nicky worked as a secondary school teacher for 10 years. She loved teaching because it was a way to make a positive difference in people's lives and she has a passion for education and knowledge. This has translated into her desire to help parents with their little ones' sleep and her ability to effectively convey information to educate families in infant and toddler sleep behaviour, and the Little Ones methods.

Nicky is married to Ryan and is mother to three children - Makayla (10), Max (8) and Charlie (6). They live in the Bay of Islands, in the far north of New Zealand. Her hobbies include dancing, reading, fishing, outdoor pursuits, summers on the beach and spending time together as a family. 

 

 

"I know what sleep deprivation is like. I know how it feels to struggle through endless sleepless months, wondering what is going on, questioning and doubting yourself at every turn. I know how long those nights are and how the tears flow easily during the day too. I've had babies who were bad night sleepers, bad daytime nappers, babies who were rocked to sleep, fed to sleep, bounced to sleep. Babies who slept in the stroller, front pack, hammock, my arms. Babies who were breast and bottle fed, babies who woke at 5am every single day. I've had days where I couldn't see through the fog. Where everything was just a bit too hard. A lot too hard, if I'm being honest.

With my eldest I totally winged it. I fully just expected that babies would fall asleep when they were tired and that my baby would feed and sleep and life would be easy! Well, I was in for a rude awakening. Instead of this peaceful watercolour image of parenting I clung to, I had a baby who stayed awake for hours on end, who would spend extended periods screaming in the early evening, who would be up partying all night. Google and several health practitioners told me this was "normal", but nothing about our situation felt normal to me. I've since come to loathe that word. Everything was a battle; motherhood, my relationship with my husband, our day to day life. And it was a battle because we had no idea what to do! We had no idea what was coming next - we were on the back foot 100% of the time. What was happening in our family was not "normal". And looking back now, I can see straight away how our lives could have been so different. How my first taste of motherhood could have been so much more enjoyable if I'd had the knowledge, the education about settling and sleep, reliable advice and age-appropriate methods...

And this is why we started our company - to help people. To help people see through that fog, to give families an alternative to sleep deprivation, to let everyone know that there is another way and with the right advice and a village behind you - anything is possible."