Avoid poor sleep from baby dreams, nightmares and night terrors
Baby dreams, nightmares and night terrors can disturb your baby's sleep. Recognising the type of dream allows you to help your baby sleep well, in spite of them.
Dreaming is natural and has an important function in brain development from a very early age.
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courtesy by Mariana Braga
Throughout childhood and adult life, dreams are known to affect our intellectual and emotional wellbeing.
A nightmare is a scary dream. A night terror is quite different: it is not a dream but a confused state when waking from deep sleep.
Below is an overview of how to recognise dreams, nightmares and night terrors in your baby and how to help her best.
How can you tell your baby is dreaming?
A dream occurs in a specific phase of sleep, called REM sleep - Rapid Eye Moment. A sleeping baby spends more time in this phase than any other. And so your baby spends more time dreaming than not dreaming.During the dream phase, your baby appears very active: she'll make (funny) faces, stretch and clutch fingers, wiggle arms and legs about, make soft noises ...
If you look closely, you can see baby's eyes move behind the eyelids: going quickly from left to right (that's the rapid eye movement).
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How to avoid her waking up from baby dreams?
(Why) Does a baby dream?
Do babies dream?
Yes, most sleep experts agree that babies dream. And the
younger, the more baby will dream ... even before being born.
Scientists have suggested that a baby in the womb dreams almost all the
time. The function of that prenatal dreaming would be for brain development.
[1-3]
A newborn still dreams most of the time when sleeping and so does a
young baby. The brain is still in full development.
Very gradually the amount of dreaming becomes less. Adults still dream,
but not most of the time. The function of dreams is then less obvious
but dealing with emotional situations is one of them ...
But some babies wake themselves up from waving their arms and legs about. Often this is just a short wake - jumping up - and then they go back to sleep again.
But sometimes it wakes them up completely, over and over again. And that can really make falling asleep difficult - babies usually go straight to a dream phase when starting sleep.
To avoid your baby waking herself up:
- Tightly tuck baby in, arms well tucked under the blankets and in the toe to feet position (feet at the foot end of the bed to avoid sliding under the covers for a safe baby sleep position).
- Alternatively, use a baby sleeping bag. The right size sleeping bag gives your baby a good tuck and nicely keeps her legs still.
- When you hold your baby while she drifts off to sleep, for example after feeding, hold her closely and secure her arms.
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[1] Electroencephalography Niedermeyer E., Da Silva F.L. - Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2005.
[2] Ontogenetic Development of the Human Sleep-Dream Cycle Howard P. Roffwarg, Joseph N. Muzio, and William C. Dement - Science, 1966: Vol. 152. no. 3722.
[3] Neonatal Electroencephalography Dreyfus-Brisac C. - Reviews in Perinatal Medicine Vol. 3. p.397, 1979
