Newborn advice for longer sleeps

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So here is one of best pieces of newborn sleep advice...

Did you know that newborns only have two stages in their sleep cycle. They have deep sleep, and then they also have REM sleep (Rapid Eye Movement). REM sleep for adults and for babies around about 3 to 4 months upwards involves just our eyes moving rapidly from side to side, whereas the rest of our body is paralysed, now for newborns this is completely different.

During REM sleep for newborns they are physically active, now this means they can wriggly their body, twitch their fingers, move their arms, move their legs, they could even roll their head from side to side, they can make noises and they can even open their eyes. This is really difficult for parents, because they can often mistake this for their baby waking up. It's so easy when this happens for you to rush in, pick up your baby, greet them and in fact you end up startling them awake, because actually they are still asleep.

So next time this happens, just give it a moment or two, just to make sure that they are in fact actually awaking up and not in REM sleep, because they could easily then drift back off into a deep sleep state and get a longer uninterrupted sleep.