Okay so this has always perplexed me. It’s not so much a question of why babies need sleep. I understand why everyone needs sleep. Put simply, their bodies grow and repair themselves. However, I’ve been told by many parents that they put their babies to bed at 7:00PM and they are supposed to sleep until around 7:00AM. What I have found, however, is that most of the same parents also complain that their babies are waking up waaay too early. My roommates, specifically, have been dealing with their baby waking up at 4:30AM very consistently.
I have studied the mechanics of sleep (cycles, stages, conditions, etc) on account of my narcolepsy. The science doesn’t add up here, but I am certainly not a pediatrician. To compound the issue, they also put their babies down for naps that are often a couple hours long. Wouldn’t this be counter-intuitive? Babies should have a circadian rhythm, and their bodies should naturally know when they are ready to be awake. Is this really the correct course of action for a baby? Why do babies need so much sleep?
In: Biology
This is speculation on my part but I think it’s because newborns are actually in 4th trimester.
Babies are born when they are not because their brains/ bodies are ready but because their head is as big as can be while still fitting through Moms pelvis. So human newborns are much more immature than other mammals when they’re born.
It makes sense for babies in utero to sleep most of the day because they are confined, dont have much coming into their senses and therefore don’t have much to learn, and dont want to hurt mom or themselves by getting too active. In utero they don’t have circadian rhythm because there isn’t enough light to sync to yet. Their main job is growing not learning so they can just be mostly asleep through it.
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