Categories: Pregnancy & Parenting

Why Do Children Have Nightmares

Sometimes when your toddler couldn’t sleep soundly at night, nightmares or bad dreams might be one of the reasons to keep him restless.

He may had fallen asleep a few hours ago but you can hear him screaming in his bedroom while his eyes were closed.

You tried to call out his name, but he doesn’t respond.

You tried to shake him, in order to wake him up but he seems to be in the “sleep mode”.

Most of the time, your child cannot remember what he had said or done that night.

He had no memory of what he had dreamt of and he didn’t remember screaming either.

Nighmares are not bad omen which parents and old folks shouldn’t use these bad dreams to scare little children.

It is part of each person’s life that sometimes happened when one is asleep .

If your child becomes worried or depressed after a nightmare, having difficulties to go back to his bedroom to sleep at night, as parent, you have to find out what was the nightmare about and what is troubling him.

 

Reasons for Nightmares – Bad dreams

 

#1- Fear

The powerful imaginations that every child has is beyond adults wonder.

 

Parents or childgiver could not understand the fear of dragons or monsters that we know that they do not exist in reality.

 

At this toddler to preschool age children, our little children are still confused about the differences between imaginations and reality.

 

Your child may tell you that he fears of the monster that is hiding in the wardrobe , might come out at night to scare him.

 

He is worried about the monster, dragons, dinosaurs that he had saw on TV might come out at night and eat him up.

 

You can assure him that the monster that he fears does not exist, it is fake or just a cartoon, he still does not take any chances until you can prove it to him.

 

Go look for the “monster” together- under the bed, in the wardrobe, in the toilet, the places that he fears that the monster might be hiding at night.

 

Give him words of encouragement and comfort to ease his fears.

Tell him that “the monster is gone forever” or “ You can make friends with the monster by sharing your toys “.

Tell him that not all monsters are “baddies”, there are good and friendly monsters too ( Monster University- Sulley or Mike ).

 

#2- Thoughts in the mind

Sometimes when a person had some distrubing or worrying thoughts in mind during the day time.

Hence when one is asleep, his mind couldn’t sleep in peace because the topic is still lingering in his mind.

 

Therefore, he might have bad dreams or nightmares that scared him which the vision looked so real to him.

 

If your child has a disturbing thoughts in mind during the day ( worry about his lost toy), try to lessen his worries or give him positive advice before he goes to sleep.

 

#3- Stress and Worries

Do not give your child too much pressure on daily activities.

Related Post

Children do experience stress as much as adults do.

Although adults stress are heavier burden than children stress, parents should not put on too much pressure on them since they are still growing up steadily.

 

Try not to pressure your child on huge responsibilities or examination results or good behavior towards friends, relatives in order to maintain the prestigious status of the family name.

 

Too much pressure gives children too much stress as they worry over the tasks given by parents ( worry that they couldn’t achieve good or positive results that parents demanded ).

 

Hence, your child might have nightmares of the negative thoughts , giving him nightmares when he is asleep.

 

He couldn’t sleep at ease due to constant worrying over issues that are not achieved and the consequences he feared might happened to him.

 

Conclusion

Never take nightmares as “not important” issue.

Constant, repeated nightmares will turn into night terrors that brought forward frightening episodes where your child might be screaming wildly with his eyes open or punching his fists in the air with his eyes closed.

 

Always try to figure out what scares your child.

What did he watchedor saw before he sleeps, what did he do, what are his worries and watch out for his odd behaviors.

 

Take note of them and discuss with your child when he is calm and in happier mood.

 

Do try to help your child to sleep in peace so that you don’t have to jump out of your bed in the middle of the night!

 

 

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  • peachpurple

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    • Children do keep on thinking all the day long and that is the very reason behind these nightmares.All the day time events are stored by their brain and the result is nightmares.

    • You write an article on horrible dream watched by the children while sleeping you say causes day activities or fear of something, no my friend no. Nightmares come when bad conjunctions will be in the horoscope especially Mercury will afflicted by Mar or Saturn. I have seen many horoscopes people come to to be checked for their children.

      One more thing I tell you when a babe is born two angels he or she gets one bad angle and the other good angle. there is a tussle between the good angle and bad angel 24 hours.

