Why Your Baby Moves and Cries at Night

Raise your hand if you have ever been woken up in the middle of the night by a noisy baby and by the time you got to them they were quiet and back to sleep? ME! So often, we are woken up throughout the night by a little one who may not be fully awake. Before you rush in to check on them, consider that it may be active sleep and this is very developmentally normal!

So what is active sleep?

This is when babies are moving around in their sleep and sometimes even cry out when they are actually still sleeping. Active sleep is more prominent when babies are on the verge of new milestones because, during any milestone, bursts of energy are being sent to their brains. Active sleep for a baby is similar to REM sleep for an adult. Your little one is absorbing so many new things every day. Their brains are going a mile a minute!

How do you respond when your baby starts making noises?

It takes a baby 5 minutes to “fully” wake up, so you will want to take a moment to listen and observe before going in to intervene. This will help determine if your baby is just transitioning between sleep cycles and going through active sleep or if your baby is truly awake and needs assistance in getting back to sleep. If your baby is experiencing active sleep and you scoop them out to tend to them, you might actually wake them up, causing more of a disruption in their sleep.

Oftentimes children just need to be given a wee bit of space to show mommy and daddy that they can transition to the next sleep cycle all on their own. So next time this happens with your baby, take a pause and see what they can do!