REM Sleep in Children
For children, getting enough sleep is just as important as getting the proper nutrition. While they're snoozing, kids' brains and immune systems develop, making their minds and bodies stronger. REM sleep is especially important for children for a number of reasons.
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What is REM Sleep?
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Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep refers to the final stage in the sleep cycle when the body's muscles are totally relaxed, but the eyes move rapidly back and forth beneath the eyelids. Adults and children rotate through cycles of different kinds of sleep that last about 90 minutes, according to kidshealth.org. Children typically go through four or five cycles every night. Each cycle has five different stages, ranging from light to deep sleep. REM sleep comes last in the cycle, following our deepest sleep, and it is lighter than non-REM sleep, so it's more easily disrupted. During REM sleep, the heart beats faster, blood pressure rises and breathing gets less regular. Dreams occur during REM sleep, and kids start having them around age 3.
How Sleep Cycles Develop
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In his book, "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child," Marc Weissbluth writes that sleep states develop during the first four months of a baby's life. When newborns sleep, different sleep stages occur somewhat randomly, which may lead to poor sleep, fussiness or colic. After 4 months of age, sleep cycles are less ambiguous and more predictable, and sleep patterns develop that remain largely the same for the rest of our lives. Babies younger than 4 months enter sleep with a REM period, but around this age, they begin to enter sleep with a non-REM period, like adults, and follow a cycle of five stages of sleep from light to deep sleep. Infants and young children have much more REM sleep at night than older children.
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REM Sleep and Our Brains
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Weissbluth writes that high amounts of REM sleep help direct the course of brain maturation in early life. This means that babies and children need as much REM sleep as they can get, because it is necessary for brain development. According to babycenter.com, during REM sleep, our brains develop synapses, which are important connections that enable learning, movement and thought. According to Joanna Saisan, author of "Sleeping Well: What You Need to Know," REM sleep is vital to learning because it stimulates the brain regions used in learning and developing new skills.
Other Important Aspects of REM Sleep
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In both adults and children, REM sleep is especially important for restoring us emotionally and psychologically, while deep, non-REM sleep appears to be more important for physical restoration, according to Weissbluth. He believes that more REM sleep--and more sleep in general--can help kids to be less irritable, fussy, and hyperactive. Saisan writes that REM sleep is essential for processing emotions, retaining memories, and relieving stress, and that it helps improve our mood during the day.
Morning REM Sleep
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According to Saisan, the longest REM stage occurs in the morning. This is why we often remember dreams we had just before we woke up. However, if the body is deprived of deep sleep, it will try to make up for it at the expense of REM sleep. Therefore, if kids go to bed too late, but are forced to wake early in the morning, they probably aren't getting the REM sleep they need. To increase your child's REM sleep, Saison recommends letting him sleep a little later in the morning and establishing a good bedtime routine to get little ones to sleep earlier at night. For babies, Weissbluth recommends encouraging a solid morning nap, because it has more REM sleep than an afternoon nap.
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- Photo Credit Tina Keller: flickr.com
