About Sophie
I'm a certified child sleep consultant, a parent coach, the author of Sleep Play Love, and a mum of four. For 13 years I've sat with families in the hardest, most tender hours — and I've never once believed the answer was to leave a little one to cry alone.
Sophie Acott · Certified sleep consultant · Author of Sleep Play Love
My whole approach starts with a question most sleep advice skips: how is the mother doing? Because a rested, supported parent is the ground everything else grows from — and because your little one feels how you feel.
I trained and certified as a child sleep consultant through the International Maternity and Parenting Institute, and I've spent the years since learning from the families I work with as much as from any manual. Along the way I've been shaped by the people who taught me that a child's feelings aren't a problem to fix but a signal to meet — the gentle, relationship-first traditions of Hand in Hand Parenting, RIE, and Aware Parenting.
In 2019 I put it all into a book, Sleep Play Love. It's the same voice you'll find here: honest about how hard the nights can be, and certain that gentleness works. Everything in the app and in these pages is built on those 13 years and that book — a plan for your little one, and an answer for you at 2am.
I built Sleep Play Love as a deliberate, gentle, connection-first alternative to cry-it-out. That's not a slogan — it's a set of promises about what we will and won't ask of you and your little one.
No stopwatch, no checking in on a schedule, no waiting out the tears. We change one thing at a time, at a pace that feels safe.
You stay present. Distress is something we support a child through — never something we suppress by walking away.
Sleep and emotional wellbeing are inseparable. We tend to both, or neither really settles.
Before the plan, before the routine, I ask how you are. Your rest matters as much as your little one's.
The Sleep Play Love method was developed by Sophie Acott, a certified sleep consultant of 13 years and author of the book Sleep Play Love. It is a gentle, connection-first approach to infant and toddler sleep, built as an alternative to cry-it-out. It treats sleep and emotional wellbeing as inseparable: rather than suppressing a child's distress, a parent stays present and supports it. The method works by establishing age-appropriate foundations first, then changing one sleep association at a time — either through listening (staying with a child through their feelings) or gradual withdrawal (stepping back slowly over days). It never involves leaving a child to cry alone.
My bestselling guide to gentle sleep and the connection underneath it — the foundation for everything you'll find here.
Answer a few questions about your little one and I'll shape a plan around them — connection first, always.