Our Team of Children’s Sleep Specialists

Expert support from qualified health professionals, helping families understand and improve their child’s sleep

About Millpond Children’s Sleep Clinic

Millpond Children’s Sleep Clinic has been supporting families for nearly 30 years. Founded by Mandy Gurney RGN RM DipHV SCPHN, a Registered Nurse, Registered Midwife and Specialist Community Public Health Nurse (Health Visitor), Millpond has become one of the UK’s longest-established children’s sleep services.

Our team is made up of experienced health professionals, including health visitors and midwives, with decades of experience working within the NHS and private practice. We combine clinical knowledge with a deep understanding of child development, family wellbeing and the many factors that can influence sleep.

Since 2007, Millpond has been commissioned by NHS organisations across the UK and HSE Ireland to train healthcare professionals in children’s sleep. This reflects our commitment to evidence-based practice and our expertise in supporting families with a wide range of sleep challenges, from babies and toddlers through to school-aged children and teenagers.

We believe every child and family is unique. Rather than offering a one-size-fits-all solution, we take time to understand your child’s individual needs, considering their development, health, temperament, environment and family circumstances. Our approach is gentle, practical and informed by the latest research in paediatric sleep.

Behind every sleep challenge is a child and a family who need understanding and support. Our team combines professional expertise with compassion, helping families make positive changes and build healthier sleep habits that work for them.

Mandy Gurney - RGN RM Dip HV

Mandy Gurney RGN RM DipHV SCPHN is the founder of Millpond Children’s Sleep Clinic. She is a Registered Nurse, Registered Midwife and Specialist Community Public Health Nurse (Health Visitor), with over 30 years’ experience supporting children and families. Mandy is also a member of the Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) and author of three books on children’s sleep.

Mandy’s passion for helping families with sleep began through her own experience as a parent. When her son was a baby, he suffered from severe reflux and food allergies, resulting in exhausting nights and a deep understanding of how sleep difficulties can affect the whole family.

Drawing on her clinical background in nursing, midwifery and health visiting, Mandy established and ran one of London’s first NHS children’s sleep clinics. This shaped her holistic approach, looking at the whole child and considering health, development, temperament and family circumstances alongside sleep.

In 2000, Mandy founded Millpond Children’s Sleep Clinic. Since then, Millpond has supported thousands of families worldwide with gentle, evidence-based and personalised sleep guidance for babies, toddlers, school-aged children and teenagers.

Drawing on her expertise, Mandy developed Millpond’s sleep taining workshops for health professionals and since 2007, she has been deliveing training for organisations across the UK. This has helped equip thousands of professionals with the knowledge and confidence to support families with sleep difficulties.

Mandy’s belief is simple: every child is unique, and by understanding the whole picture, the missing piece that helps families sleep better can be found.

Millpond Children’s Sleep Clinic – Mandy Gurney, 30 years of advising on child sleep issues

Juliet Newson - RGN BN PG Dip HV

Juliet Newson brings nearly 30 years of experience as a registered nurse and health visitor, having worked in both NHS and private healthcare settings. Her diverse career includes clinical roles across the UK and international experience in Kathmandu, Nepal. For over 17 years, Juliet has been a vital part of the Millpond Children’s Sleep Clinic team, helping countless families improve their children’s sleep and well-being.

In addition to her work with Millpond, Juliet has been a staff nurse on a busy neonatal unit since 2020. This role has deepened her expertise in breastfeeding, infant nutrition, and parenting support, areas she is deeply passionate about. Her broad clinical experience underpins her holistic approach to supporting families with sleep issues, ensuring that her advice is practical, compassionate, and grounded in real-world knowledge.

Juliet’s passion for improving children’s sleep extends beyond working directly with families. She is also an experienced educator and trainer, delivering sleep workshops and seminars across the UK and Ireland alongside Millpond’s founder, Mandy. Together, they have provided more NHS sleep training than any other organisation, equipping tens of thousands of healthcare professionals with the skills to support families facing sleep challenges. Juliet takes great pride in this pioneering work, knowing that it has helped build a network of professionals capable of offering much-needed support to families.

Her approach is always centred on understanding the pressures that a child’s sleep problem can place on the entire family. By working closely with parents and tailoring practical solutions to fit their unique circumstances, Juliet helps families regain balance and restore their well-being.

Outside of her professional life, Juliet is a proud mum of three, giving her personal insight into the joys and challenges of parenting. Her warmth, empathy, and wealth of experience make her an invaluable support to families seeking better sleep.

Cathy Madley-Dowd - RGN RM Dip HV BSc Infant Mental Health

Cathy Madley-Dowd brings over 30 years of experience working in the NHS as a qualified midwife, health visitor, and sleep consultant with Millpond Children’s Sleep Clinic. Throughout her career, Cathy has been passionate about supporting parents in understanding how their babies communicate, even from the earliest days of life.

Driven by her dedication to promoting positive parent-infant relationships, Cathy completed a postgraduate diploma in Young Children’s Mental Health and further expanded her expertise by earning a Master’s degree in Infant Mental Health. This advanced training deepened her understanding of how early interactions shape a child’s emotional well-being and mental health as they grow.

Cathy’s professional journey includes co-founding an infant mental health service within the NHS, where she played a key role in developing training for multidisciplinary teams working with babies and young children. Her work ensured that the voice of the child was heard and understood, helping professionals provide more sensitive and responsive care.

In addition to training professionals, Cathy also worked therapeutically with parents and their babies who were struggling to connect. Through her intervention, parents learned to respond more sensitively and appropriately to their babies, fostering stronger, more joyful bonds and creating a foundation for healthy emotional development.

Cathy’s expertise in infant mental health, combined with her extensive experience in sleep consulting, allows her to offer families holistic, compassionate support tailored to their specific needs. Her calm and empathetic approach helps parents feel confident in navigating their children’s sleep and emotional well-being.

