Hi, I’m Joanna. I’ve spent more than a decade helping families understand their children’s sleep and build routines that actually work for their child, their development, and their family.
My approach is individualized, practical, and rooted in both experience and child development. Here’s a little about how I got here and what shaped the way I work.
I earned my BA in Sociology from California State University, Sacramento, with an emphasis in methods and research. Before becoming a sleep consultant, I worked with children through the YMCA and later with women and children in a shelter setting. Those experiences gave me an early understanding of child development, family dynamics, and just how much sleep can affect a child’s behavior and ability to cope.
But sleep became personal when I had my first baby.
I had prepared for motherhood in every way I knew how, but after a traumatic birth, a broken tailbone, feeding challenges, and a tongue-tied newborn, I felt completely overwhelmed. I had support around me, but what I didn’t have was practical guidance for understanding my baby’s sleep.
A few months in, my normally content baby began fighting sleep, crying for hours in the evenings, and becoming increasingly difficult to settle. I started reading everything I could about infant sleep, and for the first time I understood that some of the things we were doing to help him sleep were actually making sleep harder.
That experience changed the direction of my life.
I began helping friends, then friends of friends, then families I had never met. What started through word of mouth eventually became my full-time work. I went on to become certified in newborn and double certified in pediatric sleep and have now spent more than a decade helping families understand what is happening with their child’s sleep and build a plan that works for their actual child and family.
I also served as the sleep consultant for Sutter’s MOMs of Multiples program, supporting parents navigating the unique sleep challenges that can come with twins and multiples.
My approach today is informed by years of working with families, child development, sleep science, temperament, attachment, and the reality that no two children — or parents — are exactly alike. My goal is not to hand families a generic method. It is to help them understand their child, make thoughtful changes, and feel confident responding when sleep gets hard.