Our first child was always a good sleeper, all down to our fantastic parenting skills, or so we thought. Child #2 arrived and we set off with the same routines in mind. She had other ideas, however. She didn’t properly sleep through the night until she was 4. That was a challenge, to say the least. She had her 14th birthday last week: I think we’ve just about caught up with all that missed sleep now.
Here you can see a more normal sleep pattern emerge from the fabric of a baby blanket.
A father transformed data of his son’s first year of sleep into a knitted blanket
As Lee neared completion of the blanket, he shared, “All the disparate pieces felt really fragile but as I seamed it together, wove in loose ends, and removed stitch markers, it felt more and more sturdy. Something that I’d been handling like a delicate bird egg started to just feel like a blanket.”
Feeling sleepy? Have a nap.
Napping
The practice may be winding down in Spain—60% of Spaniards say they never siesta, perhaps because high unemployment means workers want to show their bosses that they’re pulling long hours. But other countries still participate, including Greece, the Philippines, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Nigeria, Italy, and China, where “heads down” time after lunch is considered a constitutional right.The science of sleep: dreaming, depression, and how REM sleep regulates negative emotions
The more severe the depression, the earlier the first REM begins. Sometimes it starts as early as 45 minutes into sleep. That means these sleepers’ first cycle of NREM sleep amounts to about half the usual length of time. This early REM displaces the initial deep sleep, which is not fully recovered later in the night. This displacement of the first deep sleep is accompanied by an absence of the usual large outflow of growth hormone.
Miscellaneous Details 