How it started

Like many babies, my first child fell asleep easily while breastfeeding — until one day that stopped working, and putting her down became a struggle. She woke often at night and then stayed awake for hours, mostly crying. We tried everything to settle her back to sleep, and nothing worked.

After about a month of this, I started writing down when and how much she slept. The notes showed that the situation was not improving with time — it was getting worse week by week.

So I started digging. I read everything I could find about baby sleep, and the contradictory opinions left me thoroughly confused. Luckily I am a researcher — my PhD is in theoretical and evolutionary biology — so I had the tools to find my way through the scientific literature. I read about infant and toddler sleep and about child psychology, and I talked to a lot of parents, until I worked out what to do. In the end my daughter slept 11 hours straight, every night. It was an enormous relief.

The whole process was so interesting that I became completely absorbed by the subject. I started a podcast in English (The Baby Sleep Project) and later one in Hungarian (Nem alszik a baba). I became a certified baby sleep consultant (IPSP) and began giving consultations and webinars. I teach a newborn sleep course at the Medikids Pediatric Center. I wrote a book (Mint a bunda). And finally, together with my husband and a good friend, we founded Dreamsense, where we are building a mobile app that helps families sleep.