Baby Keeping You from Sleep? Wait a Few Months

Parenting seems a lot less rewarded when you’re waking constantly to tend to a crying child. Consistent fatigue can suck the joy out of one of life’s most gratifying milestones. The good news is the end is in sight, and it’s a lot closer than you might think.

More than half of babies sleep through the night after about two or three months, researchers have discovered. A much smaller number of parents won’t be so lucky. Less than 15 percent of babies won’t stop waking or crying until after their first birthday.

The study looked at the sleep patterns of 75 healthy newborns over 12 months. During that timeframe, parents kept sleep diaries for their child and installed a camera where the baby slept to make time-lapse recordings. Researchers used the video to check the accuracy of the sleep logs.

The study reports the largest change in uninterrupted sleep came after the first month. The average child sleeps an extra three hours without waking. At three months, half of babies began sleeping from midnight to 5 a.m. One month later the same group slept from eight hours.

Parents also reported better rest after five months. Half of the new parents reported sleeping six hours or more.

A small number of the babies still regularly woke after their first birthday.

Parents may be able to help children who frequently wake late in their infancy. Make sure the baby’s sleep environment is comfortable, quiet and dark. Babies should be on a consistent sleep and feeding schedule.

Other factors, such as health problems can keep children awake. Consult a doctor if your child’s sleep doesn’t significantly increase after a year.

Dedication to CPAP Takes a Positive Personality

Do you view CPAP as the machine that can save your health or is it a consequence of your lifestyle choices? How you answer may predict whether you’ll stick with CPAP or become the 25-50 percent of obstructive sleep apnea patients who leave their condition untreated.

A study in the journal Sleep and Breathing examined what types of personalities adhere to CPAP, the front-line treatment for obstructive sleep apnea.

A positive outlook plays the biggest role, researchers discovered. The ideal patient is optimistic and responsive to the rewards from treatment, such as increased energy and improved mood.Pessimists and people with strong feelings of fear and anxiety will likely have a much more difficult time in the initial stages of CPAP therapy.

The study involved 31 men and 32 women previously diagnosed with sleep apnea. Their personalities were classified using a series of personality inventories completed at the beginning of the study.

Researchers referred to each of the patient’s medical records to look at CPAP adherence. The study defined adherence as using CPAP for at least 4 hours a night for about 5 nights per week.

By comparing personality types to medical records, researchers discovered positive or negative outlook predicted CPAP adherence 3 out of 4 times.

The findings are great news for the type of people who look at the bright side of things. There’s still hope even if you see the glass as half empty. It just might take some extra work.

Doctors are increasingly referring CPAP patients to behavioral sleep specialists who can help you improve your outlook and tackle the challenges of changing your lifestyle.

Sleepy Gene Worsens Effects of Sleep Deprivation

Some people are naturally wired to be tired. About 25 percent of people carry a gene variant that makes them sleepier than their peers, researchers have discovered.

The breakthrough explains why you might feel exhausted for staying up a half hour past your normal bedtime while your coworker in the next cubical has no problem regularly burning the candle at both ends.

People with a gene variant called DQB1*0602 are generally more fatigued whether they are rested or not because their sleep is more fragmented, researchers discovered. They spend less time in deep sleep compared to their peers. When they are fully rested, people with the gene variant have less desire to sleep.

The gene variant is closely related to narcolepsy, yet experts say anywhere from 12 to 38 percent of carriers are healthy sleepers who don’t develop the sleep disorder. Some people without the gene variant also develop narcolepsy, although it’s not as common.

The study compared 92 healthy adults without the gene variant to 37 healthy adults with DQB1*0602. Each participant spent a week at a sleep laboratory. For the first two nights they were allowed full rest, with a ten hour scheduled sleep period.
Sleep restriction followed for five nights. Each subject was allowed only four hours in bed and spent the rest of the time reading, playing games or watching movies.

Throughout the study, researchers measured the participants’ sleep quality and tested their memory, attention and ability to stay awake. Each person also reported how sleepy they felt.

When they were allowed full rest, people with the gene variant spent 34 minutes in stage three sleep compared to 43 minutes for people without the trait. After five nights of sleep deprivation people with the variant spent 29 minutes in deep sleep compared to 35 minutes for the control group.

While people with the variant were sleepier and more fatigued, they performed similarly in memory attention and daytime sleep resistance tests.

The findings may lead to changes in the way we look at sleep deprivation. AASM Member and medical director of Minnesota Sleep Disorder Center Dr. Mark Mahowald suggests doing away with sweeping statements about sleep deprivation.

