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About Babies
Why Short Cat-Naps
Are Not Good Enough
By Elizabeth Pantley, Author of The No-Cry Nap Solution
If your
child’s naps are shorter than an hour and a half in length, you may
have wondered if these brief naps provide enough rest for your
little one. You might suspect that these catnaps aren’t meeting your
child’s sleep needs – and you would be right. The science of sleep
explains why a short nap takes the edge off, but doesn’t offer the
same physical and mental nourishment that a longer nap provides.
It takes between 90 and 120 minutes for your child to move through
one entire sleep cycle, resulting in a Perfect Nap. It has been
discovered that each stage of sleep brings a different benefit to
the sleeper. Imagine, if you will, magic gifts that are awarded at
each new stage of sleep:
Stage 1 - Very light sleep
Lasts 5 to 15 minutes
The gifts:
Prepares body for sleep
Reduces feelings of sleepiness
Stage 2 - Light to moderate sleep
Lasts up 15 minutes
The gifts:
Increases alertness
Improves motor skills
Stabilizes mood
Slightly reduces homeostatic sleep pressure
(The biological process that creates fatigue and irritability.)
Stage 3 - Deep sleep
Lasts up to 15 minutes
The gifts:
Strengthens memory
Release of growth hormone
Repair of bones, tissues and muscles
Fortification of immune system
Regulates appetite
Releases bottled up stress
Restores energy
Reduces homeostatic sleep pressure
Stage 4 – Deepest sleep
Lasts up to 15 minutes
The gifts:
Same benefits as Stage 3, but enhanced
Next Stage – Dreaming
Lasts up to 9 to 30 minutes
The gifts:
Transfers short-term memory into long-term memory
Organizes thoughts
Secures new learning
Enhances brain connections
Sharpens visual and perceptual skills
Processes emotions
Relieves stress
Inspires creativity
Boosts energy
Reduces homeostatic sleep pressure
Longer naps
For as long as your child sleeps
The gifts:
Repeat all of the above stages in cycles |
In order for your child to receive all of these wonderful gifts he
must sleep long enough to pass at least once through each stage of
sleep. Longer naps will encompass additional sleep cycles and
provide a continuous presentation of gifts.
Newborn babies have unique cycles that slowly mature over time. A
newborn sleep cycle is about 40 to 60 minutes long, and an infant
enters dream sleep quickly, skipping several sleep stages. Infants
need several sleep cycles to receive their full allotment of gifts.
If your infant is sleeping only 40-60 minutes at naptime it is an
indication that your baby is waking between cycles instead of
returning to sleep on his own. We’ll cover a plethora of ideas to
help your baby learn to go back to sleep without your intervention.
Now you can clearly see why a short nap doesn’t provide your baby or
young child the best benefits of napping. You can also see why a
mini-nap can fool you into thinking it is enough – since the very
first five to fifteen minutes reduce feelings of sleepiness and
bring that whoosh of second-wind energy that dissipates quickly,
resulting is fussiness, crying, crankiness, tantrums and whining.
Elizabeth Pantley, Author
NEW WEBSITE: http://www.pantley.com/elizabeth
The No-Cry Nap Solution:
Guaranteed Gentle Ways to Solve All Your Naptime Problems
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Next month learn more about Cat-Naps -- Making Short Naps Longer
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