Why do children spend much of their early developmental years asleep?

What will be an ideal response?

Arguably, sleep is the primary activity of the brain during the early years of development. Consider this: By 2 years of age the average child has spent almost 10,000 hours (nearly 14 months) asleep, and approximately 7,500 hours (about 10 months) in waking activities (Anders, Goodlin-Jones, & Sadeh, 2000). During those 2 years, the brain has reached 90% of its adult size and the child has attained remarkable complexity in cognitive skills, language, concept of self, socioemotional development, and physical skills (Dahl, 2007; Dahl & El-Sheikh, 2007). And most of these maturational advances occurred while the child was asleep.