A thread on importance of sleep.
Why is #sleep so vital for our health?
Prolonged sleep deprivation leads to a host of problems.
A dramatic change occurs in the purpose of sleep at around 2.5 years of age.
Before that age, the brain grows very rapidly.

During REM sleep, when vivid dreams occur, the young brain is busy building and strengthening synapses the structures that connect neurons to one another and allow them to communicate..

One should not wake up babies during REM sleep. Important work is going on inside their brains.
After 2-and-a-half years, however, sleep's primary purpose switches from brain building to brain maintenance and repair, a
role it maintains for the rest of our lives..

This transition corresponds to changes in brain development. All animals naturally experience a certain amount of neurological damage during waking hours, and the resulting debris, including damaged genes and proteins within neurons, can build up and cause brain disease.

Sleep helps repair this damage and clear the debris — essentially decluttering the brain and taking out the trash that can lead to serious illness.
Nearly all the brain repair happens during sleep.
Folks, sleep is as important as breathing.
Don't sacrifice it except emergency

Source: UCLA college research.

90 Percent of a Child's Brain Develops by Age 5.
Incredibly, it doubles in size in the first year and keeps growing to about 80 percent of adult size by age three and 90 percent nearly full grown by age five.

Talk and communicate with your kid as early as 1st day of birth. Expose your kid to new and varied vocabulary and visual and auditory stimuli. Besides good nutrition, this nurture will ensure optimal brain development.