Research shows that we are more inclined to endure hardship if we understand why we must face that hardship. Let’s take a few moments to examine why short sleep cycles (and parents’ sleep deprivation) are necessary for baby’s development.
Babies sleep in short cycles for survival.
Short, light sleep cycles give baby the ability to facilitate and communicate basic needs:
- Need for warmth: baby’s skin is thinner than adult skin.15
- Proper airflow: breathing increases with lighter sleep.
- Nutrition: tiny bellies digest milk within two to four hours
Babies and toddlers have shorter sleep cycles to ensure proper brain development.
Most of the human brain’s nerve cells, or neurons, are formed before birth—and we have more than 100 billion of them! However, many of the connections, or synapses, among those cells are made between infancy and early childhood. At birth, the most developed sections of the brain are the brainstem and midbrain areas, which regulate our basic body functions like eating, sleeping, breathing, etc. At this time, the limbic and cortex sections, which regulate emotions, language, and thought, are fairly primitive. The development of synapses between ages zero and three is astounding, and at peak rate, a toddler may create two million synapses per second.16
By age three, children have roughly one thousand trillion synapses, which is many more than they will ever need (perhaps explaining the irrational behavior of preschoolers). By adolescence, children will have discarded roughly half of the synapses developed in earlier childhood. Much of the process of building brain connections and then pruning them down occurs while children sleep.17
Babies “learn” while they sleep.
Adults drift off into deeper, inactive, non-REM (non-rapid eye movement) sleep and remain in deep sleep with the brain resting for a ninety-minute cycle before entering short cycles of active sleep. However, babies sleep lighter and smarter, engaging in twice the number of active REM cycles. REM sleep, which is associated with dreaming, maintains a pattern of brain activity that looks nearly the same as that of a brain awake. With blood flow to the brain doubledduring REM sleep, the body increases production of nerve proteins, the building blocks of the brain. Expect baby’s lightest REM sleep cycles to be between 4:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m., as she grunts, wheezes, and makes funny noises. Try not to disturb her as she gets smarter.18
Your baby or toddler does not enter sleep the same way you do.
New parents often get frustrated when their newborn erupts into crying just as he is put into his crib. “But he was just fast asleep in my arms a minute ago,” parents say. However, the child was probably still in a state of very light sleep. Sometimes rocking a baby just a few minutes longer can help him enter a deeper sleep, indicated by limp limbs and longer, slower breathing patterns.
Don’t feel pressure to get your baby to sleep too deeply, too long, too soon.
Friends and well-meaning family members may likely exaggerate how long their babies sleep, or slept, as newborns. Some might brag that all of their kids were good sleepers, as if that is a badge of honor for parental achievement. However, a child’s sleep pattern is much more reflective of her natural temperament and level of satiation, rather than the result of a particular parenting style
Sources
15. Stamatas, G.N., et al., Infant skin microstructure assessed in vivo differs from adult skin in organization and at the cellular level. Pediatr Dermatol, 2010. 27(2): p. 125-31.
16. Child Welfare Information Gateway. Understanding the Effects of Maltreatment on Brain Development November 2009; Available from: http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/issue_briefs/brain_development/brain_development.pdf.
17. Shonkoff, J., D. Phillips, and National Research Council (U.S.) Committee on Integrating the Science of Early Childhood Development, From neurons to neighborhoods : the science of early child development. 2000, Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. xviii, 588 p.
18. Frank, M.G., N.P. Issa, and M.P. Stryker, Sleep enhances plasticity in the developing visual cortex. Neuron, 2001. 30(1): p. 275-87.