Babies and sleep: Another reason to love naps

February 21, 2010

By hammersmith

[Source: Bio Medicine] – Anyone who grew up in a large family likely remembers hearing “Don’t wake the baby.” While it reinforces the message to older kids to keep it down, research shows that sleep also is an important part of how infants learn more about their new world.

Rebecca Gomez, Richard Bootzin and Lynn Nadel in the psychology department at the University of Arizona in Tucson found that babies who are able to get in a little daytime nap are more likely to exhibit an advanced level of learning known as abstraction.

Nadel, a Regents’ Professor at the UA, will describe the group’s work (Early Learning in Infants May Depend on Sleep) in a session at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in San Diego on Sunday, Feb. 21, starting at 8:30 a.m., Pacific time.

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