What Do Dreams About Baby Gender Mean?

When you’re trying to get pregnant, your daydreams about your future little one may take up plenty of your quiet waking moments. When you do find out you’re pregnant, your sleeping dreams may result in a lot of questions:

“I dreamed my baby had two heads! Is this a sign I’m having twins?”

“What does it mean if I gave birth to kittens in my dream?”

“Wow, that’s the third time this week I’ve been dreaming of a baby girl (or dreaming of a baby boy). Does that mean I should start working on that name list?”

While we may not have answers to all of your pregnancy dream-related questions, we can illuminate what dreaming of your baby’s gender might mean.

Sleep 101

You may have done some online research and found an old wive’s tale or two that wants to prescribe your dream about a baby’s gender. But, it’s important to decipher fact from fiction at times like these!

Despite being a source of fascination and fantastical images, dreams are still a bit of a mystery to scientists. Researchers understand how the brain functions while we sleep, but little is known about why we dream.

To explain what we do know, it can be helpful to learn a little bit more about sleeping.

The mind is active even when you’re sleeping, and cycles through two stages of sleep:

• NREM (non-rapid eye movement)
• REM (rapid eye movement)

Each stage of sleep helps the body restore and reset itself for the waking hours ahead, but each stage has different functions.

NREM Sleep

About 75% of your sleep is NREM. During NREM sleep, your brain waves, heart rate, and eye movements slow down as you prepare to enter the deeper sleep of REM. Some of the ways your body uses NREM sleep include:

• Healing and repairing tissues in your body
• Building muscles and bones
• Strengthening the immune system

REM Sleep

The remaining 25% of your night’s snooze is REM sleep. During this stage of sleep, your body is at rest while your mind is busy performing vital tasks, such as:

• Consolidating and processing new information
• Regulating moods
• Improving concentration abilities

Dreams can happen at any point while you’re asleep, but dreams mostly occur during the REM phase. REM stage dreams tend to be more intense and vivid than dreams in other stages of sleep because while your body is at rest, your brain is working the night shift. Brain activity is considerably higher in REM sleep in comparison to NREM sleep. Since dreams are brain-powered, it makes sense that your dreams get an extra technicolor boost during this stage of sleep.

Understanding Dreams

Sleep sets the stage for our dreams. What are dreams, anyway? If you asked a biologist,

she might say that dreams are mental activities that occur during unconsciousness or sleep.

Basically? Dreams are the brain creating vivid experiences while we’re snug in our bed (or enjoying a pregnancy nap on the couch). What’s even cooler is that the brain is really good at imitating the real-life sensations of the experiences, not just visual.

Your dreams can engage your physical and mental senses. You might experience:

• Sounds
• Smells
• Tastes
• Touch
• Images
• Feelings or emotions
• Thoughts

Again, why do we dream?

Though a lot of research has been done on the subject, scientists still don’t quite know for sure what the purpose of dreams are for our minds and bodies. Some scientists argue that dreams are just a side-effect of brain activity during sleep. Others have different (and far more interesting) ideas.

Some popular dream theories include:

• Dreams let us review and process emotions and recent events in our lives.
• Dreams consolidate recent events into memories and strengthen our ability to recall information.
• Dreams discard or clean up unnecessary information in the brain.

What do dreams about baby gender mean?

Short answer: that you’re pregnant and can’t wait to know more about your little one, including their gender!

Biologically speaking, there’s no concrete proof that your dreams of a baby boy mean you’ll be bouncing a little guy on your lap in a few months’ time.

However, psychologically speaking, the dreams you have while pregnant may reveal more about the inner workings of your mind than you think.

Psychologists theorize that our dreams get their material from our waking thoughts. Granted, those daytime thoughts might get a little remixed by the time we reach REM (dreams can be very strange), but there are seeds of insight in even the silliest dreams.

Once you’re pregnant, it’s natural for your thoughts to become 80% thinking about your baby, 10% thinking about your next snack, and 10% wanting a nap. Since dreams are how we process our thoughts and emotions, if you’re spending your waking hours daydreaming about your baby, you might end up having multiple dreams about your baby as well.

Here are a few common pregnancy dreams along with some general psychological interpretations:

• Oh no! I left the baby on the motorcycle a.k.a. oops dreams – If you’ve been dreaming of making some parenting mistakes, (everything from forgetting to feed your baby to leaving her on a rocketship), this is totally normal. Daytime worries about ensuring your child is safe and well can manifest in your dreams. It may also indicate you’re feeling a little nervous about the big responsibility of parenthood (don’t be, you’ve got this!).
• Dreamy cuddles a.k.a. dreams about spending time with your baby – You might be dreaming of snuggle time with your little one, the warmth and weight of your snoozy baby so real in your dreams, you have to check under the bed to see if she’s rolled under there when you wake up. In the same way you pre-bond with your little one by reading her stories or preparing the nursery, cuddle dreams might be your brain’s way of practicing real-life bonding with your baby.
• It’s a boy! a.k.a. dreams about your baby’s gender – When you have gender dreams of your little one and clearly see you’ve got a boy, it might mean your heart is hoping for one particular baby gender. Or, that you’ve been thinking and wondering about your baby’s gender consistently in your waking hours.

