Why do children seem to sleep better than adults ?

Do you know that babies and children need more REM sleep to help filter through everything they're learning?

Sleeping like a baby is considered to be the Holy Grail when it comes to snoozing. Everyone wants it -or loves to brag about it, should they manage to get a full night of deep, uninterrupted z's. And while you might be amazed that a baby can sleep through just about anything, from the vacuum running to the dog's barking, this type of sleep plays a big part in developing a child's cognitive abilities.

"Sleep's job is to analyze all the information a child gets in the day," says Rasik Shah, M.D., pediatric sleep medicine specialist at Hassenfeld Children's hospital at NYU Langone Medical Center. "the better sleep quality a child has, the better their memory and cognitive  function."

"Children who struggle to get a good night's sleep can become dysregulated," says Jack Maypole, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics and director of the Comprehensive Care Program at Boston University school of medicine. "If you have ever pulled an all-nighter and then craved (junk food first things in the morning ), it's a similar feeling. Less sleep means you act and feel (off the next day)."

Both children and adults experience an act during sleep called pruning, which is when the brain analyzes information that's been picked up throughout the day, says Dr.Shah. Because so much of their environment is brand new, babies and children need more rapid eye movement (REM) sleep to help filter through everything they're picking up. In fact, babies do not even begin shifting to a non-REM cycle of sleep until they are about 6 months old, due to the overwhelming amount of information they are processing, says Dr. Shah.

As children get older and things become more familiar to them, they need less sleep, they aren't processing brand-new learning in their daily environment, and the skills they're practicing are repeated. As a comparison, Dr, Shah says that children can sleep anywhere from 16 to 18 hours with 50 percent of sleep in REM stage until they 're 6 months old, while adults need only about eight hours and spend only 20-25 percent of sleep in REM.

Believe it or not, children can even learn during sleep, according to the 2011 study published in the journal  Infant and Child Development. The research found that on top of consolidating memories, children pick up and process additional sensory stimuli, such as learning the difference between a stranger's voice and a familiar one, like the voice of their mother or father. This is why, when a stranger (perhaps a babysitter) tries to wake a child up during sleep, they won't wake up- but when Mom or Dad does, the brain registers that it's a familiar voice and responds to it.

If you've ever been around a newborn (particularly during the 12 a.m. to 4 a.m. window), this may be confusing, as newborns seem to specialize in not sleeping. The average infant wakes up every two hours to eat, something that's more important than sleep quality in those first few weeks of life.
Think of infants as the exception to the rule, says Dr. Maypole. "When infants sleep, it's good sleep they're getting, but that's isn't an often occurrence in the beginning of a newborn's life," he says. By a few months of age, blocks of sleep get longer as they learn their days from their nights- and thus act ( and sleep!) accordingly.