Introduction
Erin Carroll-Manning is the founder of Gentle Giraffes Newborn Care & Family Services and an extremely inspiring and intelligent childcare specialist who has transformed the way we understand and support early parenthood. Her approach combines science, empathy, and deep respect for newborns as capable, communicating beings.
Erin has guided parents through the fragile yet beautiful moments of early childcare for over three decades. From her beginnings as a professional nanny to becoming a Master Newborn Care Specialist, she has created a bridge between medical and functional care by helping families establish healthy, sustainable routines from day one. Her work has earned recognition from Parents Magazine, The Boston Globe, Women’s Business League, and more, making her one of the most trusted voices in newborn and family wellness. In this exclusive interview, Erin shares her thoughts on newborn communication, the emotional side of postpartum recovery, and why professional childcare deserves greater societal respect.
Q1. Erin, thank you for joining us. Gentle Giraffes Newborn Care & Family Services has become a trusted name in family wellness. What inspired you to build a service that bridges traditional medical care with a more functional, holistic approach for families?
Erin Carroll-Manning: The more I worked with newborns and their mothers and saw families suffer, I realized something had to be done. This isn’t right to leave mothers crying and going down dark paths, and babies building a nervous system in fight, flight, or functional freeze. We also know from Maslow’s Hierarchy that survival is the lowest step on his pyramid. It has always bothered me that we leave newborns on this step. Newborns are at the start of their lives. Why are we not ensuring they have the best possible start to their lives, rather than leaving them to be uncomfortable, in pain, and feeling unheard and unattended to?
“Just holding a baby and doing skin-to-skin isn’t always the answer to co-regulating the nervous system.” (Erin Carroll-Manning)
This is the beginning of inner trust and secure attachment. Sure, medically, the children are healthy, but a screaming, inconsolable child is communicating that they need more, and something is off.
“How sad that our medical systems leave new parents to drown in their emotional distress because medical plays the wait-and-see game.” (Erin Carroll-Manning)
Babies don’t grow out of issues; they adapt and make compensations. These adaptations and compensations emerge as individuals grow older, sometimes weeks, months, years, or even decades later. It’s harder to change hardened bones or how ligaments have grown and shaped over the years than it is to set them in alignment from day one. Moreover, we can help support the baby in being calm and free from pain, and, in the rest-and-digest aspect of the nervous system, the healthier physically, emotionally, and mentally the babies are from day one, the better their chances are of thriving, not just surviving.
Additionally, when we have families who are not stressed, and their emotional health is also good. We can then support them in avoiding a dark path. We may even have fewer postpartum mood disorders or mental illnesses.
“I firmly believe that if a baby is not doing well, a mother will suffer greatly. We have all these support groups and mental health practitioners to help the mother, yet we still have mothers going down a dark path. When we can get the baby into a calm, restful, and peaceful state, we can then get mom the support she needs. Mom will not focus on herself until her baby is doing well.” (Erin Carroll-Manning)
I believe we should prioritize supporting the baby, then the mom, and finally the whole family. The entire family is happier, which makes this transition much smoother and more enjoyable.
“It breaks my heart to see a baby crying, and families not digging deeper to get to the root because Medical professionals say it’s normal. It’s not! Crying is a crucial form of communication for babies. When you leave a baby to cry, even holding them when they’re in pain or uncomfortable, you are forming their view of life that their communication and needs are not worthy of being heard and attended to. This is the start of building a strong and healthy nervous system, inner trust, and a secure attachment.” (Erin Carroll-Manning)
“There is a huge gray area between the books and medical advice that doesn’t get enough attention. This space can be very supportive and helpful for a newborn to build a strong foundation physically, mentally, emotionally, and cognitively, which is often overlooked and chalked up to ‘babies’ cry.’ In many cases, this can also be the key to getting babies to sleep through the night.” (Erin Carroll-Manning)
“Gaining weight is not the gold standard; it’s the bare minimum.” (Erin Carroll-Manning)
Q2. In US Insider, you spoke about the importance of combining medical knowledge with nurturing guidance to support families “from day one.” How does this integrated model help parents feel more empowered and confident during the early stages of parenthood?
