Parenting, pregnancy and family
General family support, feeding, prematurity and multiples.
The short version
- Awake at 4am? The National Breastfeeding Helpline, 0300 100 0212, answers 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It is not freephone.
- Out of hours, text FAMILYACTION to 85258, free and 24/7. FamilyLine itself is 0808 802 6666, weekdays 9am to 7pm, callers 18 and over.
- General parenting worries: Coram Family Lives, 0808 800 2222, weekdays 9am to 9pm and weekends 10am to 3pm. Not a 24-hour service.
- Feeding in the evening: NCT's Infant Feeding Line, 0300 330 0700 option 1, every day 8am to midnight, including bank holidays.
- Do not count on a phone line for Bliss, PANDAS or Gingerbread: those helplines have closed or never existed. Use their online routes instead.
The rest of this page explains where this comes from. You do not have to read it tonight.
About 7 minutes to read
Parenting, pregnancy and family support
National Breastfeeding Helpline
24 hours, 365 days 0300 number
0300 100 021224 hours a day, 365 days a year. Daytime service 9:30am to 9:30pm, and NBH@Night 9:30pm to 9:30am
This is the only genuinely round-the-clock parenting line in this directory, and it is the one most parents have never heard of. If you are up at 4am with a baby who will not settle and feeding is part of the picture, someone will answer. Support is available in Welsh, Polish, Bengali and Sylheti. The Lullaby Trust's own parent guide recommends it.
It is a 0300 number, so it is not freephone.
The National Childbirth Trust (NCT)
Infant feeding 0300 number
0300 330 0700Option 1, the Infant Feeding Line: every day from 8am to midnight, including bank holidays. Options 2 to 4: Monday to Friday 9 to 5, closed on bank holidays
The Infant Feeding Line runs late into the evening, which makes it one of the few options once the health visiting service has closed for the day. We have since confirmed the options 2 to 4 hours, including the bank holiday closure, on NCT's own contact page.
Home-Start UK
Local schemes Not a helpline
0116 464 5490 is Home-Start's head office, not a helpline. Do not ring it expecting support at 2am. Home-Start works through over 200 local schemes, and you find yours through the national site.
What a local Home-Start offers is a trained volunteer who calls by every week for a couple of hours, for as long as the family needs support or until the youngest child turns five or starts full-time education. Home-Start describe their support as free, confidential and non-judgemental. Around 17 per cent of families refer themselves, so you do not have to wait for a professional to do it for you.
Their material describes support given alongside you rather than instead of you, so it is best not to expect a volunteer to take over the baby while you sleep.
Coram Family Lives
Free All parenting worries
0808 800 2222Monday to Friday 9am to 9pm. Weekends 10am to 3pm
These are the current hours. This is not a 24-hour service. The Charity Commission register still describes it as a 24-hour helpline and that wording is out of date, so if you have seen "24 hours" elsewhere, this is why. The old familylives.org.uk address now redirects to Coram Family Lives.
PANDAS Foundation
Free Perinatal mental health No phone helpline
PANDAS do not publish a number to call. Their own site does use the word "helpline", which is confusing, but the link goes to a free booked callback service rather than a line you dial. If you have found a phone number for PANDAS on a council directory or an NHS page, we could not confirm it against anything PANDAS themselves publish, and we are not going to reprint it.
What does work, and is free:
- WhatsApp 07903 508334. Free.
- A free booked callback, arranged through their website.
- Weekly online drop-ins, and a dedicated "Support for Dads" section.
We are not giving hours here because PANDAS' own two pages disagree with each other about them. Check their support page for the hours that apply on the day you contact them.
Bliss
Premature and sick babies No phone helpline
Bliss has no telephone support helpline. A freephone number is widely circulated for Bliss on other websites; it appears nowhere on bliss.org.uk and we checked directly. Bliss do publish an office line, 020 7378 1122, but it is for general enquiries and asks you to leave a message, so it is not a route to support at 3am.
What Bliss does offer instead:
- Email support at hello@bliss.org.uk
- Video call support, a bookable 30 minute call with a volunteer, arranged through their site. Availability sits inside their booking calendar, so we are not quoting hours.
Twins Trust (formerly Tamba)
Free Twins and multiples
0800 138 0509Monday to Friday 10am to 1pm and 7pm to 10pm, excluding bank holidays
Twins Trust describe the service simply as their Helpline. If you have seen it called Twinline, that is the older Tamba name and no longer appears on their site. Their website is intermittently unreliable, so if it will not load, the number above still works.
