How Long Does It Take to Become a Certified Pediatric Sleep Consultant?
This ^^^ is a question we get asked quite a bit, and our answer varies, simply because there are different certification programs out there that are structured differently than ours. For this article, we’re going to outline the timeline it may take (okay, we will outline a few timelines for you!) for someone to get through the pediatric sleep consultant certification program from The Collective for Family Rest and Wellness.
Hopefully, as you do your research of the various pediatric sleep consultant certification programs that are out there, other programs have it laid out as nicely for you as we do, allowing you to make the best decision for YOU.
If you like the idea of completing coursework for your pediatric sleep consultant certification program from the comfort of your own home, on your own time, then keep reading - our program may be a great fit for you!
Step 1: Research a Sleep Consultant Certification Course
We feel that it’s crucial to find a program that mirrors the values you hold close to your heart. We’re going to list a few things that we value here so you’d know if our program is a good fit for you.
At The Collective for Family Rest and Wellness, our goal is to help elevate the field of pediatric sleep consulting by providing our students and graduates with:
Evidence-based training that is continuously updated as more research comes out - sleep is a science, and if there’s anything we know about science is that it’s always changing. Sleep is constantly being researched and new findings are coming out fairly frequently.
Equipping our consultants (and, consequently, their clients - tired parents!) with accurate, safe sleep information - we know better than anyone how much noise there is out there in the online parenting space, and we feel it’s crucial to equip new parents with accurate information
Training from over 20 different industry and online business experts - we like to say we know A LOT about sleep and a little bit about everything else when it comes to running a business and serving families well. But, you can’t be an expert in everything, so we brought in 24 experts to help us teach you and make the Sleep Consultant Academy from The Collective for Family Rest and Wellness the most comprehensive program there is on the market.
Build-as-you-go tools and templates for starting a business - throughout the course, we have “homework” for our students. For example, drafting sleep plans, that you can actually use when you officially start your sleep consulting business. We’re getting you ready for the real world!
Continued quarterly professional development - because new information is always coming out in the sleep world, as well as the online business world, we feel it’s incredibly important to stay up-to-date with our knowledge. We truly want our students to be the best - the cream of the crop - when it comes to all the sleep consultants out there!
A supportive community of like-minded colleagues - if there’s anything we’ve learned in our more-than-12-years of combined experience in this field, it's that you can usually go farther together. We’ve provided this community for all of our students and graduates in a private Facebook group.
A paid internship - start making your investment back before you’ve even launched your business!
Three months of business coaching from The Sleep Sorority, included in the cost of the program - like we said, we know a little about business, but Becca, the sleep-biz guru at The Sleep Sorority has a whole business membership just for sleep consultants that is jam packed with business-related lessons and content. Start your first three months and binge all the content you can.
A flexible course that is self-paced which also allows for a flexible career path…the perfect fit for moms!
Access to our exclusive graduate marketplace with deals for starting and launching your business - currently, we’ve got 11 different discounts in the marketplace for you.
An option to upgrade your experience to get three months of Voxer (voice and text messaging) support with us as a part of our mentorship program - the perfect option if you’re getting ready to launch and start your business and have no idea what you’re doing.
Whew! As you can see, it really is jam-packed with goodness.
One of our graduates, Lauren Guajardo (who was later hired to work on the Heaven Sent Sleep team), shares why she chose The Collective for Family Rest and Wellness for her certification program: “It (the course) is evidence based, full of first hand experience working with families from Ashley and Katelyn from years of being in the business, and they (make sure to) stay up to date on the latest research. As well as the continuing education and PAID internship for immediate experience working with families.”
Brittany Camacho, another graduate, shares her favorite feature of the course which she quickly discovered after she decided to enroll - the community aspect - “(I love) our network! I love that we have each other for support when we get stuck and I appreciate Ashley and Katelyn for remaining involved with graduates and continuing to educate and help us grow beyond our date of completion.”
If you’re really intrigued, you can test drive one of our course modules, for free. Click here to try it out and see if it would be a good fit for you.
Step 2: Enroll and Start Your Sleep Consultant Certification Course!
Once you’ve decided on the perfect sleep consultant certification program for you, it’s time to get started! While there are different options for learning, whether it’s virtual or in-person, one of the cons to choosing a live or in-person program means that you likely need to wait to start this endeavor until a certain date (plus, you’ll need to arrange for childcare)
If you choose the Sleep Consultant Academy from The Collective for Family Rest and Wellness, you can start immediately! You enroll, make your payment, and you have immediate access to the course.
Lauren shares her two favorite features she discovered after enrolling: “The community of sleep consultants that I’ve become friends with and the PAID internship.” We agree, Lauren! You can find other quality sleep programs but you can’t find any with our community and a paid internship.
Step 3: Chart Out Your Sleep Consultant Certification Course Plan and Stick to It!
Okay, because our course is self paced, it allows for the flexibility of life.
If your kids get sick and you need to take a few days away from your studying, it’s no big deal.
If you have another job and you can only study a few hours in the evening, great! You’ll get through it!
We’ve estimated that our course takes roughly 80 hours to get through. Here’s a breakdown of how long it takes to become a sleep consultant depending on how many hours you can dedicate to it each week:
Lauren said, “(It took me) about 2-3 months working on it for roughly 10-20 hours a week.” So she moved through it pretty quickly and felt confident implementing all she had learned during her paid internship. She expanded a bit further: “The course was so flexible. I was able to watch the videos and read the text on my phone easily throughout the day as I found down time between taking care of a toddler and infant.”
