Infant Sleep Patterns

[kellygomez]

Infant sleeping patterns can be divided into active sleep and deep sleep. When the baby is put to sleep, she remains in the active sleep mode for a long time where you can see her closed eyelids fluttering, frequent body movements, irregular breathing as well as brief cries and grunts. At this stage, the baby can easily wake up as she is not fully asleep. However, if she is not disturbed at this stage, she will quickly pass into quite sleep mode.

[cherry]

The best way to understand infant sleep patterns is to compare it with adult sleep patterns. When an adult falls asleep, he passes through several stages of sleep, mainly the non-REM and the REM. Non REM (non rapid eye movement) is the stage when the person is in a deep state, while the REM stage is where though the body is at rest, the brain is highly active and it is at this stage that we see dreams.