Doctors say that we need eight hours of uninterrupted sleep at night to be at our best. However, parents of infants usually get much less than that; some studies say that new parents lose 450-700 hours of sleep in the first year! It isn’t just that parents are getting less sleep; their sleep is interrupted, too, causing them to lose out most on the deep sleep that is so restorative.

The effects of a lack of sleep are immediate and unforgiving. After just one night of sleep deprivation, memory capabilities and processing time suffer, which of course has implications in all areas of life.

So, what can new parents do about this? Sleep deprivation calls for a battle on two fronts: coping effectively with the effects of sleep deprivation as well as struggling get more precious sleep.

Success for the sleep-deprived

Lists can be a parents’ best friend. Going out for some errands? Write down where you are going and what you are doing at each place. Have a few important things to do today? Write them down as you think of them so you can refer to them later. Last time I was a new parent, I was most forgetful about anything having to do with when the new baby (or in my case, babies) did something. For the first two months or so, we kept a notebook where each day had a page that listed when and how much or how long the babies ate, when they had a wet or dirty diaper, and when and how long they slept. This saved us many times during those months!

Not into making lists? Check out the Itzbeen Baby Care Timer. It has three different timers to mark the last time baby got a new diaper, ate, and slept, as well as a fourth timer you can set for your own uses. Each timer can have its own alarm when it reaches a certain time limit, too!

Chicks With Kids showed off the bizzyBee "baby data assistant" at the recent ABC Kids' Expo, which can do even more - storing medication schedules, helping to establish sleep routines, and exporting data to a desktop application. These start shipping in January and are available for pre-order. The key to this or any electronic aid - as any PDA user can tell you - is to make sure you're the type of person who enjoys logging data in a device, and that the benefits are worth the effort.

Catching up

As for catching up on sleep, remember the old adage, "sleep when the baby sleeps." Parents need to remember that their own sleep is more important than the dishes in the sink or the laundry in the washer. Even so, I have never been one that has done well with long naps (sleep fog is almost worse than sleep deprivation), but a 20-30 minute cat nap can be enough to recharge new parents to face the rest of the day. If it works with the baby’s feeding plan, trading off nighttime duties can help, too! When using bottles at night, new parents can trade off nights of getting up to allow at least one to get a good night’s sleep. Breastfeeding parents can separate duties when the baby gets up - while the mom is in charge of feeding, dads can get the baby up, change diapers, and put the baby back to bed.

For more ideas on how to get more and better sleep, check out Savannah's great tips today on The Tranquil Parent.

What other ideas have you found to work for you? Share your ideas so we can all - yawn! - try to get some shut-eye. - Sara I.