Do Babies Dream? Insights into Children's Sleep and Dreams
Do you notice your baby smiling or giving funny expressions while sleeping? This could make you wonder if your kids dream, and about what? You are not alone; experts are still trying to find an answer to this question!
Usually, for a study to be established, tests are conducted among volunteers to understand a pattern and form a result. However, it is impossible to test babies to know if they dream, or not. Hence, we still don’t have a concise answer to this question. Having said that, read more about when your baby may start dreaming.
Do you notice your baby smiling or giving funny expressions while sleeping? This could make you wonder if your kids dream, and about what? You are not alone; experts are still trying to find an answer to this question!
Usually, for a study to be established, tests are conducted among volunteers to understand a pattern and form a result. However, it is impossible to test babies to know if they dream, or not. Hence, we still don’t have a concise answer to this question. Having said that, read more about when your baby may start dreaming.
To know if your kids dream or not, you should first understand the human sleep cycle. Our sleeping cycle is of two types – REM (Rapid Eye Movement) and (NREM) Non-Rapid Eye Movement, or Active Sleep and Deep Sleep. Once you are in the deep sleep phase, your mind is blank. So, all your dreams occur in the REM phase.
Babies sleep for many hours in a day. Their REM phase is at least 50% more than that of adults. Hence, according to experts, they are definitely likely to dream about something. However, until they are 2 years old, it is almost impossible for them to conjure up something in their dreams because their cognitive abilities are not fully developed by then. Hence, you don’t have to panic about them experiencing nightmares, either.
Their linguistic skills are not developed fully, and they don’t have the mental capability to recall past images or imagine their future. Hence, most kids don’t dream about anything until they are 2 years old. As they grow, they can dream about a lot of things, such as:
• 2 to 3 years – images of their favourite toys and faces of their parents and grandparents and siblings
• 4 to 8 years – animal characters, movements in dreams due to certain emotions and favourite human faces
• Beyond 8 years of age – their mental and cognitive abilities are fully developed, and they have vivid dreams in their sleep, just like adults.
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