Baby's sleep needs

The American Academy of Pediatrics has recently revised its advice on how to avoid SIDS. Some of their rules may contradict the suggestions in this article. Please see aap.org for the new guidelines.

Sleeping
In the womb, the fetus probably sleeps 20 to 22 hours a day, depending upon the stage of gestation, and he comes into the world carrying those sleep patterns with him. Immediately after his arrival, your newborn will probably be alert for about the first hour. After that, expect him to submerge into a deep sleep for most of the next 24 hours to recover from his arduous journey.

During his first week of life thereafter, a newborn might sleep an average of 16 hours a day. There is, however, considerable variation within that average -- some babies sleep as few as 10.5 hours, others as many as 22 hours. Newborns regulate their own need for sleep, dozing for short periods ranging from 2.5 to 4 hours. They make little distinction between day and night and awaken two or three times a night.

Newborns sleep so much because, during sleep, their neurological systems work much better and grow much faster. And infants have a lot more growing to do than adults. Most newborns are happy to sleep their days away, and need no help at all dropping into slumber. Indeed, many new parents are surprised to discover the greater struggle lies in keeping their newborn awake -- to feed or change him -- than in getting him to sleep. If your newborn is not sleeping well, consult your doctor. Never give sleep medication to a newborn.

What wakes a baby
Generally, babies wake in response to pressing messages in their brains telling them they're hungry or uncomfortable. New babies don't have the capacity to store nutrition: they wake up simply because they run out of fuel. As they get older and their stomachs get larger, they'll be able to last for longer periods of time without refuelling. Babies are also driven by the eliminative process. In the early weeks, they are more likely to eliminate while asleep than awake. They move on from this early sleep pattern very rapidly. Even at one week of age, your baby may already have reduced his daily sleep time by a couple of hours.

A newborn's dreams
Human beings dream right from the start. Indeed, when a baby is first born, she dreams more than she'll dream later on. In the first week or so, she might dream during 30 to 60 per cent of her sleep time, compared to the 25 per cent of sleep time that adults spend in a dream state. Premature babies, in particular, spend most of their resting state in REM sleep, the stage of sleeping characterized by rapid eye movement and during which dreaming occurs. During REM sleep, a newborn does not exhibit the same physical stillness as do adults. It's not at all uncommon for a dreaming baby to stretch or make sucking motions and facial twitches.

How rapidly a person goes into a dream state depends upon body size, so your baby passes through her dream cycles much more quickly than you do. An adult lapses into the dream state every 90 minutes. No one knows for sure the duration between cycles for a newborn. But, says sleep expert Dr. Stanley Coren, author of Sleep Thieves and a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, "It happens very quickly. It's not unusual for the newborn infant to enter a dream state every 20 minutes or so, but it's changing so rapidly, that's just a snapshot."

The shorter sleep cycles that babies experience mean that their periods of light sleep occur more frequently than do those of adults. In fact, newborn babies have almost twice as much light sleep as adults do, which is what makes their sleep so easily disturbed.