The old wives’ tale may be true: babies likely do grow more quickly when asleep and their growth spurts seem to be tied to how much and how often they snooze, according to a new study published in the journal Sleep.
Researchers at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia followed 23 infants over a four to 17-month span, using real-time sleep and diet diaries maintained by the infants’ mothers. They found that growth spurts were linked to both how many hours of the day a baby slept and the number of daily naps.
"Sleep irregularities can be distressing to parents," said lead researcher Dr. Michelle Lampl. "However, these findings give babies a voice that helps parents understand them and show that seemingly erratic sleep behavior is a normal part of development. Babies really aren’t trying to be difficult."
The study also found that boys and girls tend to have different sleep patterns but end up sleeping about the same number of hours. Boys in the study had shorter periods of sleep but tended to go down for naps more often during the day.
"Our data open the window to further scientific study of the mechanisms and pathways that underlie saltatory growth [growth spurts]," noted Dr. Lampl.