Did you know that more than 50% of babies 6 months old aren’t sleeping in 8 hours segments?
Around 6 months of age, babies begin to develop a sleep schedule, but still can’t match yours.
If you have a newborn and want to get quality rest, you must first understand how your child sleeps.
Continue reading to discover the biggest differences between an adult and baby sleep cycle!
Shorter Cycles
One of the largest differences between a baby’s sleep cycle and an adult is that the cycles are shorter.
Adults need at least 7 hours of sleep each night, whereas babies require up to 18 hours of sleep. Adults typically sleep the entire 7 hours or more in one session. Babies, however, break up their sleep into smaller segments throughout the day.
Babies need to be woken up more frequently because they should be eating every 3 to 4 hours, depending on how old they are.
More REM Sleep
The baby sleep cycle goes through a couple of phases, including REM sleep.
REM sleep (rapid eye movement) is when the eyes move, the baby is dreaming, and they might flinch. Babies experience about 50% of their sleep in REM, which is more than adults.
During REM sleep, babies are more likely to get disturbed and are easily awoken. If you want to relax your child enough to enter REM sleep, you can learn more about the process with pacifiers!
Fewer Sleep Stages
Newborns have fewer sleep stages than adults, but this is only temporary.
A newborn baby typically goes through 2 stages of sleep: rapid eye movement and non-rapid eye movement (NREM). Once they reach about 3 months old, they begin experiencing 4 stages. Adults go through 4 stages of sleep each night if it is quality rest.
The stages that adults and younger children go through include NREM 1-3 and REM. The beginning starts with light sleep and gradually gets deeper.
Lack of Pattern
Does it seem like there is no rhyme or reason to your baby’s sleep schedule?
This is because your child’s circadian rhythm hasn’t fully developed. The circadian rhythm is essentially a person’s alarm clock, it helps wake them up and puts people on a sleeping schedule.
As this rhythm develops, babies will be able to sleep at regular intervals and times. This development typically occurs around 3 months of age, however, the timeline can vary.
The infant sleep cycle might feel randomized initially and gradually get better over time.
Time of Day
Since babies sleep in 3 to 4 hours segments at a time, they wake up and go to bed throughout the day.
Adults typically save their sleep for the end of the day and might take a nap in the afternoon. There isn’t a set time of day that babies rest until they are about 3 to 4 years of age. As your child grows, they will likely take longer naps at night, but they won’t be a full 8 hours.
Discover the Baby Sleep Cycle
Newborn sleep schedules are much different than an adult’s schedule.
Understanding the baby sleep cycle will help you with napping and getting them into a routine. Although babies require more hours of sleep in a day, they take smaller naps to get their energy between feedings.
Baby sleep patterns will become consistent and longer in duration after they are about 3 years old. Don’t get discouraged if your child goes off of their schedule since it takes a while for it to regulate itself.
Be sure to check out our blog for more articles about healthy habits for babies and new parents!
