Is Quality Naptime Necessary for Infant Memory Formation?

Infants who napped 30 minutes showed greater declarative memories of puppet play 4 and 24 hours later — a finding that supports the addition of quality naptime to good infant care.

In adults, sleeping after new learning enhances memory, but whether postsleep memory improvement occurs in infants is unknown. To examine this issue, researchers compared memory of a puppet demonstration between three groups of infants aged 6 months or 12 months.

Two infant groups watched as a researcher demonstrated target actions with a puppet (removing, shaking, and replacing its mitten). One group then napped for ≥30 minutes, and the other group slept for <30 minutes. A control group was not shown the puppet demonstration. All infants were tested for their recall of puppet play, assessed by their imitation of the target actions, at 4 hours (120 infants) and 24 hours (48 infants) after the demonstration.

At 24 hours post-demonstration, the…

Reviewing Author

Barbara Geller, MD

Disclosures

Nothing to disclose

Barbara Geller, MD

Disclosures

Nothing to disclose

Is Quality Naptime Necessary for Infant Memory Formation?

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Reviewing Author