Baby twitches when falling asleep

Twitching when falling asleep is a very common phenomenon in babies. As most adults know, this is related to the fact that during the phase of falling asleep, the baby goes into deep sleep. Sometimes you twitch all over your body when you feel like you are falling down stairs or falling down a staircase.

It is similar with babies when they go from REM sleep (rapid eye movement) to deep sleep. In REM sleep, babies are in an active dream phase, while the twitching of the eyelids but also of the arms and legs can be observed. In addition, babies can trigger the Moro reflex on themselves while falling asleep, for example if they are startled by their own twitching arm. In this case, the babies often wake up due to their own triggered grasping reflex, which can lead to difficulties in falling asleep and sleeping through. &

Accompanying symptoms of twitching in the baby

Symptoms accompanying the twitching may occur depending on the cause. After twitching due to the Moro reflex, babies often cry because they are so frightened. Otherwise, harmless sleep myoclonies can announce themselves with a tremor of the body.

During sleep, it is also not untypical for babies to wake themselves up by the twitching, so that the accompanying symptoms are often complaints of difficulties in falling and staying asleep. Babies in whom such twitching occurs more frequently are also often restless before and after the twitching. If the twitching is due to epilepsy, the whole thing can also be accompanied by a delay in development. In addition, the baby may appear absent for a brief moment during the twitch. Fortunately, however, such developmental and consciousness disorders occur only very rarely as an accompanying symptom of the twitch.

Baby twitching in the mother’s tummy

Twitching of the baby, which is perceived by the mother in the abdomen during pregnancy, is usually quite normal and harmless. They speak for the child’s activity and therefore vitality. From a certain week of pregnancy onwards, once their hearing has matured, babies can perceive sounds from the “outside world”, even if it can only be a muffled sound.

Since the babies are already able to drink the amniotic fluid, it can happen that they inhale it accidentally and then get hiccups.Hiccups can then feel like baby’s twitching to the mother. But this is also not at all worrying. In the rarest cases, hiccups in the stomach are serious causes. However, if the mother is still worried, she can go to the gynecologist to check the baby’s heartbeat with the help of a CTG (=cardiotocography) and an ultrasound examination.