Tommy's
Freephone Answered by midwives
0800 014 7800Monday to Friday 9 to 5
Staffed by midwives. Pregnancy, loss, and worries in the weeks after birth.
Tommy's describe this as a non-urgent line and say they cannot make local referrals for you. For anything urgent, use your midwife, maternity unit or 111.
Family Action: FamilyLine
Free England and Wales Callers 18+
0808 802 6666Monday to Friday 9am to 7pm, closed bank holidays
Also text 07537 404 282 during those hours.
Out of hours, text FAMILYACTION to 85258. Free 24/7 This is one of the few routes on this page that will answer you in the middle of the night, and it costs nothing. Callers to FamilyLine must be 18 or over, and the service covers England and Wales.
Action for Children: Parent Talk
Free Online, not a phone line Covers sleep
0300 123 2112 is general enquiries, not a parenting helpline. The service you want is Parent Talk, which is free and online: webchat and WhatsApp with parenting coaches, Monday to Friday plus extended sessions on Monday and Thursday evenings. Sleep is within its scope.
Barnardo's
No general parenting helpline
Barnardo's does not run a general parenting helpline, despite frequently appearing on lists of them. They have run specialist helplines for particular groups, but the Refugee Family Helpline closed in March 2025 and the mental health helpline for people seeking asylum shows its funding as closed, so do not count on those either. For general parenting support by phone, use Coram Family Lives or Family Action instead.
Gingerbread (single parents)
Helpline closed Charity still running
Gingerbread's helpline closed on 1 April 2025. The old number is still printed on dozens of council directories and it will not get you support. We confirmed the closure twice, independently, on Gingerbread's own contact page.
Gingerbread itself is very much still going. What it offers now is free online information, over 50 volunteer-led local and online groups across England and Wales, and an online forum. For a single parent who wants to speak to somebody by phone, Coram Family Lives on 0808 800 2222 is the closest working equivalent.
Baby Buddy app (Babyzone)
App
The Baby Buddy app moved to Babyzone in March 2025, after Best Beginnings ceased to exist. If you were looking for Baby Buddy at Best Beginnings, this is where it went.
Netmums and Mumsnet are companies, not charities
Both are commercial businesses. Netmums Limited (company 04407586) is more than 75 per cent owned by Aufeminin, a French parent company. Mumsnet Limited (company 03951486) is more than 75 per cent owned by Mnet Holdings.
That does not make them useless. Reading other parents describing the same 3am you are having can be worth a great deal. But they are forums, not moderated support services, and nothing you read there is clinical advice. If you need someone accountable and trained, use one of the helplines above.
Where this comes from
- Charity Commission register for England and Wales, every England and Wales charity number on this page.
- OSCR, the Scottish Charity Regulator, every SC charity number on this page.
- Cry-sis contact page, the Cry-sis number and hours, corroborated on the NHS colic page.
- The Lullaby Trust contact page, both Lullaby Trust lines and their hours.
- The Sleep Charity National Sleep Helpline, the helpline number, hours, call cost and the 12 month age rule.
- sleepaction.org and OSCR SC027560, the Sleep Action rename and the absence of a phone number.
- Coram Family Lives, the current number and hours, replacing the register's stale 24 hour wording.
- Gingerbread contact page, the helpline closure on 1 April 2025.
- Bliss support page, confirming there is no telephone helpline.
- National Autistic Society contact page, confirming there is no public helpline.
- Samaritans contact page, 116 123, call cost and availability.
- Babyzone Baby Buddy, where the Baby Buddy app went after Best Beginnings ceased to exist.
- Action for Children Parent Talk, the free online service that replaces the helpline people look for.
- OSCR SC027007, The Breastfeeding Network, behind the National Breastfeeding Helpline.
- Healthy Child Programme, health visiting ages 0 to 5, the five mandated reviews in England.
- NHS Best Start in Life, the renamed NHS parenting hub and its baby sleep section.
- Find a family hub, gov.uk, family hub coverage in England.
- NHS 24 and NHS inform, the Scottish phone routes.
- Parent Club, Scottish Government sleep information.
- 111 Wales, the Welsh phone route and its availability.
- Flying Start programme, Welsh Government, enhanced health visiting for under fours in some areas.
- nidirect GP out-of-hours service, every Northern Ireland area number and the confirmation that there is no 111 service.
- FamilySupportNI, the Northern Ireland services directory whose phone line costs 70p per minute plus access charge.
Last checked 1 August 2026. This page is general information, not medical advice. If you are worried about your child, speak to your health visitor or GP.