After three months (often sooner), the sleep deprivation will start to wear on you, and you will begin to wonder if your baby will ever sleep through the night. The effects of sleep deprivation are much more pronounced than being simply tired. While you'll notice delayed reaction times, clumsiness, and blurred vision, you might be too exhausted to notice impaired reasoning and judgment, apathy and agitation, and an increased sensitivity to pain.

In addition to being forgetful, confused, and increasingly irritable, you will seriously start to resent the mothers of babies who are sleeping 7 P.M. to 7 A.M. (you will meet these people) and wonder if you're doing something wrong. Rest assured that you're not. They simply drew good cards for this hand and have kids who like to sleep. If you're one of those, you can skip the rest of this chapter and save your energy for the next challenge your child throws at you. (But try to keep quiet about the amount of sleep you're getting; the rest of us really don't want to hear about it.)

The real issue isn't how much sleep your baby is getting — it's whether you are getting enough hours of sleep to cope as a parent, and how many of those hours are unbroken. Only you know how much is “enough” sleep and how you can best get it. If you are dangerously sleep deprived and your baby will drink from a bottle, ask your partner to handle the nighttime feeding duties from time to time.