      When children prenatal soul will be under the control of bad angel he or she will have bad dreams or nightmares due to bad angels. As you have seen babe sometimes smiles while laying on the bed looking to the sky, think who talks to the babe from the above. No one but good angels and the angle who is hovering over his or her head.

      the bad bad angel that teases children whose name is (Enepsigos)
      If you see such type of problem around you i tell you its treatment

      Write on the children bad these words
      Bathanael, Bind Enepsigo

      I am sure the bad angel will never come near the child bed nor in dream to create nightmares.

    • Yes children have nightmares at night especially. For me I think the main cause of nightmare on children is fear and I will talk mainly on fear as the cause of children's nightmares. I can remember when I was very tender like about 4 to 10 years when I used to have series of nightmares every night. What caused my nightmares I think is fear. After our usual night tales which are usually scary are being told in the night by our friends before going to bed, I tend to start imagining the whole story in real life. When i went to bed with the memory, it came out to my dreams resulting to a very terrible nightmare. I usually shouted whenever I had these dreams and my parents would come out and prayed for me. They would stay with me until I feel sleepy again. They make sure I slept before leaving me for their rooms. What baffles me mostly then was why it was only me in my family that had a lot of nightmares. My siblings rarely or didn't have nightmares when they were small. Until now I can still remember clearly some of my dreams and how they started from the beginning to the end. Then, whenever I saw a movie and see coffin in that movie or even see spirit, I tend to imagine it in real life. I would automatically start seeing coffins around and the spirit will be like coming around me whenever I was alone. So this in the end really disturbed in dreams. Sometimes I dreamt when an empty coffins was chasing me in my dream and I would scream and wake up. Am even surprise that I don't see the dreams again these days. The worst part was then I Hardly or never dreamt of anything positive. I was always negative in my dreams then. There was a time I saw a woman carrying a pot in her palm in my dream and screamed and woke up and u saw the exact shadow crossing our door, I guess it was a reflection from the dream. Then whenever I heard someone I know had died, I would be very scared thinking and imagining how and when the persons spirit will come out and visit me and most times I saw those dead in my dreams and I also would scream aloud a whole up. Another thing that made me have nightmares was the stories from my mother of her encounter with the spirit. After telling us this stories I would always imaging everything she told is was happening to me and this will affect my dream. There was a time this my nightmares started giving me concern to the extent I thought it was an every night event. But as I grew day by day all these are now past tense. I can now see even 20 coffins right in front of me and still sleep soundly, I can watch tens of horror movies and still will not shake.

    • But uptil now I still think not all children has nightmares. There are children who would sleep without even experiencing nightmares, they slept and woke up sound and good without making a lot of noise at night. Most times, the dreams of a child are not taken in vain, sometimes it's been taken as a revelation from God or as a message from God. So when some children tell their dreams, their parents take it as a message from God's messenger. They pray over it. But some people take children's nightmares as just children's fears, they do not think on both hands. They are just one sided. They take every of their nightmares as a child play and most times their dreams tend to happen. I think if God should send any message to the world, he willsend it through a child not an adult. Some Children due to everyday nightmares find it difficult to sleep and are most times scared of sleeping because of what they think they are going to see in their dreams.
      On the other hand, children who have a lot of nightmares should be given proper spiritual attention because most times they are always being attacked by spirits in their dreams and they tend to win always. If no spiritual attention and prayers are being rendered to him the spirits might one day accomplish their mission and send him to his early grave via dreams. So parents should take note of that. Though all throughout when I had nightmares I never was given spiritual attention, God always saved me from not being affected by my nightmares. Some children due to the circumstances surrounding their birth are being visited by spirits in their dreams mostly marine spirits. They will always want to take away the life of the child by visiting him always in the dream. This post is really nice. I think my advice to parents is never take any of their children's dreams as a child's play. They should always take their dreams very serious and seek spiritual attention.

    • Dreams form an important aspect of sleep. From what I understood dreams are triggered by sounds, light, people speaking, noise, disturbed mind, worries, pressure, being unhappy or many others such reasons. I had read a book in my school during my childhood which had something about snakes and the children who are characters could not escape but later made it. This same thing repeated in the night with me as one of the younger characters.

      I did get many dreams in childhood do get dreams even now but I always tried to understand and interpret why they occur as dreams or what we see in our are being messages being conveyed to us either by our body or by the mind. Extreme weather also seems to trigger dreams in children. So does bed wetting. A good article well elaborated. Dreams are a important and interesting subject of study.

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