why don't adults fall out of bed (often) during sleep?

Factual Questions
1

I’ve noticed that my kids have a good chance of falling out of their beds while asleep if there is no guard rail. Why don’t older kids/ adults have that problem? Can we really train ourselves to keep our balance while we sleep?

2

I’m sure conditioning has alot to do with it. I personally have probably only fallen out of bed once or twice in my life since being out of a crib.

Possible contributing factors might be the propensity of children to have restless sleep, and very active REM/Dream sleep cycles. Perhaps due to physiology or environment adults certainly appear to generally become much more effective sleepers.

This obviously isn’t a scientific explaination, but its a bump at least.

3

Our non-autonomic nervous system (I’m sure that’s not the proper scientific term but what the hey) is largely shut down while we are unconscious. We don’t fall out of bed because for the most part we can’t move.

4

I’m not sure this explanation works. Voluntary muscle paralysis occurs during REM sleep, which is about 25% of sleep time for adults. Babies spend about 50% of their time sleeping in REM sleep and they also sleep about twice as much as most adults. This percentage tapers off throughout childhood, as does the total sleep time.

Therefore, babies and toddlers should fall out of bed less than adults!


Alert!  Alert!
Error type 12 in logical reasoning unit Y.P.
{Conclusion contrary to fact.}

My vote goes for conditioning. As a child, I was especially prone to falling out of unfamiliar beds that were narrower than normal. (Upper train berths, bunk beds, RV bunks…I’ve had impromptu landings on suitcases and ice chests all over this great nation.)

5

I can’t claim any scientific expertise in the area of human sleep behaviour, but it seems just from personal experience that this ability to remain in the sack is part of a more general ability of our minds and bodies to control things of which we aren’t consciously aware during sleep.

For example, almost every time i have to be up early for a specific and important reason, i seem to wake up literally moments before the alarm clock goes off.

And how many times have you woken up with such a desperate need to piss that you almost explode before you can get to the bathroom? And yet it doesn’t happen while you’re asleep.

Also, there are times when i can sleep through quite heavy background noise, yet wake up at th sound of a small noise that is out of place or unusual.

The power of the subconscious is pretty remarkable.