Nighttime eating and sleeping

Interrupted sleep and incomplete sleep cycles can lead to sub-standard functioning during the day. Parents can experience this kind of sleep disturbances because the needs of infants and toddlers and their sleeping patterns don’t fit well with those of adults. For mothers this is added to the sleep disturbances that started in pregnancy (Kohn et al, 2008). The Montgomery-Downs et al study showed that it is not the shorter sleep per se (in fact most parents have quite the same average of minutes of sleep as other adults) but rather the fragmented pattern of sleep. Doan et al already showed that breastfeeding mothers have an average of 45 minutes of sleep more per night than bottle-feeding mothers. Mothers who keep their babies close (in or directly besides their own beds) and breastfeed sleep best of all mothers in duration and quality of sleep. Bed sharing, however is strongly discouraged in anti-SIDS campaigns (although this is poorly underlined by research). A compromise is using a co-sleeper. A co-sleepier is a standard cot, with only one side barred. The other side is naild or tied very closely fitted to the side of the parental bed, without any traps or openings. Co-sleepers are a quite easy DIY projects or can be purchased ready to use. A very nice one is for sale at ikbenmam.nl. As pretty, made of pure wood and much more affordable are the co-sleepers sold by naturebabies.nl.
Kohn, M., & Murray, B. (2008). Sleep and Quality of Life in Pregnancy. In J. Verster, S. Pandi-Perumal, & D. Streiner, Sleep and Quality of Life in Clinical Medicine (pp. 497-504). Humana Press.
Montgomery-Downs, H., Insana, S., Clegg-Kraynok, M., & Mancini, L. (2010). Normative longitudinal maternal sleep: the first 4 postpartum months. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology , in press.
Doan, T., Gardiner, A., Gay, C., & Lee, K. (2007). Breast-feeding Increases Sleep Duration of New Parents. Journal of Perinatal & Neonatal Nursing , 21(3):200-206.