# Baby Crying, Grunting and Twitching in Sleep: What's Normal and When to Worry

> Why babies cry, grunt and twitch in their sleep, whether newborns have bad dreams, and the breathing signs that need a doctor. Based on AAP guidance.

Canonical: https://dozling.com/blog/baby-crying-grunting-twitching-in-sleep
Last updated: 2026-11-05

[Dozling Editorial Team](https://dozling.com/authors/dozling-team) · Editorial Team · November 5, 2026

[Sleep Science](https://dozling.com/blog/category/sleep-science) · 12 min read

## The Short Answer

Most of the crying, grunting and twitching babies do in their sleep is normal, and it is loudest in the first few months. Newborn sleep is split about equally between active (REM) sleep and quiet sleep, according to the [American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)](https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/baby/sleep/Pages/phases-of-sleep.aspx). In active sleep, babies twitch or jerk their arms and legs, their eyes move under closed lids, and their breathing is irregular. The AAP's [newborn symptom checker](https://www.healthychildren.org/English/tips-tools/symptom-checker/Pages/symptomviewer.aspx?symptom=Newborn+Reflexes+and+Behavior) adds that during light sleep, babies "can normally whimper, cry, groan or make other strange noises."

What matters is not the noise itself but a short list of specific signs: grunting with every breath, a change in skin color, struggling to breathe, and jerking that carries on when your baby is awake. They are in the chart below and in the last section of this guide.

![Chart comparing noisy baby sleep that is usually normal (twitches and jerks in active sleep; whimpers, groans or a brief cry; breathing pauses of 5 to 10 seconds with normal color; gurgles, snorts and whistles; grunting while passing a soft stool) with signs that need medical help (grunting or moaning with every breath; blue or gray lips, tongue or face; ribs pulling in or nostrils flaring; jerking while awake or lasting over 10 seconds; a fever of 100.4°F or higher under 3 months)](https://dozling.com/images/blog/baby-sleep-noises-normal-or-not.svg "Noisy baby sleep at a glance, based on AAP guidance.")

## Why Babies Are Such Noisy Sleepers

Adults spend most of the night in quiet, non-REM sleep. Newborns don't. A University of Iowa team that studied sleeping infants with video and high-density EEG notes that active sleep takes up about 8 hours of a young infant's day ([Sokoloff et al., 2021](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34139191/)). That is a lot of time in the sleep state where bodies move and faces change.

Here is what the two states look like:

- **Active sleep:** eyes flicker under the lids, fingers, arms and legs twitch, the face grimaces or smiles, and breathing speeds up, slows down and sometimes pauses for a few seconds.
- **Quiet sleep:** breathing becomes regular, movements stop, and sleep gets progressively deeper. In this stage, the AAP notes, babies are harder to wake.

The share of active sleep shrinks as children grow, a pattern first charted by [Roffwarg, Muzio and Dement (1966)](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17779492/). That is one reason sleep gets quieter over the first year. Even so, a twitch or a whimper in the night is still common in older babies and toddlers.

## Why Babies Cry in Their Sleep

A baby who cries out in their sleep is very often still asleep. Brief cries, whimpers and moans tend to happen in active sleep and in the light transitions between sleep cycles. Many babies settle again within a minute without anyone stepping in.

That is why it helps to pause briefly before you respond:

1. **Listen and look for a moment.** Are the eyes closed? Is the crying staying the same, or fading? A baby who is still asleep often goes quiet on their own.
2. **Respond if it builds.** Crying that gets louder and steadier, open eyes, rooting or sucking on hands usually mean your baby is awake and needs you, often for a feed.
3. **Keep it calm.** Dim light and few words make it easier for your baby to go back to sleep.

A pause is not the same as leaving a baby to cry. Newborns need night feeds, and a hungry baby should be fed. The pause only needs to be long enough to avoid waking a baby who was never really awake.

