According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, sleep patterns in newborns are different from those of older children and adults. For newborns, sleep is divided roughly equally between rapid eye movement (REM) and non-REM sleep and follows the following stages:
Stage 1
Drowsiness, during which the baby begins to fall asleep.
Stage 2
REM sleep (also referred to as active sleep), during which the baby may twitch or jerk his arms or legs and his eyes move under his closed eyelids. Breathing is often irregular and may stop for 5 to 10 seconds – a condition called normal periodic breathing of infancy – and then start again with a burst of rapid breathing at a rate of 50 to 60 breaths per minute for 10 to 15 seconds, followed by normal breathing until the cycle repeats. The baby's skin color does not change with the pauses in breathing and there is no cause for concern (unlike apnea). Babies generally outgrow periodic breathing by about the middle of their first year.
Stage 3
Light sleep, in which breathing becomes more regular and sleep becomes less active.
Stages 4 and 5
Deep non-REM sleep (also referred to as quiet sleep). Twitches and other movements stop and the baby falls into a progressively deeper sleep. During these stages, the baby may be more difficult to wake.
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