Erin Carroll-Manning: When a parent can sit back, take several deep breaths, and observe their child or learn their baby’s communication style, they can see their verbal and non-verbal cues as forms of communication. This begins with observation, presence, and responding instead of reacting. This level of newborn support starts when the mother feels emotionally satisfied and confident in herself. She isn’t questioning what she’s doing wrong or why xyz isn’t working, nor does she move on to the next gadget, friend, family member, or FB Moms group suggestion in a hot minute. She is learning her baby’s energy, movements, and style through practical, hands-on guidance that shows her what each can mean and what she can actually do that works. Yes, many things are trial and error, but moms often don’t stay with one practical, realistic suggestion long enough before moving on to the next.
“I tell parents all the time: slow and steady wins the race, and consistency is key from day one. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Babies need calm, slow, and consistent guidance.” (Erin Carroll-Manning)
This type of care is rarely discussed. We have a society filled with anxious parents who do not truly have inner peace or confidence in themselves. Yes, with something new, there’s a bit of self-doubt, but not to the point where people can’t be alone with their baby for more than 10 minutes. They might change their soothing technique after a short time because the baby hasn’t relaxed, so it must not be working. When parents have inner peace and self-confidence, they can better understand their baby and become intuitive advocates for them. This empowers parents to be confident in knowing what their baby needs, rather than being influenced by external noise about what babies need. They begin to realize they are actually communicating with their baby. Newborns are competent humans. We adults often let our anxiety interfere with seeing what our baby is actually saying. This leads to a calmer, yet confident and peaceful, overall approach to parenting. Their babies’ cries or movements don’t trigger the parents. This allows the parent to respond in healthy, nurturing ways, rather than reacting out of fear or anxiety.
I recall visiting a client’s home for a healthy sleep reset with their baby. The baby was so overtired. An overtired and overstimulated baby needs to go to sleep earlier and have shorter awake windows until they are back to a “baseline.” As the parents were bringing the baby up to the nursery for bed, the baby started to cry louder and harder. The parents went through their entire hour-long routine (the baby struggled with and kept looking and leaning over toward the bassinet), and the baby was hard to settle. After the baby finally fell asleep, I said to the parents, “When you were walking upstairs, your baby was telling you to hurry up and put her down faster, and she was leaning over and looking at the bassinet when you were rocking her.”
The parents thought the baby hated sleep and was resisting it. The baby was trying everything to get their parents’ attention to be put down earlier. I also mentioned that when you have an overtired and overstimulated baby (or adult), it can take longer to settle them and their nervous system; it seems like they don’t want to settle. The sooner you put them down, the easier it will be. They began to view their babies’ cries as a form of communication, rather than tantrums or protests. Once they made bedtime earlier and their baby was getting more sleep, nighttime routines became easier, calmer, and more enjoyable for everyone. Three years later, they still praise me.
When the parents project their thoughts about the crying, it gives them more anxiety and self-doubt, or they think they have a difficult child or one who doesn’t like sleep. This is not supportive or healthy for anyone. This is not uncommon either. They internally become anxious and allow their own nervous system to be triggered, which in turn makes the baby anxious and harder for them to settle. When we set aside our own fears and understand what is happening, we can work through anything a child presents to us in a calm, nurturing manner.
We also now know that newborns, infants, and toddlers thrive on consistency. It calms their brain and nervous system when they know what to expect. It’s like a security blanket for the brain. The way to achieve consistency is to do the same thing repeatedly. I implement healthy and sustainable routines from day one to support this. This way, the baby knows what to expect from their parents and can start to trust that their needs will be met, which, in turn, soothes their nervous system. When we have a calm, rested, and fed baby, we can begin to identify any challenges with growth and development. For example, once a baby is eating and sleeping regularly, we can start to notice when something is off. It’s much harder when the baby falls asleep while eating, doesn’t stay asleep, gets cranky or fussy, and only falls asleep when held.
