Newborns Cognitive Development

Newborns need sixteen to eighteen hours of sleep thought out each day. Sleep greatly impacts their cognitive development, because while babies are sleeping, their brains continue to process things around them (Fifer et al., 2010). Newborns have two stages of sleep. The first stage is known as NREM (non-rapid eye-movement). This stage typically means a light sleep. Heart rates and body temperatures decrease as well. In contrast, REM (rapid eye movement) sleep is the final stage of the sleep cycle. This is the deepest stage of sleep and also constitutes a rapid and irregular heart rhythms (“Login,” n.d.). One interesting fact is the brain shows elevated activity, as if awake, however, quite the contrary. Both of these sleep stages have consistent brain movements in healthy babies, so detecting unusual activity in the central nervous system is made easy (Meyers & Berk, 2015). God truly did think of everything while He was making man and woman! According to the study, Newborn Infants Learn During Sleep, newborn brain waves detect much brain movement while they are asleep. While they do in fact spend most of their time sleeping, they still have the ability to know what is happening on the outside, while they lie asleep; this can actually be lifesaving. For instance, they have the mechanisms to avoid the dangers of sudden …show more content…
There is an abundant amount of ways to soothe a baby’s cry. The text Infants and Children Prenatal Through Middle Childhood give many good examples. Such as holding a baby close while gently swaying back and forth and softly speaking to the baby. Also, wrapping newborns in a cozy blanket, which is called the swaddling method is another way to soothe babies. Generally, this the technique that hospitals have become accustomed to using on newborns. Many other ways include: play soft music, pacifier, massage, car ride, walk in a stroller, or a combination of several methods