Sarah Ockwell-Smith is a well known (UK based) baby expert & toddler expert, a highly regarded popular parenting author and a respected parenting coach. Sarah is famed for her gentle, science rich, yet easy to read books (which are recommended by thousands of parents and professionals alike worldwide) and her down-to-earth manner and ability to translate her vast knowledge of parenting science into easy to understand language.
Sarah’s books include BabyCalm: A guide for calmer babies and happier parents, published by Piatkus, 2012 and ‘ToddlerCalm: A Guide for Calmer Toddlers and Happier Parents‘ Piatkus, 2013. Sarah is currently working on her next book, taking a brave step away from her baby and toddler roots and focusing on children aged 7 to 13, the so called ‘tween’ years. Release date for her next book is planned for late 2014 (exact date TBC).
Sarah offers a limited amount of parenting coaching to parents via email. Sarah is able to coach parents on any topic from pregnancy and birth through to babies and toddlers, school age children, tweens and teens and any issues they may bring. If you are interested in Sarah’s parenting coaching you can learn more HERE.
Born in Bedfordshire, England in 1976, Sarah Ockwell-Smith is a mother of four school aged children, three boys and one girl. Sarah lives with her husband, children, four cats and numerous chickens in a 350 year old cottage in rural Essex.
Sarah initially studied Psychology at the University of Greenwich. After leaving university she embarked on a five year career in Pharmaceutical Research and Development until she became pregnant with her first child in 2001. After the birth of her firstborn Sarah retrained as a Homeopath, HypnoBirthing Teacher and Doula providing for a rather eclectic mix of scientific and holistic viewpoints!
In the last ten years Sarah has worked with over 1000 parents; helping them to prepare for and settle into life as a new family through her antenatal classes, birth and postnatal doula support, homeopathic consultations and parenting workshops. Sarah is also the founder of the popular and highly acclaimed BabyCalm® and ToddlerCalm® organisations.
Many refer to Sarah as an Attachment Parenting expert, however Sarah herself does not like this term as she feels it may ostracize many parents from learning about more gentle parenting techniques, particularly given the current media furore about co-sleeping/bed-sharing and extended breastfeeding.
Sarah is concerned by the numbers of popular “parenting experts” giving strong opinions with little or no scientific evidence (or even parenting experience of their own!) to back up their claims. When writing her books Sarah wanted to help parents to not only calm and understand their children, but to help them to trust their instincts and make their own parenting decisions – confidently – without relying on somebody else’s routines or manuals which is a theme she strongly carries through into her parenting coaching, viewing herself only as a provider of information and translator of knowledge rather than “an expert”.
Sarah cannot bear being referred to as a ‘baby expert’ or ‘parenting expert’ (the terms have been used on this website solely for SEO purposes) for she feels the only people qualified enough to bear this title are the parents themselves instead she likes to say that she is an expert at helping parents to become their own expert and nothing pleases her more than hearing one of her clients saying “Thank you, but I don’t need you anymore!”.
