There is not much difference in the baby between the time just before it is delivered and the time immediately afterwards. Since the baby sleeps in the second case, I would think that it sleeps in the first as well.

Yes. My daughter napped in-utero at 11:00 every morning for at least an hour. I could tell because she was mostly still during that time. She slept at night quite regularly as well. After she was born, she kept to the same schedule for over a year, with the exception of waking up to nurse.

Whether or not it was actual “sleep”, as determined by brain wave patterns, is unknown.

Yes, they sleep. Yes, we can tell. They also get hiccups.

My son hated hiccups. One time he got frustrated so bad he kicked out hard enough my friends could make out the shape of his feet.

Yes, they even have REM (Rapid Eye Movement)—cannot imagine what they dream about.

I wonder about that too @Yellowdog. I wonder what newborns dream about, too.

I have some very early memories— my first dreams were not much different than being awake. Someone would be by my crib talking to me, then all the sudden, they’d disappear (I’d wake up).

My first nightmares I did not have until I was old enough to wander away independently,Finding myself in scary, unfamiliar places with unknown or unseen menaces. Or of being deliberately abandoned by family or my mother.

Around the time I was three or four, I began to have nightmares about tigers, wild animals, and supernatural threats—mostly things I couldnt see or define, Spider webs were common in my childhood nightmares. I had kind of a phobia.