Baby Sleep Phases
For adults, there are different sleep patterns. There are 5 common phases, but the newborn only goes through two phases of sleep during the 50-60 minute nap: REM sleep and NO REM sleep. The main need for which babies wake up, from 6 to 11 months even reaching the age of 3 years, is feeding and the need to claim their parents. In addition, in this stage, the small ones begin to experience micro awakenings. Find out more about the baby's sleep phases below:
REM
The first phase of a baby's sleep is the REM stage, which is short and light. This process involves the newborn moving from sleepiness to light sleep and then to REM sleep, where various rapid eye movements occur. Then they return to the previous process of light sleep and upon awakening, repeating the cycle up to 5 times each night, lasting between 50 minutes.
NO REM
This second stage of the baby's sleep is characterized by slower eye movements and is divided into 4 subphases: drowsiness, in which the baby has trouble sleeping, light sleep, deep sleep and very deep sleep. When falling asleep, the baby goes through these four subphases one by one and in the process of waking up it goes through them the other way around: from very deep NO REM sleep to deep, then light and REM sleep. If the baby wakes up before getting enough sleep, he may find it difficult to fall back into long, deep sleep.
Dreams and Nightmares in Children and Babies
Babies under three years of age do not have nightmares, or at least do not have the nightmares as we know them. So, if you notice that your child is getting scared, shaking or kicking too much while he's sleeping, you don't have to worry, because he's certainly not having a nightmare.
The reason for these agitations or tantrums that babies sometimes have while sleeping, is not due to nightmares, but are caused by the nervous system of the child who, being very young, still has a somewhat immature nervous system.
The age at which we can interpret the meaning of dreams and at which a baby begins to dream is 18 months, according to some pediatricians. And as experts explain, nightmares begin in children between the ages of three and six, and it is precisely between the ages of six and ten, when it is observed that there is a greater incidence of nightmares and night terrors in children.
However, unlike what happens to us adults, the sleep pattern of babies before birth and during the first months of life is the REM pattern. In fact, while adults can have between 90 and 120 minutes of REM sleep throughout the night, babies can have up to 8 hours of REM sleep per day.