How Pregnancy Affects Dreams

Pregnancy will impact many areas of your life, from your shoe size to your sense of smell. Dreams are no exception. If you’re pregnant and experiencing a lot more pregnancy related dreams than usual, or even just more vivid dreams, this is actually quite common. Many women report changes in their dreams during pregnancy.

One big reason why you might be experiencing more vivid dreams during pregnancy is the disruption to your REM cycle. Dreams often occur during REM sleep, but if you wake up in the middle of the cycle, you’re more likely to remember the dream.

REM sleep interruptions can happen often for an expectant mother or pregnant women, because, well, you’re growing a whole other human being inside of you! That means your body has a lot to adjust to, even as you sleep. As a result, you may wake up in the middle of a REM cycle to visit the bathroom, adjust a sleeping position to accommodate your growing pregnant belly, or marvel at the midnight-kick the little one delivers to your insides.

Sleeping Like A Baby (While You’re Making One): Tips for Sleeping While Pregnant

Whatever your pregnancy dreams mean, try to get enough sleep while pregnant. After all, the miracle of life is hard work, and making sure you’re well-rested is a key part of helping both you and your baby stay healthy.

If you’re having trouble sleeping, try these tips so that you can sleep like a baby:

• Take warm baths or showers before bedtime.
• Sleep on your left side to improve blood flow to your baby and womb.
• Use pillows to more comfortably support your pregnant body.
• Stay hydrated throughout the day and stop drinking water about 90 minutes before sleeping.
• Take short naps throughout the day.
• Try bedtime meditation podcasts to help you relax.
• Consult a doctor or therapist if you have persistent trouble sleeping or experience intense recurring nightmares.

Make Your Gender Discovery Dreams Come True with SneakPeek

Are you daydreaming about your little one? Do you spend hours poring over dream interpretation books and wondering if your dream about floating in water means you’ll have a baby girl?

Why wait and wonder if you can get to know more about your baby earlier than ever? Get more reliable information about your bundle of joy and find out your child’s gender as early as 6 weeks with SneakPeek’s At-Home Early Gender Prediction Test.

Our test kit makes gender detection simple, easy, and quick. You’ll be able to receive results within 5-7 days with the SneakPeek Snap or Lancet, or within 72 hours with SneakPeek Snap FastTrack. SneakPeek’s lab results have an accuracy rate of over 99%, and you can do it all from the privacy of your own home.¹

No need to pinch yourself—enjoy the gender results sooner than you could have dreamed with SneakPeek!

This post has been reviewed for accuracy by the following medical professional:

Dr. Heather Soper, Certified Nurse Midwife

Dr. Heather Soper brings over 15 years of experience in women's health and obstetrics to her role as the owner of The Genesis Resort for Birth. Complementing her clinical practice, she serves as an Assistant Professor of Nursing at James Madison University, where she educates nursing students with a focus on compassionate, patient-centered care. Her advanced training and dedication to midwifery are evident in her contribution to both academia and the wellness of expectant mothers

Sources:

Cleveland Clinic. Sleep Basics: REM & NREM, Sleep Stages, Good Sleep Habits & More https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/12148-sleep-basics

National Sleep Foundation. What is REM Sleep? https://www.thensf.org/what-is-rem-sleep/

Sleep Foundation. Dreams: Why We Dream & How They Affect Sleep. https://www.sleepfoundation.org/dreams

The Journal of the American Board of Family Practice, March-April 1993. The Pregnancy-Related Dreams of

Pregnant Women. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8452063/

Sleep Medicine, June 2014. Disturbed Dreaming During the Third Trimester of Pregnancy. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24780135/

Sleep Foundation. Pregnancy & Sleep: Tips, Sleep Positions, & Issues. https://www.sleepfoundation.org/pregnancy

Neuroscience, Second Edition 2001. The Possible Functions of REM Sleep and Dreaming. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK11121/

Sleep.org. Is What You’re Eating Affecting Your Dreams? https://www.sleep.org/is-what-youre-eating-affecting-your-dreams/

Sleep Foundation. Vivid Dreams: Causes and Tips. https://www.sleepfoundation.org/dreams/vivid-dreams

What to Expect. Pregnancy Dreams and Pregnancy Sex Dreams. https://www.whattoexpect.com/pregnancy/symptoms-and-solutions/pregnancy-dreams-and-daydreams/

Sleep Foundation. Sleeping While Pregnant: Tips. https://www.sleepfoundation.org/pregnancy/tips-for-better-sleep