We have multiple sleep consultants who are a part of The Collective because they felt their initial training wasn’t sufficient enough. We made sure the curriculum for our course is laid out in a way that flows easily, building on knowledge from previous lessons. The thought behind this design provides cohesiveness from lesson to lesson and allows for students to cut down on the time needed to become certified. We also don’t limit how long students have access to the course; in the world of sleep science, new information is always coming out and we want our students and graduates to always have the most accurate and updated information for life. Other courses will limit how long you have access to a program.
We also understand that life happens! For example, founder Katelyn’s son Nash was diagnosed with leukemia and she needed to totally pause her business for a while as they navigated the diagnosis and treatment. Maddie Jandick, one of our graduates, ended up needing a year to get through the program - she found out she was pregnant with baby no. 2, was incredibly sick throughout her pregnancy, and was also working another job as a behavior analyst. We don’t want life to hold you back from working toward your dreams!
As you’re working through the course, you’ll also have access to our private Facebook groups for students and graduates. You can drop any questions you have for us in the group - we love to help, as do the rest of the ladies in our community. We’ll be there to cheer you on, encourage you, and answer any questions you have.
Step 4: Start Your Paid Internship as a Certified Sleep Consultant
“The paid internship was great. I really appreciated having a way to earn some money and jump start my business right off the bat. It also gave me a lot more confidence in working with families one on one. Even though I no longer take shifts (as a sleep consultant in the membership)I still enjoy reading posts and comments. It all makes me a better sleep consultant!” shares Collective graduate Brittany.
One of the things that sets our program apart from every other sleep consultant certification program out there (as of January 2024) is our paid internship.
Upon completion of the sleep consultant certification program from The Collective for Family Rest and Wellness, you’ll have the opportunity to gain real-life experience working as a certified sleep consultant answering questions in the Raising Happy Sleepers membership group. You can start making money immediately after you’re certified.
It’s rare that you know you’ll have a paid gig immediately after completing your certification - how cool is that?!
We don’t know of any other program that offers anything like this.
Lauren shared her thoughts about this feature of the program as well - “The paid internship was amazing for my confidence in working with families and also for continuing to learn how to apply what I had learned in the course to real life!”
The internship is a 2-month stint in the Raising Happy Sleepers membership group - a Facebook group where members can get all their sleep questions answered by professional pediatric sleep consultants Monday-Friday. Our graduates will take shifts to be “on” answering questions in the group.
Many other sleep consultant certification programs include working with 3-10 volunteer clients before officially becoming certified. While we do see the value in supporting families one-on-one from start to finish and gain that experience, we also believe you should get paid for all the work you do! We get sample sleep plans and support emails for various age levels that we provide intake forms for - you write the plans and emails and we review them and give you feedback. Once we feel those are sufficient, we believe in your ability to help families from start to finish! The internship is there to help you refine those skills so you feel confident when you do get a paying client for your one-on-one services.
After speaking with other sleep consultants who utilized other programs, they shared that finding these volunteer clients was difficult, and then, during the process of supporting these families, they struggled because there was no investment in the program. We truly believe the knowledge you have after completing our course is invaluable for these families, and you should be paid for it!
Maddie shares her thoughts about the internship too - “I liked it! Gave me a good chance at getting my feet wet in troubleshooting sleep issues!”
We don’t just expect you to feel confident and ready for one-on-one clients right away after graduating. Having this internship period is a great way to prepare you to get to that point.
Step 5: Officially Launch Your Business as a Certified Sleep Consultant!
As you’re working as an intern, you can also be working on setting up your business - how exciting!
We should also note that not all certified sleep consultants must own their own business. Some choose to go work for another sleep consultant as a team member or in a client support role. Some choose to start a business with a partner (We have a whole group of women in the private Facebook group who may be interested in this option if you find the right business bff! Join us and find your people!).
You certainly don’t need to have your own business if that doesn’t sound appealing to you.
Throughout the course, you’ll be prompted to create different resources for your business so that by the time you complete the course, you already have all the client and business materials you’ll need to get started. We also have an exclusive deal for you from our friends at Market St. Creative in our exclusive graduate marketplace, where they help with tons of business-type things that might be super accommodating during this time.
We also recently started adding templates of our own to the course. You’ll be able to take these and make them yours - a sleep plan, a client welcome packet, and a moving forward packet - using them as you see fit for your own business.
If you choose to go with another program, you’ll likely have to create these resources yourself and take the time to actually do it yourself.
We also would be totally irresponsible if we didn’t mention that you don’t necessarily need a lot of bells and whistles like a website, email marketing system, etc. as you’re getting started. As long as you have an LLC set up, a bank account, and a way to accept payment, you’re in business! There are tons of resources you can use for free, or for a very low cost, that will get you by until you are ready to invest and more robust and convenient systems.
Here’s a list of no- or low-cost options you can use as you get started with your business:
Professional email through G Suite ($8 per month?)
LLC registration/setup (cost will depend on where you live) - sometimes this is a one-time fee, and sometimes it’s a yearly fee
Google Docs/Sheets/Forms for sleep plans, sleep logs, and client questionnaires/intake forms (included with your G Suite or FREE)
Payment processor (for example, Stripe has an option for small businesses that only charges 2.9% + 30¢ per successful charge for domestic cards)
Social media marketing (FREE)
As you can see, there are definitely options for starting out with really low overhead costs.
As your business grows, you may want to look at adding more things that can help with marketing and streamlining your client process, such as:
Getting a website
Starting an email list for email marketing
Investing in professional branding
Getting a Client-Relationship-Management (CRM) system set up
We are so excited for you to begin this venture! If you have any questions about what we do at The Collective for Family Rest and Wellness, feel free to set up a call with us.
