Want Your Baby to Remember More? Give Them a Nap

A study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has shown that babies are better able to preserve their memories and process recent events during their naps.

The study showed that when babies sleep shortly after learning something new, they are better able to retain that new knowledge.

“Sleep has been consistently shown to improve both physical and cognitive performance at every stage of life,” says Mark Mittler, MD, co-chief of pediatric neurosurgery at Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New Hyde Park. “If we consider the possibility that formation of memory results from a circuit, or loop, of neuronal activity, it may be intuitive that the last thing an infant learns before falling asleep can travel through that ‘memory loop’ over and over, instead of being replaced with another stimulus.”