Crying in sleep can also have a cause you can do something about:

- **Overtiredness.** A baby who goes down after a wake window that was too long often sleeps more restlessly. See our [wake windows by age chart](https://dozling.com/blog/baby-wake-windows-by-age-chart) and [overtired baby guide](https://dozling.com/blog/overtired-baby-signs-and-how-to-fix-it).
- **Separation anxiety**, which often becomes much stronger around 8 to 10 months. Our [separation anxiety and sleep guide](https://dozling.com/blog/separation-anxiety-baby-sleep-solutions) covers it.
- **Teething or illness**, usually for a few nights rather than weeks. See [teething and sleep](https://dozling.com/blog/baby-teething-and-sleep-guide).
- **Being too warm**, which shows as a sweaty neck, a hot chest or flushed skin. Our [room temperature guide](https://dozling.com/blog/baby-room-temperature-sleep-environment-guide) explains how to dress your baby for the room.

It also helps to know how much crying is typical overall. A review of 28 diary studies covering 8,690 infants found that babies fuss and cry for about 2 hours a day on average in the first 6 weeks, falling to about 1 hour a day by 10 to 12 weeks ([Wolke et al., 2017](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28385295/)). Most of that crying happens while babies are awake, but it shows how normal a noisy newborn is.

## Can Newborns Have Bad Dreams?

Nobody knows, and nobody can ask them. Here is what is known:

- Newborns spend about half their sleep in active (REM) sleep, the stage in which older children and adults have their most vivid dreams. But a newborn has no language and very little experience to build a dream from, so it is not clear that active sleep means the same thing at this age.
- Researchers think active sleep does important work for the developing brain. The Iowa team describes the twitches of active sleep as feedback that is well suited to help the brain learn the body's movements ([Sokoloff et al., 2021](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34139191/)).
- The AAP says children [may start having nightmares as young as 6 months](https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/preschool/Pages/Nightmares-and-Night-Terrors.aspx), and that nightmares tend to peak between 3 and 12 years.

So when a newborn grimaces, whimpers or cries out in their sleep, ordinary active sleep is a far more likely explanation than a bad dream. If your baby wakes fully and is upset, comfort them the way you would at any other waking.

**Nightmares and night terrors are different things.** Night terrors happen in the deepest stage of sleep, usually early in the night, and occur most often in toddlers and preschoolers. A child having one may scream or thrash with their eyes open, but they are not really awake and will not remember it. The AAP advises staying calm and making sure your child cannot hurt themself. After a nightmare, by contrast, a child wakes properly, remembers it, and is best helped by being comforted.

## Why Newborns Grunt While They Sleep

Newborn grunting usually has one of three causes.

### 1. Learning to Poop

A newborn who grunts, strains, goes red in the face and cries, then passes a soft stool, is usually not constipated. Pediatric gastroenterologists call this **infant dyschezia**. Under the Rome IV criteria, it describes a healthy baby aged 9 months or younger who strains and cries for at least 10 minutes before passing soft stools, or trying to ([Benninga et al., 2016](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27144631/)).

The cause is a coordination problem, not a blockage: the baby has not yet learned to push with the tummy muscles and relax the pelvic floor at the same moment. A review of the Rome IV criteria notes that episodes usually last 10 to 20 minutes, can be distressing for parents to watch, and resolve on their own ([Zeevenhooven et al., 2017](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28401050/)). The same review advises avoiding rectal stimulation, such as with a thermometer or cotton swab, and says laxatives are not needed.

Constipation looks different: hard, dry or pellet-like stools. Talk to your pediatrician about hard stools, blood in the stool, vomiting, a swollen tummy, or poor weight gain.

### 2. Milk, Saliva and a Small Nose

Gurgles, snorts and little grunts often come from air moving past saliva or spit-up milk. The AAP notes that these throat noises tend to build up during sleep. Spitting up is very common: at the peak age of 2 to 4 months, studies have reported it in as many as 67% to 87% of babies ([Zeevenhooven et al., 2017](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28401050/)).

A little mucus or dried milk in a newborn's small nose can also cause whistles and snorts. Sneezing is how babies clear it.

Don't raise the head of the crib or use a wedge to quiet these noises. The [AAP](https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/baby/sleep/Pages/A-Parents-Guide-to-Safe-Sleep.aspx) says that even babies with reflux disease should sleep flat on their backs, and that any surface inclined more than 10 degrees is not safe for sleep.

### 3. Active Sleep

Some grunts are simply part of active sleep, along with sighs, squeaks and the occasional snort. They come and go and are not tied to every breath.

### When Grunting Is Not Normal

Grunting or moaning **with every breath** is different. The AAP lists new grunting or moaning noises with each breath as a reason to call 911, along with severe trouble breathing, where a baby struggles for each breath. Fast breathing, flaring nostrils, or skin pulling in between the ribs or at the neck with each breath are also signs that a baby is working hard to breathe.

