Even a person who does not have his own child knows perfectly well: for the baby to fall asleep, it is enough to shake it well from side to side. There is a scientific explanation for this phenomenon.
What happens during pregnancy?
To understand why children fall asleep during motion sickness, you first need to figure out what happens to them during pregnancy.
Within nine months of being in the womb, the child intensively grows and develops, his body is prepared to be in a natural environment for humans. However, before birth, the fetus is in sterile conditions, in a special liquid of a certain temperature. He literally swims in the stomach, thanks to which he can take comfortable poses and feel comfortable.
When the mother is in motion, the fluid inside the abdomen begins to vibrate, responding to movement in space. Vibrations are rather weak, but able to create slight swaying inside. Because of this, the baby begins to interact with them, moving smoothly from side to side, as if swaying. You need to understand that because of the density of the uterine waters, the baby does not throw from wall to wall, as it would, for example, in a normal bathroom. It moves smoothly in space in time with the vibrations.
This arouses calm in the child, because he understands: since mom moves, then she is alive and everything is in order. Now it sounds a little strange, but this instinct was very relevant in primitive times, when danger awaited around every corner.
Thus, even before birth, the baby begins to rock the water in the mother’s stomach, and his innate instincts perceive this as a positive sign. The fetus understands that nothing is threatening him, there is no danger, which means that you can relax, which translates into a dream. Few people know, but in the mother’s stomach, the children are also awake and sleeping.
Motion sickness after childbirth
After it became clear that the baby falls asleep from motion sickness in the womb, you can figure out why he continues to fall asleep from them after childbirth.
When a child is born nine months later, his body is still not strong enough to fully navigate in space and be able to at least somehow move around.
The next few months, the baby relies only on its reflexes and sensations and is not able to understand what is happening around. He also feels safe only next to his mother, whom he recognizes by smell. If during laying the mother begins to rock the baby, he instinctively begins to feel himself again in the womb. The heat from the mother also contributes to this. The child quickly calms down, begins to feel safe.
Interesting fact: during relaxation, the child falls into a slow sleep (when the child can wake up at any time). If nothing bothered him, the dream turns into a deep one.
Some scientists argue that you can’t rock the baby, but you should make the kids fall asleep on their own. Since infants have a weak vestibular apparatus, monotonous swaying can disrupt it, in the future there will be problems with coordination and headaches. However, this fact has no evidence and is based only on assumptions and theories.
Children fall asleep with motion sickness, as they begin to feel as if in the womb. There is a feeling of safety and security. Because of this, they completely relax and fall into sleep.
