9 Things About Your Newborn's Sleeping Habits You Need to Pay Attention To

Human babies are born earlier in their development than other animals, most of which stay in the womb for another 9-18 months. Since newborns brains aren't fully developed, they still require a closeness, like an external womb for comfort. 

An adult's sleep cycle lasts about 90 minutes and a babies is 60 minutes, so it's not unusual for them to wake more often than an adult would. 

Professor Peter Fleming, who studies infant health and developmental psychology at the University of Bristol told BuzzFeed that it's not normal for a child to sleep through the night during their first few months of life. Although that idea may not be that exciting to parents, Fleming says that there is no evidence that supports that it's healthy for newborns to sleep for that long. 

According to Darcia F. Narvaez, a professor of psychology at Notre Dame, people often believe that they get a full 6-8 hours of sleep at night, but everyone, adults and children alike, waks ups a few times during the night. 

A study conducted in 2011 found that babies will calm down after a while if they're left to cry, but it seriously raises their stress levels when they aren't comforted. 

Both Fleming and Narvaez have found that babies who don't sleep through the entire night tend to have higher cognitive abilities and are more empathetic. 

According to Fleming, babies wake up and stay awake in the middle of the night because there are less distractions that time. 

“If we go back to evolutionary history of humans, babies spent all their time in close and continual contact with their mum, they get carried around everywhere," said Fleming. He also says that there is a higher instance of sudden infant death syndrome among babies who sleep in different rooms than their parents. 

Fleming says that 90% of children around the world engage in co-sleeping at one point of another.