Outside of her professional life, Cathy is dedicated to her own family and enjoys spending time with her loved ones. She is a very proud mum of two.

Carolyn Reynolds - Our Administrator

Carolyn is a mother of two who knows how lack of sleep can impact a family profoundly. With over 22 years of experience working at Millpond Carolyn knows how important it is for a parent’s first contact with the clinic to be positive and for them to meet with a sympathetic ear.

“I speak to exhausted and emotional parents every day. I find sharing their family’s story with me as their first step to improving their child’s sleep is a huge and immediate relief. From all the positive outcomes we see, I am able to reassure them they are not alone and that we can help”. – Carolyn Reynolds.

Millpond Children’s Sleep Clinic – Carolyn Reynolds, administrator

Tracey Marshall

We want to pay tribute to the memory of Tracey Marshall, Millpond’s co-founder and sleep consultant, who tragically passed away. Her work and expertise will live on through Millpond.

See what parents' say about us

When feeling overwhelmed by tiredness and in need of real sleep help, Millpond’s ‘Teach Your Child to Sleep’ is a much welcomed, well researched resource. This is an easy read with a practical nurturing approach that walks you and your child through to a good night sleep.
Rozanne Hay, UK Representative and Director for Continuing Education IACSC International Association Of Child Sleep consultants
The Millpond approach is non-prescriptive and [their] book offers lots of choices for parents to match their own goals and parenting styles. I would heartily recommend it for anyone already experiencing problems with sleep or to set up good sleep habits proactively.
Melissa Hood, founder of The Parent Practice
This baby and child sleep guide is the perfect combination of accessible science, Mandy’s years of experience and a mother’s warmth. I love the way things fall into place with Mandy’s clear and thorough explanations!
Diana Hill, co founder of Essential Parent
Millpond’s brilliant blend of commonsense, encouragement and understanding – plus a highly logical strategy that is easy to implement – changed hell into heaven literally overnight. My entire family is thus indebted to Mandy and her team.
Freya North, Author
I am a GP and would recommend Millpond to any sleep deprived parents; you cannot put a price on sleep. Thank you so much. I only wish I hadn’t waited 19 months.
Vanessa, GP
We are so happy that we put our trust in you to help us with what has been a huge problem for our family for almost 2 years. We are finding time to relax and time for each other and I did not realise how much we missed this time.
Ben
As a family, we were sleep deprived. The tailored plan for our son made it personal. I am really pleased with what we’ve achieved during the programme and I am thankful to Juliet and Millpond.
Evrim.
We were at rock bottom. Our son has a neurological condition, so I was nervous and and wanted a sleep clinic who had experience of this and would adapt to the needs of our son. Our lives literally changed overnight!
Shurron
Within weeks our son was waking only once a night. The investment we made into Millpond was one of the best we’ve ever made. It gave my son a solid night sleep and consistency. It gave me and my husband our sanity back.
Shurron
I am delighted. I was aiming to go from 6+ wakes at night and feeding to sleep 100% of the time to 1-2 wake ups and some ability to self-settle. After doing the plan for less than 6 weeks my daughter started sleeping through the night.
Katie
My daughter is now having quite a bit more than the average sleep for her age and it’s lovely to see her waking up naturally. I’m also waking up naturally and feeling much more refreshed for having a regular sleep routine myself!
Louise
We are so happy we could jump for joy, we wish we had spoken to you ages ago. Using Millpond has built our confidence and made us feel on top of it at last. You really gave us some life back!
Sarah
I live in Switzerland so it is really quite remarkable that Millpond was able to help me over the phone and by email. When you have slept you can deal with anything!!
Melanie
We still can’t believe that such small changes have made such a difference to us and Alice. She has even slept through while on holiday in a travel cot.
Louise
We are just so sorry we did not get in touch sooner as we went through 18 months of no sleep.
Ann Marie
Thank you, thank you, thank you!! We never thought life could be improved so greatly. You showed us the light. Luka is much happier and loving his sleep now.!
Diane
Alex is sleeping beautifully again and is now quite happy to lay in his cot singing until 7.30/745 am ( Godsend!) and sleeps very happily through the night again. Thank you so much!
Sandy
Very happy to say that Joshua, who you helped us with, is now sleeping a regular 11 hours a night uninterrupted. In fact, getting him up some mornings is a real challenge!
John
Mandy has been an absolute saviour at a time which was starting to feel quite bleak in terms of our little one’s sleep. The personalised advice and guidance has been invaluable.
Mary
“My husband and I reached out to the Millpond Sleep Clinic when our son was 10 months old. We had spent months in vain trying a variety of sleep training tips that we had picked up online, in a desperate attempt to get our son to sleep for more than 2 hour stretches! Nothing seemed to work. I remember crying whilst breastfeeding for the 5th time one evening, desperately begging my little one to sleep. We felt like we had been failing for a long time, as my circle of mum friends had all got their babies sleeping through so much earlier. I needed to get more sleep, with the return to work looming ever closer.

When we called Millpond, we were quickly introduced to Juliet who immediately took the pressure off us by providing a detailed “plan of action” based on what she had heard about our son’s sleep routine. After just a few nights, we already started to see big sleep improvements, and we worked confidently towards reducing our son’s night wakings and the duration of his night feeds. After a couple of weeks we had gone from 4-5 night wakings to just 1… and a few weeks later, our son started to sleep through! The biggest relief ever.

Throughout the whole process Juliet had been knowledgeable, kind, reassuring and made herself available to answer our questions over email between our sessions. Her experience as a mother herself, and highly trained sleep professional shone through. We can’t thank you enough for helping us through a rough time – and seeing us through to better days (and importantly, nights!!)
Cheryl