How to combat short-term memory loss due to interrupted sleep?

For starters, cut the sugar and stick with the caffeine (i.e., black coffee). The sugar will just play havoc with your energy levels. Eating light meals rather than rich, heavy ones (which are tempting to reward oneself for the day-to-day difficulty) will also help your energy. I find that exercise actually does help, especially when you don't load up on food, but I recognize how difficult it is to embark on a regimen during that stage of childcare. Those are the only things that have helped me.

Yeah we waited until 11 months before we did the controlled crying thing, which really took only 2 nights, then he slept the whole night (and one of the reasons he was waking up was from an upset tummy from drinking during the night!) In retrospect, should have done it sooner. One of the best things Mum instituted when she visited was that, first lunch, then toilet, then nap. Period. That was a huge change. The kid slept better at night, more fun to be around during the day, and fit in much better at daycare later on. You just can't see the signs for over-tiredness when it is "normal". When ever I meet people and they say "well, we thought about that, but our kid doesn't need a nap" and you can just see all the signs of over-tiredness in the kid.. Mum owned, and ran daycare centres for 35 years, and she will tell you all kids will do better with a nap, it is up to the parents to get the routine started. If not, she would and the everyone would benefit. Sorry, guess I derailed..

Dear eastcoastbias.... how about trying a bottle of water in the middle of the night? Babytaff was fed solids at 6pm with a breastfeed at 7pm at ten months and slept through to till around 6am. Little tummies can last without the food. I bet your daughter could do it. After a while of just doing the water, she'll eventually work out that there's nothing to be gained from waking up. Hopefully. Plus, it's bad for her teeth to have a bottle in the night. Another thing to consider is stopping the actual bottle. Do you have a hard spouted sippy cup? (Has to be hard or it won't work.) We use the avent spout on the Avent bottle. It's nowhere near as nice to suck on, and babytaff only drinks when she's thirsty. Not for the chewy sucky factor. These will hopefully get you some way to more sleep. You could keep the last feed at night for a while.... and drop the 3am one. Either do the water, or just settle her back down without feeding/major cuddling. You can email me for more tips with or without the controlled crying part. I hate it. But I know a fair bit about it. OOOOh... I thought I read bottle in there. Perhaps she's breastfed. If that's the case.... I don't like your chances with a sippy cup in the middle of the night without notice... your wife's boobs might object for a few days..... Hmmm.... it's possible. How is your gorgeous, scrumptious baby girl feeding in the night? ----------------------------- Kmennie, I'm ignoring your deeply offensive slur about my and other parents practices. Obviously we come from different philosophical backgrounds and my words will mean nothing to you. In Australia we have very rigorous academic standards at our universities. This may not your experience. I have nothing more to say to you here.

There may be a medicine that is right for you and that can help you stay awake during the day and focus better. Talk to your physician?

http://www.talaris.org/pdf/research/CIOPoster.pdf, http://www.kellymom.com/parenting/sleep/sleepstudies.html

Hold on to your Kids is more a book written by educated people, but it does mention and cite research. It is definitely the most textbook like book about parenthood that I own (it is uncomparable to for example the Sears parenting books), but the author does have an opinion, based on his clinical practice. I can only find Dutch references to Dr de Jonge's work, so I am afraid that that's not that helpful. The daycare/SIDS link was big news here last week but I could not find much more than http://www.nu.nl/news/1365696/151/'Kinderdagverblijf_kan_wiegendood_veroorzaken'.html in Dutch. It did state that children in daycare (in our country, of course) are more likely to have higher educated non smoking parents, and to sleep on their back and not under a comforter, so the increased SIDS is not because of these factors. The Wikipedia article about De Jonge says that he made the recommendation that babies sleep on their backs and got a lot of criticism at the time (in 1987, years before the back to sleep campaign in the US started). After his recommendations were implemented in the Netherlands anyway, we had a dramatic decrease in SIDS cases and he is known as the leading SIDS researcher in our country. There are a few references at the bottom of his Dutch Wikipedia biography (that I linked before). I found an English http://www.wiegedood.nl/modules/content/index.php?section=4 where De Jonge is mentioned as the initiator of back to sleep promotion. Of course it is totally possible that researchers in the US found the same thing around the same time, I have no idea about that. His research is cited in studies on SIDS that I found on Pubmed though.

It seems that baby eastcoastbias needs to be fed now and then at 3-4am, then goes back to sleep. Never mind that we often feed her before she falls asleep (by 9:30-10pm).

Hey Davar. My interest lies more in research, not so much in books written by educated people. Sadly, for me, there's a world of difference. Is the book you mentioned research? I have also not heard about the non-breastfeeding/stress/SIDS link. Do you have a citation for that? And Dr Jonge's work with the tummy sleeping? I had thought it was a statistical correlation that was observed in lots of places. I'd love to hear more about it, if you've got the time to find the citations.

Taff, you could start with Hold on to your Kids by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate. Neufeld is a clinical psycholigist (PhD). Mate is an MD. They provide many references to other academic literature. In other related parenting news, this week, a http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guus_de_Jonge who is well known for his SIDS research and who discovered the risks with putting chidren to sleep on their bellies, stated that daycare is another major SIDS risk. The hypothesis is that this is because of stress and/or lack of breastfeeding.