A new app is delivering Tresillian’s trusted advice to get baby to sleep.

Free to HCF members for a limited time, the SleepWellBaby app is settling little ones with the latest science and more than 100 years of Tresillian expertise.

Karen Burge
November 2019

It’s 3am and your newborn won’t sleep. Bleary-eyed and exhausted, you battle through all the settling tricks passed on from family and friends, but nothing works. By the time the sun’s up you’re desperate to put your head down – but the day cracks on.

When you have a new baby in the family, a good night’s sleep can be rare, and many struggling parents turn to not-for-profit Tresillian for its invaluable early-years advice and hands-on support. The service helps more than 60,000 families with a baby, toddler or pre-schooler every year.

Tresillian offers a helpline, online tips, day centres, and a NSW and ACT residential (inpatient) service to support families through significant parenting challenges. The organisation’s residential programs are a lifeline for exhausted parents, but popularity means wait times, and facilities are limited.

To widen the reach of its invaluable expertise and high-demand service, Tresillian has partnered with HCF and digital health company SleepFit, — a participant in HCF’s Catalyst health tech accelerator program — to develop SleepWellBaby; a mobile app that brings Tresillian’s residential sleep and settling program into people’s homes.

Baby whisperer in your pocket

Using the new app, parents can plan and track their child’s daily routine of feed, play, settle and sleep, and use Tresillian’s experience to develop routines and practices that will help both parents and children to get a better night's sleep.

SleepFit CEO and founder, Melissa Webster, describes the SleepWellBaby app as having a baby whisperer in your pocket.

“The biggest learning for me was understanding what was ‘normal’ for a baby my daughter’s age – the number of sleeps, feeds, times she might wake – then being persistent and consistent towards a routine, supported by the latest research and expertise.

“It became a passion and priority for me to combine Tresillian’s 100 years of expertise and nurturing with SleepFit’s medical and digital expertise to create this SleepWellBaby app,” she says. “I’m thrilled that HCF has the vision to support this for parents across Australia.”

“When building the app, we met so many mums and dads. The one comment that sticks in my mind, and which drove our design was a mum who said, ‘I want to do the work, but I just don’t know what the work is! Help me.’

“And that’s what SleepWellBaby is.”

Designed for parents of little ones aged up to two-and-a-half, the app guides parents through a seven-day program and includes a range of sanity-saving features to help them navigate the week.

These include:

• Advice on learning to read and respond to baby’s cues to plan their sleep routine
• A baby routine planner and customisable bedtime routine
• Expert help from Tresillian that’s just a click or call away
• The ability to share information with the other people in baby’s lives, such as carers and grandparents.

Download the iOS app here or download the Android app here.

100 years of expertise in your hand

This intuitive product supports parents in developing good sleep habits for their children, for life.

“The app is based on science and trusted experience. You can trust the advice, knowing it has been through a rigorous process,” says Melissa, who adds that developers worked closely with Tresillian and with midwifery specialists at the University of Technology Sydney.

“All babies are unique and present different challenges to parents, but the desired outcome is the same: Help me help my baby and family sleep better. The app has been designed with this outcome in mind,” she says.

Once parents feel confident about helping their baby sleep well, they can start looking forward to the next milestones in their little one’s life, such as eating solids and keeping healthy and active.