As a newborn, you spent more time asleep than awake. But the older you get, the less you sleep. It is not just the amount of sleep that changes during development but, importantly, the balance between different sleep stages also changes. Generally, as you grow older, you get less and less slow-wave sleep, while the proportion of light non-REM sleep increases. Scientists believe that these changes in sleep may tell us about the brain's potential to reconstruct itself.
From infancy to adolescence, your brain undergoes major reorganization and optimization to deal with your daily needs and experiences. New connections between brain cells are built, connections you do not need are removed, and the communication of information along important neuron tracks speeds up. Crucially, when a specific part of the brain is under reconstruction, the neurons in that region show more slow rhythmic activity during slow-wave sleep.

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