To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Ryan has always been a good sleeper. He started sleeping through the night at 10 weeks and hasn’t looked back – he’s been sleeping 10 to 11 hours a night for weeks now. His morning nap is rarely less than two hours and his afternoon nap is often more than an hour. He sometimes fights those naps, but once he goes down he sleeps like a log, no matter where he is.

Lately, though, he’s been getting twitchy in his sleep, especially when he’s first falling asleep. The other night he was making noises in his sleep for a while. I went in to see what the trouble was and he was squirming and wriggling and even lifting his head, but his eyes were closed tight and he was very definitely not awake. I rubbed his back for a minute and he calmed down and relaxed back into a more “normal” sleep. I had to laugh because Herb occasionally talks or mumbles or squirms in his sleep, and I can often calm him down by rubbing his back as well. So was Ryan having a dream, just like Daddy does? And what is it that a baby would dream about?

He often plays in his crib when he wakes up, so I wonder if he’s dreaming that he’s awake and playing in his sleep.  

His little brain is continually busy these days, seeing and hearing and smelling new things all the time, learning new skills, processing everything that he takes in. It would be no surprise at all if his mind is taking advantage of sleep time to process more information! Maybe this is a sign that we have a very creative, imaginative, and thoughtful child on our hands.

Or maybe he’s just dreaming up all the different ways he’ll be able to get into trouble when he’s bigger.