In Battlestar Galactica episode "33," the human fleet is being relentlessly pursued by the Cylons. Every 33 minutes without fail, the Cylons appear from nowhere and attack, forcing the exhausted fleet to make faster-than-light (FTL) jumps to escape. This cycle repeats for over five days, leaving the crew and civilians sleep-deprived, mentally frayed, and on the brink of collapse. Each time the fleet escapes, the Commander says, "Start the clock", and the camera pans to a clock counting down the next 33 minutes.

A similar cycle, but a more "luxurious" 2 to 3 hour period, applies to newborn babies until around the age of 4-6 months. This is because babies need to wake every 2 - 3 hours to feed. This happens around the clock, day and night. No problem, right? Because unlike the crew of Battlestar Galactica, you have almost 3 hours to rest in between?

The reality, though, is that you have much less time than that once you factor in all the things you have to do in between. First, the actual feeding of the baby takes time. Next, you have to pat the baby until he/she has burped. In between you also have to spend time changing their diapers and clothes if soiled.

Lastly and most crucially, you have to put the baby back to sleep. That is the most important part and can be so time consuming that I would say that sleep training your baby (can start from 4 months and above) is the single most important thing you can do to improve your quality of life, assuming you are the one putting the baby to sleep. This is because unlike adults, babies do not naturally know how to go to sleep. They are used to being in their mother's womb and being "put to sleep" there.

In my experience, it can take up to 2-3 hours to put a baby to sleep; also, if you succeed in putting the baby to sleep earlier, it does not mean that the baby will stay asleep. As an illustration of these principles, I put my son (no longer newborn, but just as an example) to sleep about 30 minutes ago (I started the clock) but he then woke crying. Had he not been sleep trained, this would necessitate someone entering his room and spending up to an hour there. But because he is sleep trained, he put himself back to sleep in 5 minutes.

So, after all the feeding and putting the baby back to sleep, you will probably have about 1.5 hours of time left. The mother, if pumping, will have to spend time to do so.

If it is the day time, you may want to visit the toilet, have a drink, look at your phone etc., which leaves you with around 1 hour of time left. That doesn't necessarily mean you can now rest or go to sleep, because there are countless chores to be done, such as washing of milk bottles, or making a grocery run etc. So you have to be disciplined about getting sufficient rest.

Like I previously mentioned, depending on your arrangements, the tasks above can be shared with your spouse and/or outsourced to someone else.

The confinement nanny is an example of someone who is highly trained to perform the baby related tasks efficiently. That is your one full time equivalent (FTE) of manpower. She is capable of feeding, burping, diaper changing the baby, cooking, washing baby bottles and clothes, bathing the baby, AND getting sufficient though intermittent sleep throughout the day. But you are not at the level of the confinement nanny yet.

Lastly, purely for planning purposes again, it is useful to know the "3 to 1" rule, or the 3:1 ratio. This is a military doctrine that suggests an attacking force needs at least three times the combat power of the defending force to successfully break through a prepared defensive position.

The 3 to 1 rule, in my view, equally applies to taking care of babies. A baby cannot be left unattended in the sense that there must be someone in the house. The baby can be, but preferably not, left in the cot even crying. This means that it is best that at least two adults be in the house at the same time so that one of them can use the toilet etc. or do some chores while the other minds the baby.

It is possible of course for one adult to care for one baby, and in fact probably necessary when errands like grocery buying needs to be done and only two parents are around. However this means that it will cut into any rest time the parents can get in the 3-hour cycle.