If Your Baby Has a Nightmare

We've all had nightmares. A lot of people still experience nightmares, which disturb their sleep patterns and get to be a headache. But how many moms remembers their first nightmare experience. Or, for that matter, how many recall their first 50 nightmares? Probably no one can, and it's because they all occurred in the first year of their lives. So when your child awakens in the middle of the night visibly and audibly upset , your child cannot tell you what happened, so you have no way of knowing whether it WAS a nightmare that awakened the baby in the first place!
If the child were older and could tell you so, and you knew it was a nightmare for sure, it would be much easier to proceed with your consoling. So what to do? What are the signs?
One way to figure out whether the baby has had a nightmare is to take note of her regular sleep patterns. Then make certain the baby isn't sick or ill with fever, causing wakefulness. If the baby awakens suddenly at a time when she is most often sound asleep and then resists attempts to soothe her back to sleep, odds are she may have just experienced a nightmare. Adults usually dream most vividly after one half-awake period in the middle of the night, and babies are no different. If your child sleeps through the night, the nightmares could happen in the very early morning hours.
So if the signals are there and you believe it's a nightmare you're dealing with, one possible reason could be separation anxiety. If the baby is away from the parent for too long, it will create stress, which is a leading cause of nightmares at any age. Another reason, also a cause of nightmares throughout out lives, is the result of something disquieting or upsetting witnessed by the baby occurring somewhere close to bedtime. So whatever the reason, you've now encountered an agitated child who won't go back to sleep so easily.
Now back up a bit if you think the quick answer is to take the weepy toddler into your own bed. It could very well work as a short-term fix. But it's generally known that the child could get too attached to the option. Try staying with the baby, talking to reassure, and don't forget the all-important therapy of physical reassurance. Hold, stroke and rock the child until the terror has lifted and the good night's sleep can be resumed.

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Why Do Babies Cry?

Why do babies cry? For the same reason anyone cries, which is for about a million different possible reasons. But with a newborn, you’re handicapped as a mom: you aren’t yet communicating in spoken language, so for you it becomes a guessing game, hourly and daily and even minute by minute. Since babies often cry non-stop for up to two hours at a shot, it can often feel overwhelming, like you’re losing the guessing game. But there are ways to cut down the possibilities and help get to the ideal position of returning your child to a happy gurgling bundle of joy, all momentary needs addressed.
Just try to put yourself in the situation of your baby. First and foremost a baby will communicate by fussing and crying is she is hungry. Remember that the feeding for a newborn is constant, every few hours. If you are convinced your baby is crying for reasons of hunger, address the situation quickly. If the baby becomes TOO hungry then chances are that she will take the bottle too eagerly and gobble up a lot of air along with everything else. This will lead to spit-ups and probably more fussing and crying. If the baby is attacking the bottle with too much gusto, back away and try to feed her little by little.
If the baby doesn’t seem to be hungry, go directly to plan B: check your baby’s diaper right away. There’s nothing like a full diaper to get those tears flowing. Remember here that an incomplete or absent burping after the bottle can produce an upset tummy, which will lead to crying and eventual full diaper, so don’t forget: ABB! (Always Be Burping).
If the above reasons don’t seem to be the case, don’t forget that the average newborn sleeps just like an old cat – sometimes up to 18 hours a day. The child may be crying for the simple reason that her sleep was disturbed in some way. This is a time to remember that a quiet environment must be created and maintained for the child at all times. So turn down the music, turn up the listener-speaker and pay attention!
Finally, sometimes a baby, just like an adult, will become frustrated with her sleep position, or any waking position she happens to be in. In that case you just need to move her around, rock or carry her here and there, and you’ll see this can work wonders to quiet and soothe your crying child.

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