Your child's sleep patterns will change dramatically as he matures into an adolescent. Rapid eye movement, or REM, is more prominent in newborns and they may even experience REM while they are awake--usually during an aroused state such as when they are fussing, crying or eating. The sleep cycle becomes longer and more complicated--with more stages--as children move toward adolescence.
Definition
REM is a light stage of sleep associated with high brain activity and limited voluntary movement. Although dreaming occurs in all stages of sleep, dreams during the REM stage tend to be more complicated and detailed than dreams during other stages of the sleep cycle. The REM stage is the part of the sleep cycle when your child is most likely to awaken during the night.
Beginnings
REM sleep begins before birth. Around the 36th week of pregnancy, when fetuses fall asleep, they begin to exhibit REM in a high-arousal form of sleep. Fetuses and infants tend to experience the REM cycle immediately after falling asleep and they alternate between REM and non-REM sleep through the night. By contrast, adults tend to start with a slow brainwave, non-REM cycle, followed by several intermediate stages, before settling into REM sleep. This pattern repeats throughout the night. Infants shift to the adult pattern of REM sleep at about 3 to 4 months of age.
REM Proportions
A newborn spends about half of her sleep time in the REM cycle, but this proportion will decrease as she matures. By age 3, your child will spend only 30 percent of her sleep time in the REM stage and by adolescence, REM will account for only 20 percent of her total sleep. The overall sleep cycle---the completion of all the stages---increases from 50 minutes for a newborn to 90 minutes for an adolescent.
REM and Autism
Researchers at the University of California Los Angeles Center for Health Sciences have identified a significant difference between the REM sleep of autistic children and REM patterns in normal children of the same age. Normal children demonstrate an increasing tendency to group REM into short bursts as they grow older, but autistic children display a less organized REM pattern of the type associated with children younger than 18 months. National Institutes of Health researchers also found that autistic children take longer to move into the REM stage and spend significantly less time in REM sleep.
Nightmares
Approximately 20 to 39 percent of children between the ages of 5 and 12 experience nightmares. These usually occur during REM sleep and most often between the hours of 4 to 6 a.m. Your child is more likely to experience nightmares if he is a creative person who tends to see the world in a more complicated way. Medications, particularly those that affect the nervous system, may provoke nightmares. Although your child will remember the dream and may try to tell you about it, University of Michigan experts caution that talking about it doesn't help. Just help your child to lie back down and gently soothe him by touching while you tell him to go back to sleep.
References
- BrainMind.com: Fetal Brain and Cognitive Development
- Springer Link: Rapid Eye Movement Activity in Normal and Autistic Children
- Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development: Sleep-Wake States and Problems and Child Psychosocial Development
- American Family Physician: Nightmares and Disorders of Dreaming
- ClinicalTrials.gov: The Effect of Donepezil on REM Sleep in Children With Autism
