Sleep Deprivation

When one (or two) decides to have a baby they begin to prepare themselves for many changes.  I think that no matter how prepared you are you can never really prepare yourself for what is coming.  Everyone tells you that.  I probably heard a thousand times that no one could explain how exactly my world was going to change.  I really thought that I was prepared.
I think the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about having a baby is sleep deprivation.  Everyone expects to be up in the night with the baby for some amount of time.  In fact it is one of the most common questions, "Is the baby sleeping through the night?", or "How old was the baby when they started sleeping through the night?".  Everyone has a different answer to this question, and every baby is inevitably different.  What isn't common knowledge, however, are the effects that sleep deprivation has on us.  Sure, we understand that we will be tired, maybe a little grumpy, these things are common and clear. But what about the way sleep deprivation effects our brain?
REM sleep is thought to be the brain's restorative period.  It is believed that this is the time when the brain consolidates all the information obtained during the day.  Without it we would have a very difficult time remembering new information.  Makes more sense now why your teachers always told you to get a good night's sleep before a test huh?  Moderate sleep deprivation is considered to be getting between 4-6 hours of sleep per night for 2 straight weeks or more.  I think we can all agree that even the best nights with a newborn only allow for 6 hours of sleep and that this pattern continues for most of us, longer than 2 straight weeks.  Individuals in these situations begin to show the same symptoms of someone experiencing total sleep deprivation for 3 days in a row.  These symptoms include decreased attention (which also aides in memory loss), decreased reaction speed, behavioral deficits (including irritability), cognitive deficits (difficulty concentrating and episodes of disorientation), and a compromised immune system.  The strangest part is that individuals experiencing moderate sleep deprivation walk around feeling as though nothing is wrong.  They don't even really feel sleepy. 
I'm sure all of you have experienced at least some, if not all, of these symptoms while raising a newborn baby.  I know I have!  But to be honest I didn't realize I was until I was reading up on the effects of sleep deprivation for a class I was taking.  Sure there were days that I drank about 14 cups of coffee and still didn't feel as though I could keep my eyes open, but for the most part I felt just fine.  For a long time I was the one in charge of taking care of the finances, and after having my daughter I continued to "take charge" of this part of our lives.  Unfortunately, I made many mistakes.  Thinking that I was of sound mind I paid the bills as usual and weeks later realized that I hadn't paid two bills and paid another one twice in the same month.  I actually paid one bill three times in the same month.  Honestly, this was the least of my problems at the time.  I attributed these little lapses of judgement to "pregnancy brain" or "baby brain" when in reality it was "sleep debt brain". 
This isn't something that is talked about in baby classes or books.  I remember reading that I should sleep when the baby sleeps, but as reality hit it became clear that this wasn't possible very often.  When the baby finally goes down for a nap, I finally have a chance to use the bathroom, eat, wash all the dirty bottles in the sink and throw that load of laundry in the washer.  Then I can sleep... oh! I guess not!  Baby is awake again and needs to be changed and fed.  And what about when the baby falls asleep in the car? Should I pull over and take a nap on the side of the road?  Probably not.  Some people get help from family members or friends. Yes they can help with the laundry or take the baby for an hour so you can get some shut eye, but if the baby cries at all, how can you sleep?  I always felt guilty and either got up or just laid there with my eyes closed.  Not much help. Unless you have someone home with you all the time (your mother, nanny, or your husband works from home maybe) to help with all the cleaning, and there is a lot of additional cleaning when baby comes along, then you're probably not going to be able to get much of a nap in during the day. 
That brings me to my next point of discussion... sleep recovery.  It's much more complicated than you would think.  If anyone has ever taken a nap when they are completely exhausted and woken up feeling less refreshed than they did before they slept, you will understand this next point.  There are 5 stages of sleep that flow in a rhythm.  You go in and  out of each sleep stage while you sleep during the night and the order and flow of each stage is extremely important for adequate brain restoration.  Once someone has reached the point of moderate sleep deprivation recovering can be pretty tricky.  During recovery sleep time spent in stages 3 and 4 is greater than normal, this is at the expense of stage 2 sleep.  Now, REM sleep is the most important part of brain restoration and it isn't until the SECOND night of recovery sleep that REM becomes more intense. 
What does this mean? It means that you need AT LEAST two nights of deep sleep in a row, in order to fully recover.  My solution to this (after I stopped nursing) was to take a sleeping pill on Friday and Saturday nights and allow my husband to get up with the baby.  He would get up with her anyway on the weekends, but usually I would wake up too and lay there awake listening to make sure he was OK.  Not that he wasn't good, I just needed to be sure. Before I stopped nursing my husband would wake up with the baby on the weekends and let me sleep in until she had to nurse. 
I'm sure that there are many other options, especially for the single parents out there.  But I do think that it is important to understand what sleep deprivation can do to you and recognize when it may be time to ask for help.  If you can't get yourself some recovery sleep once a week or so, at least learn to delegate some of the important decisions and aspects of your life to a trustworthy individual.  Maybe set up automatic payments for your bills before the baby comes so you can just keep an eye on your account.  And certainly don't do anything rash, like decide to move or max out your credit cards. 
I hope this helps at least some of you and I hope you can learn to laugh at the many silly things you do while you're sleep deprived. (I argued with my husband for three days straight about spit up... yeah!)

References
Breedlove, S. M., Watson, N. V., & Rosenzweig, M. R. (2010). Biological psychology. (6th ed.). Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, Inc.