Q3. Your US Journal feature highlighted your efforts to redefine postpartum and newborn care by emphasizing education and community. How do you see your approach influencing the evolution of the private childcare and family wellness industries?
Erin Carroll-Manning: There is a gray area between traditional books and medical support, which highlights the need to educate families and the healthcare community. Inviting functional health and wellness practitioners can help fill this gap, enabling early support for families and children and potentially preventing the need for medical intervention. Over time, medical professionals can focus on treating serious medical conditions and emergencies, thereby saving lives, while functional practitioners can address other health aspects. Collaboration between these groups leads to better societal outcomes. Achieving this requires mutual education, communication, and cooperation among medical and functional health practitioners, all dedicated to serving society.
For example, in a mom’s group the other day, a mother mentioned her 4-month-old had a flat spot on the back of their head. The pediatrician said they have 3-4 weeks to do XYZ to see if it improves, or the baby will need a helmet. The mother was frustrated because she had mentioned the flat spot weeks earlier, but her doctor dismissed it and took a wait-and-see approach. If she had been informed that her baby had a neck restriction and that consulting an OT, PT, chiropractor, or CST earlier could have helped prevent or alleviate the flat spot, she might have opted for that approach. If the pediatrician had understood how those practitioners could have helped sooner, they might have referred her earlier.
These types of things happen all the time. Oral Dysfunction is one of the biggest, if not the most significant, things that goes undiagnosed in a newborn unless the baby is losing substantial weight. This plays out in different ways as the newborn ages into adulthood. The baby mentioned above, who has a flat spot, has some type of oral restriction. Here are other symptoms of oral dysfunction seen at different ages: the need for braces. Breathing with the mouth open is considered oral dysfunction; being nasal and experiencing frequent ear infections can be linked back to oral challenges. Hip dyspacia can be connected to oral dysfunction, sleep challenges can be linked, clogged tear ducts can be linked, short neck can be linked, blisters on the lips and gums is a significant symptom but rarely ever gets treated, reflux, gas, lack of sleep, falling asleep at the breast, sleep apnea, Digestive challngeses, Constipation, Vagus nerves mis functioning, needing to take out the valve in sippy cups, texture challenges, eating purees for far too long, and the list is 500 miles long.
When we involve functional health and wellness practitioners from the very beginning, we can establish much better and stronger foundations. I’m always saying, “If it were up to me, I would have an OT who specializes in newborns and oral dysfunction assess every newborn within 2 weeks of birth with a full body evaluation. Let’s make it as routine as they do the newborn evaluations in the hospital within an hour of delivery.” (Erin Carroll-Manning)
Q4. Many parents struggle with conflicting advice in the early weeks. How do you and your team simplify the process and guide them toward sustainable, healthy routines that support both baby and family wellbeing?
Erin Carroll-Manning: This is a great question. Some families may find it challenging to follow our advice due to the overwhelming noise and conflicting information. This goes back to the lack of confidence and heightened anxiety mothers feel on the inside. All we can do is provide them with the information and let them make their own choices. Ultimately, they come around, even if it’s not with us, but on their own or when things become so unbearable that they need a change.
Q5. Gentle Giraffes takes a whole-family approach rather than focusing solely on the newborn. Why is this perspective so critical to achieving long-term health and balance in the home?
Erin Carroll-Manning: When parents are emotionally healthy and can regulate their nervous system, they can truly help and support their children. Parents are their kids’ strength and guides in life; they are the “alpha.” This isn’t negative; alpha simply means a strong leader and guide. Newborns, infants, and toddlers need this confidence. They look for it and they test their boundaries to see if they can trust what their parents are saying to be true and what their limits are. When parents can give their children healthy and loving but firm boundaries from day one, they are teaching their children how to regulate their nervous system and how to work through the sadness and disappointment that happens in life, and showing them compassion and understanding by holding space for their kids, no matter how they express themselves. This can give parents the patience, emotional bandwidth, and sustainability to be the alpha to their children.
