Did you know that your baby may already start dreaming during pregnancy?

Babies in the womb alternate between sleep and wakefulness throughout the day. According to some studies, it is during the active sleep phases that the nervous system develops the most, and therefore brain development . During sleep phases, the baby begins to exercise memory and form experiences. After pregnancy, the baby obviously continues to dream, albeit in a different way from adults! So now you might be wondering: what does your baby dream of in the womb? And during the first months of life?

When does your baby in the womb start dreaming? And what does it dream?

Starting from the eighth week of pregnancy, the fetus exhibits a kind of dream activity that mostly occurs during the REM phase (that is, the moment when dreaming happens). According to some studies, only from the 23rd week onwards does the fetus begin to dream.

Cosa sogna?

The baby begins to dream about experiences and sensations acquired during waking hours in the womb. Above all, these are sounds or sensations , which can range from the mother's heartbeat to her breathing. Inside the belly, the baby stays alert, ready to turn every sound or voice into an experience, as if preparing in advance for what awaits outside. Through these sounds, the baby learns to recognize the mother and builds a collection of experiences that will accompany them in the early stages of growth.

Cosa può fare la mamma per stimolare il suo bambino nel creare ricordi ed esperienze nel pancione? Con la musica o con i giochi di contatto!

Dreams in infants and beyond

During the first months of life, the newborn dreams of sensations; these are the first months of discovery. The baby already recognizes the mother's voice, external sounds, moments of joy, and the people who visit the house.

Some children smile during sleep. Tradition says they are dreaming of angels, because for newborns it is not possible to link a smile to an emotional state.

However, dreams in children, especially in infants, remain an unsolved mystery. David Foulkes , one of the international leaders in the empirical study of children's dreams and a pioneer in sleep laboratory research with children, conducted various studies on the subject and demonstrated that dreams as we normally understand them—active stories in which the dreamer is an actor—appear relatively late in childhood. According to David Foulkes, children rarely remember dreams before the age of 9, and true dream activity begins between the ages of 7 and 9.

Obviously, children can perceive reality , but it is not certain that they can also dream like us adults do, with a well-defined, almost cinematic structure. Up to 7–9 years old, dreams tend to be static , unidimensional, without characters or with only a few; from the age of 9, the child begins to develop their identity, personality, and sense of being in the world, and can therefore start to dream in a more complex way.

Bedtime rituals

The bedtime routine is made up of small rituals between parents and child, from the bathtub to the diaper change and all the way to the Good night basin .

However, it may happen that your child does not fall asleep immediately and feels the need to hear the voice of the mother or father telling a story, a music box playing, or the hand of the mother or father gently wrapping around theirs so they don’t feel alone. This is because, for a child, bedtime can feel like disconnecting from reality and no longer being alert to what is happening around them; therefore, it can lead to fears or anxieties.

In the end, we human beings are not that different from animals: even the mother otter and the cub hold hands while they sleep blissfully, floating on the water, to avoid being separated by the currents. Our children also often need this security—that nothing during the night can separate them from their parents—and that after a night of peaceful dreams, they can wake up to find their parents ready to give them cuddles and affection.

Nightmares and night awakenings

You have probably noticed that during the first months of life, infants wake up frequently, usually every 3/4 hours, while from 6 months onwards, sleep hours increase and awakenings become less frequent.

Why the night awakenings?

During the first months, the first nightmares may appear, easily recognizable if your baby wakes up agitated and crying and immediately seeks contact with a parent. However, if a newborn cries at night or wakes up, they might be hungry, craving cuddles, or simply need a diaper change. During sleep, the diaper plays a really important role; try to avoid changing the diaper only after many hours, risking that your baby’s skin stays excessively wet for too long. I LILLYDOO Diapers In addition to being formulated for sensitive skin, they are also super absorbent, perfect for ensuring protection against leaks and irritations during the night.

What are the causes of nightmares?

Avoid watching action movies, especially violent ones, in the presence of your child. These scenes can leave a lasting impression on a child's mind and cause nightmares. Even the absence of parents during the night can trigger them; the child feels alone and is therefore more easily frightened and overwhelmed by agitation.

What to do in case of nightmares?

1. Calm the child: Speak to them gently and help them understand that it was only a dream. Never belittle their fears and do not mock their emotions.

2. Stay beside your child until they fall asleep again. At this stage, a crib mobile featuring images and shapes might help. Below, you can download the PDF of our crib mobile featuring the otter, the star of our new design. To The Moon And Back , ready to set off on a trip to the moon. You can create it together and imagine space stories before falling asleep.

As you may have noticed, sleep and dreams are truly complex topics, and many more studies are probably needed to reach definitive conclusions. What is certain is that our minds, from a young age, are shaped by various cognitive processes such as attention, thought, and creativity.

What we wanted to share with this article is that children are like sponges: they observe and act according to what they see, think, and draw inspiration from the images and situations in their lives. Bedtime, therefore, can feel like giving in to deep emotions, often positive, but sometimes negative . The important thing is to always accompany your child through this growth process, to hold their hand and let yourselves go on dreams and adventures together—and upon waking, never miss a moment of cuddles and tenderness, maybe while sharing dreams about space with a smile.