From the cradle to the grave, sleep is one of the most important and one of the hardest things to get right. during sleep in babies who died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). At the time, I was interested in neonatology and thought I might pursue a career in pediatrics (spoiler: I did not). However, I did share an office with a group of researchers who were largely all studying infant or child sleep or sleep-related disease like obstructive sleep apnea – and I learnt a lot about sleep. infant sleep pattern until about the age of six months, by which point the overnight sleep should be the longest sleep of a baby’s day. Over the next few years, children lose their daytime naps and function with one single long sleep. This overnight sleep, of course, persists through adulthood, slowly shortening in duration, until older age when it often becomes half the duration of younger adulthood sleep and is again frequently supplemented with a daytime nap. Babies who like to stay awake all night, in full playfulness. Toddlers who refuse to sleep in their own beds and wake immediately on being moved. Babies whose grandmothers have coddled them and conditioned them to expect continuous rocking for hours of sleep, then left them for tired parents to deal with. Medical conditions also start to cause problems with and during sleep: restless legs syndrome, nocturnal cramps, obstructive sleep apnea, bruxism, polydipsia, nocturnal incontinence and more.
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Friday, June 27, 2025