This can only happen when parents heal their own inner pain, allowing inner peace and secure attachment to emerge.
Most of society walks around with a lot of anxiety, emotional pain, and a nervous system built in survival mode, not knowing how to regulate their own emotions, let alone their child’s. These issues show up as self-doubt, narcissism, guilt, anger, perfectionism, control, people-pleasing, lack of trust in decisions, inability to hear their children cry, giving everything to their children, and struggling to set firm yet loving boundaries from day one, even if the children cry. They may also yell, take substances even socially, abuse their children, develop eating disorders, exercise excessively, or experience emotional, mental, physical, and sexual abuse. All of these are ways people have learned to support their nervous systems. They are unhealthy methods (there are many more) because they avoid confronting pain and feelings, because they were never taught how to. Unfortunately, these patterns are passed down to children, transmitting generational trauma, unhealthy emotional patterns, and insecure attachment from one generation to the next.
Recently, we’ve learned that trauma is stored in our cells, and a woman’s eggs are affected by her nervous system’s health and her capacity to manage stress. We are also discovering that, in the womb, a baby’s emotional development is influenced by how their birthing parents handle their emotions. The baby’s nervous system learns this before birth. The same is true for the sperm; a man’s sperm can carry emotional trauma and pain from the father. It’s essential to help parents heal and support them so they can nurture and care for their baby even before the baby arrives.
Q6. Looking ahead, what innovations or educational initiatives are you most excited to introduce at Gentle Giraffes to continue elevating standards in newborn and family care?
Erin Carroll-Manning: I just enrolled in a systemic family constellation healing training. This generational and lineage-healing modality is designed to help families and individuals heal their emotional pain and ancestral lineage. I have been to three different practitioners who perform these, and they all have been very profound for me. I’m excited to start this process, which will eventually allow me to offer it to our clients and, more broadly, to people in general.
I’m a truth teller, and I don’t conform to societal norms just because they’ve always been that way. I will continue to educate and speak about the importance of sleep for newborns, highlighting its equal significance to weight gain. Why forming a solid sleep routine from day one is critical for lifelong health.
I will continue to educate on oral dysfunction and its profound impact on the entire body, emphasizing the need for society to take a deeper dive into this issue for the sake of humanity’s health and well-being.
I plan to discuss the importance of well-qualified and professional private childcare providers and their vital role in our society on a larger scale. This includes how they are not only the backbone of our society, but also how they can genuinely support corporate America by keeping quality employees satisfied and loyal when support for growing families is prioritized. Ultimately, society relies on people having children. Families also deserve to recognize the value of having a highly qualified childcare provider readily available.
“It takes a village, but that village doesn’t have to be composed only of family or friends; it can be made up of professionals who genuinely love and value what they do, who understand their roles and the service they provide, not just to individual families but to society at large.” (Erin Carroll-Manning)
One of my major goals is to establish a pregnancy and postpartum wellness center that supports families from preconception through the first 5 years postpartum.
Conclusion
Erin Carroll-Manning wants us to truly listen to our babies and to ourselves. Her vision through Gentle Giraffes goes far beyond sleep routines and feeding schedules. She emphasizes nurturing emotional resilience, understanding the language of newborns, and creating a foundation where both parent and child can thrive. Erin’s philosophy challenges long-held beliefs about postpartum care. She advocates for recognizing private childcare professionals as skilled experts who play a vital role in shaping family and societal well-being. As Erin beautifully puts it, the first days of life should be more than just survival; they should be the start of connection, growth, and lifelong learning. Her work proves that with the right care, those early moments can build a lifetime of confidence and joy. This is why Gentle Giraffes is a place where families find calm, education, and trust.
