Why does a child have bad dreams?
After falling asleep, the child is in the initial phase of drowsiness, which gradually flows into a deep sleep. After an hour and a half, there comes a phase in which the child's psyche forms dreams, positive or negative. The child sleeps for about 20 minutes, not all night. In the final phase, any external and internal stimuli can lead to the creation of certain images.
During the night's rest, the unconscious part of the psyche takes control of the mind, which, with the help of dreams, makes it possible to splash out emotions that are suppressed during the day's waking hours. After experiencing excessive stressful situations during the day, they can transform into nightmares in their sleep.
This is a natural reaction of the child's psyche, allowing the subconscious to get rid of negative emotions. This is what causes terrible dreams. In most cases, it does not represent any threat. But if the child has nightmares quite often, parents need to deal with changing the emotional state of the baby.
The most common causes of terrible dreams:
Scandals in the family, irritability of parents and clarification of the relationship between them. This makes the child nervous, experiencing shocks.
Seen accidents or their consequences. At the same time, the child does not have to watch it live. Scary scenes from movies, TV shows or videos on the Internet can cause severe stress.
High fever caused by a disease. Feeling unwell, kids often have nightmares in their sleep.
Nervous exhaustion and physical fatigue. This can be psychological stress, including those associated with hard study.
Excessively strict methods of education, which are practiced by parents, quite often become the reason why children suffer nightmares during the night.
Frightening fairy tales, cartoons, and some terrible games can lead to the formation of an immature psyche of obsessive fears, tormenting a person in his sleep.
Recommendations to parents:
Do not read your child scary stories, do not watch with him scary videos, cruel and scary movies or news.
Try to avoid scandals and other conflicts, especially in the presence of the child. Clarify relationships in a calm manner.
Do not play active and noisy games just before the child will have to go to bed.
Do not accept guests who frighten the baby.
You can let children sleep with their favorite soft toys, which will protect them from the terrible monsters that come in their sleep.
Soothing motherwort or mint decoctions can be added to the bathing water.
Parents, if their child has terrible dreams, you can not ignore the problem.
Hearing at night that the baby is screaming and crying, it is necessary to immediately approach him and try to calm him with the help of hugs and gentle words.
It is strictly forbidden to force children to tell about what the dream was about, again forcing them to experience negative emotions. In severe cases, if the child can not sleep independently, should be allowed to go to bed with his parents.
In the morning, if he or she wants to share a dream, he or she should be given attention and listened to. It is not necessary to scold or laugh at the child. You can come up with a funny ending and try to interpret the dream in your own way to make your child laugh and ward off the feeling of anxiety.