AS a TV expert, author and adviser to the stars, you might expect Jo Tantum to be sitting back and taking it easy, basking in the glow of her reputation as the UK's leading baby sleep expert.
But as I catch up with her at her home in Farnsfield, she's just returned from an intense few days in Wales, where she's been trying to turn round the exasperating sleep problems of a set of one-year-old twin girls.
"They were becoming dummy dependent and the parents had been going in 11 times a night to give them their soothers back," Jo, 41, explains. "They were also being rocked to sleep in a pram instead of sleeping in their cots.
"Basically, with a case like this, I ask the parents to give me a 48-hour log of what the babies have been doing. Then I will come in the morning and take control of them. I'll do the naps in the cot in the day and then stay and do all night as well. And then another day and another night, and then off I go.
"Those girls are now sleeping through from 7pm to about 6.15am or 6.30am now, with a little bit of soothing. But yes, they are sleeping all the way through, which is exactly what the parents wanted."
This is a typical case for Jo, who has travelled around the world to carry out her sleep training techniques – mainly based on regular schedules and "spaced soothing" methods, as documented in the bestselling book Baby Secrets, published in 2006.
She's appeared as an expert on numerous TV shows, runs an 0800 advice line, offers continuous e-mail support and a Skype service to help parents who have reached the end of their tethers when it comes to getting their babies to sleep.
But her main job is still as a hands-on sleep trainer – where she moves in with a family and takes over the baby's routine for anything from 24 to 96 hours.
"It's always successful, which is really nice," Jo says confidently.
As well as this, Jo manages to fit in several stints a year as an expert at the popular Clarion Baby Shows, alongside kids' food writer Annabel Karmel and baby feeding specialist Clare Byam-Cook. She's also been filming a piece on the royal baby for ITV Tonight and is in talks with BBC3 to be an expert on a new documentary series.
Her main project this summer, however, will be the launch of a new service called Sleep Angels, where a group of top candidates from five-star nanny agency Bespoke Baby Concierge will be fully trained in Jo's methods.
She explains: "Starting in July, these girls will be personally trained by me and I'll make sure they understand all my techniques and can communicate effectively with distressed families. It will allow me to take a step back to concentrate on myself and also to do more projects.
"I'll be at the end of the phone for them and I'll be using Skype to monitor them at first. But I'm hoping by the end of November, I'll have four qualified people who can go out and do my rescue packages. It's very exciting."
Born and brought up in Woodthorpe, Jo knew she wanted to work with children from a very young age.
"I remember my friends would all be playing on the streets and I would be back in the house organising story sessions with their younger siblings," she recalls. "In the school holidays, I worked for a children's centre and we used to take the kids out to farm parks and on trips. I loved it.
"Then I went to Basford Hall College and studied childcare. I did more placements at the same nursery and then I did the NNEB and I got to work all around Notts, including at the City Hospital and at various baby units."
It was following a stint as a nanny that Jo got into the relatively new field of maternity nursing, caring for newborns from as young as one day old in their own homes 24 hours a day for at least a week.
The idea was to give new parents a chance to rest, recover and ensure feeding was properly established – and over the next ten years or so, Jo found herself working with some of the wealthiest families in London.
She also worked with a family from Bath with twins – and dealing with more than one baby at a time became something of a speciality.
Jo explains: "Working with the twins, I made sure I tried everything I knew about babies. I looked into old wives' tales, I read every single child and babycare book going. I pored through lots of research and gave everything a try and then I started devising my own little methods to see which worked and which didn't.
"I worked and worked on it until I got to a point that the methods I was using worked all the time.
"I had all this wealth of experience and thought, I really ought to write this all down"
The book Baby Secrets deals exclusively with babies from 0-6 months.
It was an instant hit and made Jo a popular media "baby guru" – with stints on GMTV, Live with Gabby on Channel 5 and several magazine columns.
Her website includes glowing testimonies from the likes of rock star Bryan Adams, singer-songwriter Jewel and radio presenter Christian O'Connell, who used Jo's methods with his own baby at a stage when he was "desperate" because she slept for only 20 minutes at a time.
After calling Jo in, the presenter writes: "She is firm but kind with it and after only one day our baby girl slept 7pm till 7am the very first night which was astounding. We couldn't believe it."
But it was never in Jo's plan to become a TV personality, she adds.
"I'm a hands-on sleep expert, I still physically go out there and do the work and don't have any sleep for weeks on end," she points out.
Jo insists her methods are not based on rigid regimes. She explains: "I'm not pushing a routine onto a baby, I'm fitting a routine round what the baby is actually doing.
"I'm not into strict routines. My schedules are based on baby's natural feeding patterns. I know when baby is going to be hungry and tired because I ask parents to send me a log first and I use techniques that are all based on these natural routines.
"My techniques make a parent more confident. Instead of putting the baby on the breast or giving them a bottle because that's what they've been told to do, they're thinking about it more first."
And as she trains up her new team of Sleep Angels to teach parents the tricks of the trade, Jo is also looking forward to seeing her successful range of Sleepytime baby toiletries – including massage oils and hair and body wash – being launched in Boots this summer (it's already available in Waitrose and other shops).
Despite her busy and exhausting life, she is delighted at how things have turned out.
Jo says: "When the book came out, I got offered a lot of projects and I was supposed to be doing my very own TV programme, but it got stopped because of the London bombings and never came off. I was really disappointed at the time, but now I think it might not have been the right time anyway.
"Now after working with hundreds of families, I can honestly say I can help every baby sleep better. My mission has always been to make a difference to all sleep deprived, stressed parents and I will continue to do so."
