We’re thrilled to welcome our new columnist Amanda Marks. Amanda is a Renowned Breastfeeding, Food & Sleep Consultant
With over 40 years of experience supporting families, Amanda Marks is a highly respected breastfeeding, food, and sleep consultant. Based in prestigious locations including 10 Harley Street, London, and Alderley Edge, Cheshire, Amanda has worked with families from diverse backgrounds, including media personalities and royalty, maintaining the highest standards of confidentiality.
Amanda’s gentle and empathetic approach focuses on empowering parents to respond effectively to their children’s needs, fostering optimal mental and physical development. She takes a firm stance against “Cry It Out” and Controlled Crying methods, instead offering personalised guidance on feeding, weaning, sleep, and developmental milestones from 0-7 years.
Amanda offers a range of services, including:
– Pregnancy and Post-Birth Feeding Programme
– Early Weeks Review
– Weaning, Food & Sleep Guidance
– Food & Sleep, Separation Anxiety & Boundaries
As a mother of three grown sons, Amanda brings both professional expertise and personal insight to her work. Her client base, formed predominantly through personal referrals, has grown to over 5000 families worldwide.
You can email your questions to ‘Ask Amanda’ to amanda@broodmagazine.com
“Thank you to BROOD for inviting me to be one of your regular columnists. I truly value what BROOD stands for — and I love being a part of the BROOD family who cheerlead each other so brilliantly in business and beyond. I’m so excited to be writing about the subjects I’m most passionate about: babies and children, and in my own small way offering parents practical tips and tricks from my various programmes and my 40 years of expertise. I hope to answer your questions on all things feed, food and sleep — and bring a taster of what I’ve learned from 40 years of supporting families through their journeys — to the BROOD table. Here’s to 2026, and I hope you enjoy our first article on two topics that always come up: the dummy (and how to say goodbye when you decide, together, the time is right)… and another favourite of mine – why food is so important!”
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13 Tips from my Parenting Programmes
- Start collecting colostrum pre birth to facilitate faster weight gain and reduction of onset jaundice.
- Create a support group of parents who have recently been or going through breastfeeding, food and sleep journeys to then be empowered by their experiences.
- Understanding how important the baby’s first 5 days post birth are, in order to establish a healthy milk supply.
- Trust your instincts when it comes to health professionals diagnosing early reflux and CMPA which is often incorrect and lead to unnecessary baby medication
- Learn and educate yourself about your baby’s 4th trimester, this will answer of a lot of questions allowing breastfeeding journeys to be smooth, successful and nurturing.
- Food before 1 is not just for FUN.. babies need iron from 6 months in food so make sure you are weaning onto solids and understanding milk requirements to allow your baby’s appetite to build.
- Offer a slow releasing carbohydrate before sleep.. Amanda’s Magic Porridge is on the programme to enable tryptophan & melatonin release through food to increase sleep.
- Quiet Time is a great way to teach your baby or child to unwind, be prepared for a relaxed settled bedtime and start to their sleep cycles
- Make sure you know your babies and child’s age appropriate wake windows to avoid going to sleep overtired and often leading to lengthy bedtimes with unnecessary upset
- Be aware of separation anxiety and answer your babies and children appropriately, this is a healthy developmental stage and needs to be recognised so your children smoothly go through it being answered,
- Rather than offering unhealthy and carbohydrate based snacks that raise the blood sugars offer foods like watermelon and cucumber that also then don’t impact appetites
- Do not teach your babies and children to sleep with controlled crying or cry it out methods, cortisol is released from the brain and can lead to many issues in later life. My programme promotes Stages 1-4 over a 2 week duration so they are learning and can demonstrate by settling with you present.
- Listen to your babies and children by being present, switch off your phone, eye to eye contact when talking to them and give clear firm boundaries, this will enable your children to feel secure in their world,, healthy in their minds and safe in all areas of life.
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“ I’d pivoted from a successful career as a screenwriter, director and producer working in tv and film to ‘storttelling’ online fulltime, as my former job had proved completely incompatible with motherhood”
Can you tell us a bit about the stories and how you think they’ll resonate with young readers?
The Greek Myths each have a moral behind them, and I include a section at the end of each one titled Moral of the Myth to help children understand and further explore the stories, often making parallels with well-known fairy tales which came after the myths. The ancient Greeks believed 12 powerful gods lived on Mount Olympus, but that they were as flawed and complex as the human mortals they governed over. The myths tell the stories of deities and mortals who made bad decisions, for example, the money-obsessed King Midas who turned his own child to gold before repenting, or the impulsive Icarus who failed to listen to his father and flew too close to the sun.
How did your own experiences as a parent influence the writing process, and did you draw from any specific moments or challenges?
Being a parent means having experienced emotion in its most heightened form: unconditional love, searing pain, rebellious optimism, endless ennui and more. To have access to such a vast range of experiences and emotions enables me to empathise with each character and make them more human. I also think having children and being busy means not having the luxury of procrastination because as soon as the youngest is asleep, I HAVE to write!
How do you prioritise your time and responsibilities as a working mum, and what self-care practices help you stay energised and focused?
I tend to write on the days my 3 year old has childcare (2 days a week) and when she sleeps. My older sons are at school, but they have lots of sports commitments, so after school and weekends are busy. I feel like a taxi driver most of the time. I think the pandemic gave me greater balance in my work/ parenting life as I didn’t have to commute as much as before. I also became stricter when it came to the projects I took on during my pregnancy and beyond. A former therapist once said to me, ‘You are your values,’ so I always remember what matters most to me: family and friends and making work decisions from a place of knowing what I want and need in order to be a happy and present mum first. My identity at one time relied heavily on my career. It doesn’t anymore, it’s an important part of me, but not as vital as my mental and physical health and of course my kids, husband, parents and close pals. I love running and try to do yoga from home as much as possible. I also follow a low-carb diet, which helps me feel my strongest.
And lastly, do you have any tales of ‘BROOD Moments’ where work and parenthood have collided?
My middle son was asked on live TV around the age of 4 (on the BBC) if he was happy I worked from home so he could see me more, and he said, ‘No, she can be quite annoying! ’ Ha! From the mouth of babes!
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