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By: ePregnancy

REM is not just an alt-rock band from Athens, Ga., it’s also something your little rocker is doing this week. Because his sleep cycles are set, he’s finally experiencing rapid eye movement.

He’s also hard at work filling out that skin of his, and is looking less like Iggy Pop every day. His inner ear is fairly well developed, so even though he might not know what it means, he’ll be able to sense when he’s upside down or on his side.

Not to be left out of the loop, his marrow is busy producing white blood cells which will enable him to combat infections and disease later on. And, over the next weeks, he’ll be adding blood vessels to his lungs in preparation for oxygenating his blood supply and not, as you may come to believe, to increase the decibel level of his crying. 

If you've ever watched a dog nap, or one of your children fast asleep, you've probably witnessed the REM sleep stage. REM is characterized by (surprise!) rapid movement of the eyes, so you'll see fluttering eyelids, and the eyeball may scoot around beneath the eyelid. The amount of time spent in REM actually varies with age: Your newborn will spend more than 80% of her total sleep time in the REM stage, whereas you might only spend 25% of your time there -- and that's not even when you're sleep-deprived! Almost all of the dreams you are able to recall occur when you are in REM sleep. The amount of REM sleep in a species appears to be in direct correlation with the developmental stage of newborns. For instance, the platypus newborns, completely helpless at birth, have about 8 hours of REM sleep at night; but dolphins, whose young are completely functional at birth, almost never fall into the REM stage. This may help explain why your little one will spend so much time in REM sleep -- she's using that time to develop her brain and other necessary parts!