Why does a baby cry in a dream?

2024 Author: Priscilla Miln | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 00:21

Until a child can speak, crying is the only way to get attention. The tears of an adult are grief and experience, the tears of a baby are a natural means of communication. Parents gradually get used to the fact that this phenomenon is normal and not at all scary, but they are lost if the baby abruptly begins to cry in a dream. Why is this happening?

Baby sleep

Sleep is a special physiological state that performs two main functions: replenishing energy costs and consolidating what the baby has learned during the wakefulness period. Good sleep is both a condition for the development of a child and an indicator of his physical and mental he alth. Therefore, parents are very worried if the child's rest is interrupted, and even more so if the baby cries in his sleep.

The norm of sleep for a child up to six months is from 18 to 14-16 hours a day. But in the first months of life, the baby can wake up every 3-4 hours, and there is no pathology in this: a stable day regimen has not been developed, confusion of day and night often occurs.

The baby usually wakes up because of hunger, discomfort, or simply showing a normal instinct. Therefore, mothers need to be patient andremember that sleep is a conditioned reflex activity, which means that developing a certain ritual of going to bed at night and following the rule of three "T" (warm, dark and quiet) will help to cope with the problem.

Night sleep

At what age can a child sleep through the night without waking up? This is purely individual, but most babies by six months can not interrupt sleep at night for 10 hours. The child does not need to be rocked or put to sleep by force. He can easily cope with this task on his own if the parents catch the signs of drowsiness in time: the child yawns, covers or rubs his eyes, and fiddles with a toy. In the presence of fatigue, the period of falling asleep is normally up to 20 minutes. If you do not create conditions for sleep (bright light, noise, the presence of strangers), then this can provoke a situation where the baby cries in a dream.

The process of falling asleep will be difficult, and the night's rest will be disturbed due to overexcitation of the baby. To understand why this happens, you need to understand the basic phases of sleep.

Sleep phases

Science identifies two phases of sleep: active and slow. They alternate with each other every sixty minutes. The cycle of activity implies the work of thought processes, which is expressed in the following manifestations:

• Smile on baby's face.
• Movement of the eyes under the eyelids or their brief opening.
• Move legs.

It is at this time that the baby cries in a dream without waking up. processing by nerve cellsinformation received while awake. Experiencing the events of the day, the baby continues to react to them. Crying can be a reaction to experienced fear, a feeling of loneliness, overexcitation.

During a slow - deep - sleep, the child completely relaxes, restoring the spent forces, and growth hormone is produced in him.

Wake up or not?

Whining, silent crying and sobbing during the active phase of sleep is the absolute norm. The baby is able to see dreams that reflect the impressions of the past day. But children's tears may have another meaning - an instinctive desire to check whether he is safe, whether he will be abandoned by his mother. If there is no confirmation of this, the child can actually wake up and burst into tears for real. What should parents do if a baby starts crying in a dream?

• Don't wake up your baby if he is sobbing and shuddering slightly from dreams. He will have to learn to calm down and get used to being alone at night.
• You can instill calm in a child with light stroking, a pacifier or saying aloud quiet hissing sounds. For example, "tshshsh".
• It is appropriate to quietly sing or say the words of an affectionate lullaby, which should later be used in similar situations.
• You can rock the crib or take your baby in your arms without compromising sleep.

Main causes of crying

Why does a baby cry in a dream ifwhile he wakes up? This means that he gives signals that should be deciphered, because he has no other way to attract attention to himself. Pediatricians identify about seven causes of baby tears. Dr. Komarovsky typifies them, highlighting three main ones:

• Instinct associated with the fact that the baby is not able to survive alone. He will cry if he has subconscious fears that he is abandoned by his mother. In infancy (up to one year), direct communication with her is the leading activity, due to which the development of the baby occurs and its transition to a new qualitative level.
• Unmet physiological needs (hunger, thirst, defecation, urination, sleep).
• Pain and/or discomfort. The child may suffer from cold, heat, uncomfortable clothing, dampness. The pain is caused by the accumulation of gases in the tummy, the reasons for which are two: overeating and overheating (lack of fluid). After six months, the baby cries sharply in a dream from the pain of teething. The first sign of this is the desire to put a fist in your mouth.

How to recognize?

There are many reasons, but how to understand which one caused the baby's tears? There is only one way - the analysis of actions after which the crying stops. You should start by identifying the causes of discomfort. It often happens: during wakefulness, the child is distracted from what makes him uncomfortable. For example, a rubber band crashes. With a decrease in activity, discomfort comes to the fore and interferes with falling asleep. If athe child calms down after being picked up, which means that instinct worked. There is a lot of controversy about this: is it worth reacting if a baby cries in a dream because of fear of loneliness?

There are pediatricians who say that it’s even good for a child to cry a little: lungs develop, protein from tears, which has an antimicrobial effect, enters the nasopharynx. This develops the body's anti-infective defenses. Some parents call the baby a little manipulator and try to educate him, consciously not reacting to crying and not picking up. Is this right?

Neurologists believe that an infant is not able to consciously manipulate the situation, and the answer lies elsewhere. Babies raised from birth in state institutions cry very rarely. There is simply no one to approach their calls. They close in on themselves and stop hoping. This leads to a developmental disorder - hospitalism. If the baby cries in a dream, you should not be afraid to spoil him. The need for affection and care is a vital need for a baby in the first year of life.

What should alert?

The nervous system of a child up to a year old is often prone to diseases due to: pathology of pregnancy, difficult childbirth, intrauterine infections and injuries. Together with other symptoms, disturbed sleep may indicate neurological or somatic problems. Every three months, the neurologist examines the baby, monitoring his development. He should be interested in finding the answer to the question,why does a baby cry in a dream in the following cases:

• If accompanied by a persistent sleep disorder (disturbed sleep, shallow or insufficient sleep).
• If sharp, hysterical crying is repeated regularly.
• If the parents themselves fail to identify its cause.

If a baby cries without waking up, the reason is in the peculiarities of a child's sleep. If tears are associated with the transition to the wakefulness stage, then the child signals the presence of problems that require adult intervention to solve.