Naps

Please note that this section contains my personal notes from my readings on this topic.

———————————————————————————————————

Benefits of Naps

Having grown up in a highly achievement-oriented society, most American adults are likely to view naps as a waste of time. We tend to think that the adults who nap are lazy, under-motivated, ill, or elderly… Let me explain why naps are indeed very important for learning, or cognitive development, in children…

… Healthy naps lead to optimal daytime alertness for learning — that is, naps adjust the alert / drowsy control to just the right setting for optimal daytime arousal. Without naps, the child is too drowsy to learn well. Also, when chronically sleep-deprived, the fatigued child becomes fitfully fussy or hyperalert in order to fight sleep, and therefore cannot learn from his environment.

Not only are naps different from night sleep, but not every naps is created equal.  There is more REM sleep in the morning nap compared to the afternoon nap.  Research suggests that high amounts of REM sleep, under the influence of low melatonin levels, help direct the course of brain maturation in early life.  Also, adult studies have suggested that REM sleep is especially important for restoring us emotionally or psychologically, while deep, non-REM sleep appears to be more important for physical restoration…

Because naps have their own function and do their job best when they occur at the right time, I suggest that if a nap has been missed, try to keep your child up until the next sleep period in order to maintain the timeliness of the sleep rhythm.   This suggestion has to be balanced with the general theme of avoiding the overtired state, so the next sleep period (nap or night) might begin a little earlier.

My studies show that at four months of age, most children take either two or three naps… But by six months of age, the vast majority of children (84%) are taking only two naps; by nine months of age virtually all children are taking just one or two naps.  About 17% of children have started taking only a single nap by their first birthday, and this percentage increases to 56% by the age of fifteen months.  By twenty-one months, most children are down to just a single nap.

The morning nap develops before the afternoon nap, but it also disappears before the afternoon nap…

At six months of age, 80% of babies nap between two and a half and four hours total each day.   Napping more than four total hours each day occurs in 15% of babies.   However, in 5% of babies, the total daytime sleep each day is less than two and a half hours…

At twenty-one months, the average nap duration is a little less than two and a half hours, but the range is wide: between one and four hours…

The time of day whent he nap occurs is also important. Some studies have suggested that an early nap, occurring in the midmorning hours, is different in quality from a later nap, which occurs in the afternoon…

Long naps occurring at the right time make the child feel rested. Levels of cortisol, a hormone that increases with stress, dramatically fall during a nap, indicating a reduction of stress in the body.  Not taking a needed nap means that the body remains stressed.  Brief naps or naps that are out of synchrony with other biological rhythms are less restful, less restorative.   But a short nap is better than no nap.   It still has a positive effect on alertness.   Children can be taught how to take naps.”

– Dr. Marc Weissbluth, M.D. of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child (1987), pages 26 – 31