“The implication is that everyone is sleep-deprived and sleep-deprivation does the same thing to everyone, but the tolerance and range of sleep is so different for different people,” Dr. Mahowald told ABC News.

"Our society has equated sleepiness with defects of character, like laziness and depression, but really, some people are generally sleepier during the day. They're more prone to naps, and to sleeping in. We have to accept the fact that sleep duration is genetically determined and not a sign of defect."

Real or Hoax? Photographer Spends 40 Days Without Sleep

Tyler Shields did something this October that most medical experts would consider highly dangerous, irresponsible and most likely impossible. The 28-year-old Los Angeles photographer claims he went 40 days without a wink of sleep. Friends tasked with monitoring Shields insist he was awake the entire time, and never felt the urge to close his eyes and drift away.

If you have your doubts, you’re not alone.

“In all likelihood he has slept, even if he does not think he has,” AASM member Dr. Michael Breus told AOL News. “Many people have what we call ‘microsleeps’ where our brain will go into sleep for even a few seconds.”

Shields claims he’s different than most people. He keeps a busy 24-hour work and social schedule and only needs to sleep a couple nights per week.

It all sounds either an early case of the devastating and impossibly-rare fatal familial insomnia or, in all likelihood, a sham for publicity. After all, Shields makes a living by taking suggestive photos of Lindsay Lohan and other young actresses.

Hoax or not, going long periods without sleep is still extremely unhealthy, which is why the Guinness Book of World Records refuses to recognize records for sleep-deprivation. Extreme sleep deprivation can lead to psychiatric problems such as irritability, depression and even hallucinations. Physical problems can range from elevated blood pressure, to obesity, stroke and heart failure.

Shields says most of the first month was no problem. The symptoms began after day 25 when he began having a bad fever, which he initially fought by eating “like 50 popsicles.“ When the fever came back he sat in a bathtub filled with ice. Then he lost feeling in his legs and then his entire right side. Then the numbness went away and he had to pee every 10 minutes.

He went the entire time without caffeine or stimulants. And he kept productive, taking dozens of photos inspired by sleeplessness.

The photographer says it took more than eight hours to fall asleep after the 40th day was complete. After only six hours of sleep he woke up starving and ate a half loaf of bread sitting on the kitchen floor.

“My head felt like it was going to explode almost as if a tank was driving through a wall and the only think stopping it was my head,” Shields blogged. “I still feel a bit like a balloon floating in space my feet dont feel like they are on the ground”

If this sounds ridiculous, that’s because it is. The entire story must be a hoax. It has to be.

Photo by Tyler Shields

Sleepwalk with Me: Comedian Mike Birbiglia's Sleep Disorder Scare

Meet Mike Birbiglia. He claims he jumped out of a second-story hotel window to avoid a missile attack. Witnesses say a madman crashed through a window in the middle of the night and then stumbled badly injured into the hotel lobby.

Birbiglia was as surpised as the hotel guests when he woke up covered in gashes. The guided missile attack was a nightmare but his actions were anything but a dream. 33 stitches and an overnight sleep study later Birbiglia was diagnosed with REM sleep behavior disorder, a parasomnia that causes the body to physically act out dreams.

The series of encounters leading up to his diagnosis are the subject of a series of memoirs titled Sleepwalk with Me.

Birbiglia makes his living by standing in front of an audience recounting long, embarrassing stories about his life. His darkly humorous accounts of REM sleep behavior disorder have earned him a Nathan Lane produced one man show, several Comedy Central specials and a spot as a semi-regular contributor to NPR’s This American Life.

Along the way he’s become the unofficial face of REM behavior disorder. Fans have approached Birbiglia to tell him they’ve had similar sleepwalking experiences and won’t repeat his mistakes.

In an interview with Time Magazine, Birbiglia admitted he sleepwalked for years before he was diagnosed.

“I [often] remember thinking this, ‘This seems dangerous. Maybe I should see a doctor.” And then I would think, “Maybe I’ll [just] eat dinner.’ And I went with dinner for years.”

Birbiglia limits the frequency of these episodes by taking clonazepam, a drug used to treat seizures by activating parts of the brain to produce a calming effect. Because there is no cure, he sleeps in a makeshift cocoon. He wears a sleeping bag up to his neck with mittens so he can’t open it and get up.

Sleepwalk with Me is on bookshelves now. Look for the film version written and acted by Birbiglia coming soon.

Hear Mike Birbiglia's live full-length performance of how he leaped through a hotel window on This American Life or listen to a in-depth interview on NPR's Fresh Air.