## Why Babies Twitch and Jerk in Their Sleep

### Active Sleep Twitches

Small, quick twitches of the fingers, toes, arms, legs or face during active sleep are normal. The Iowa researchers think they help the developing nervous system learn how the body moves. They also found that from about 3 months of age, twitches start to appear in quiet sleep too, in step with sleep spindles, a brain rhythm of quiet sleep ([Sokoloff et al., 2021](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34139191/)).

### The Startle Reflex

The startle (Moro) reflex is a brief stiffening of the body: the arms straighten and the hands open, sometimes followed by crying. The AAP's newborn symptom checker says it is frequent at birth and slowly resolves by 4 months. Because it can wake a baby, many parents find swaddling helps in the early weeks. Stop swaddling as soon as your baby looks like they are trying to roll over, which the [AAP](https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/baby/sleep/Pages/A-Parents-Guide-to-Safe-Sleep.aspx) says usually happens around 3 to 4 months but can happen earlier.

### Jitters While Crying

Trembling of the arms and legs while a newborn is crying is normal and should stop by 1 to 2 months, according to the AAP. It should also stop when your baby sucks on something. Jitters when your baby is calm are worth calling your doctor about.

### Benign Neonatal Sleep Myoclonus

A small number of healthy newborns have runs of repeated, rhythmic jerks of the arms or legs during sleep. This is called benign neonatal sleep myoclonus. A review of 164 reported cases found that the jerks happened in sleep and disappeared once the baby woke up. Rocking or repetitive sounds could set them off, and holding the arms or legs did not reliably stop them and sometimes made them worse ([Maurer et al., 2010](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20351003/)). The condition traditionally settles by 3 months, but in that review a third of babies still had it after 3 months. It causes no harm, but a doctor should make the diagnosis, because it can look like a seizure.

**The key test is waking.** Sleep jerks stop when the baby wakes. The AAP advises calling the doctor about a possible seizure if jerking happens when a baby is awake or lasts more than 10 seconds. If you see rhythmic jerking, take a short video on your phone. It is the most useful thing you can show a doctor.

## Breathing Sounds and Pauses

### Periodic Breathing

Newborn breathing is irregular. The AAP describes normal periodic breathing as breathing that may stop for 5 to 10 seconds and then restart with a burst of faster breaths, with no change in skin color. Babies generally outgrow it by about the middle of the first year. A newborn's normal breathing rate at rest is under 60 breaths a minute.

### Squeaky Breathing

A high-pitched squeak with breathing that starts in the first days or weeks can be laryngomalacia, a floppiness of the tissue above the vocal cords that most babies outgrow. The [AAP](https://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/conditions/ear-nose-throat/Pages/laryngomalacia-and-stridor-is-my-babys-noisy-breathing-serious.aspx) says symptoms usually go away by the first birthday, though some babies take until 18 months to 2 years. Ask your pediatrician to check your baby if noisy breathing comes with difficulty feeding, gasping or choking during feeds, pauses in breathing during sleep, skin pulling in with each breath, or poor weight gain.

### Snoring

An occasional snore with a cold is common. Loud snoring most nights, gasping, or pauses in breathing are worth raising with your pediatrician. The AAP's page on [sleep apnea in children](https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/baby/sleep/Pages/Sleep-Apnea-Detection.aspx) explains what to look for.

### Pauses That Need Help

The AAP's newborn symptom checker says to call the doctor if breathing pauses last more than 10 seconds. Its sleep apnea page says to call 911 right away if a child's breathing stops for more than 20 seconds, or if their skin turns pale, bluish or grayish.

## Restless Sleep: Rolling, Kicking and Moving Around

From about 4 months, many parents describe sleep that looks more like wrestling: rolling, kicking, and ending up sideways in the crib. Common reasons:

- **New skills.** Babies practise rolling, sitting, crawling and pulling up in the crib. In a study of 107 babies aged 5 to 8 months, those who were already crawling had more night waking than those who were not yet crawling ([Scher and Cohen, 2005](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16207226/)). Our [sleep regression ages chart](https://dozling.com/blog/sleep-regression-ages) shows when these phases usually come.
- **Overtiredness**, as above.
- **Being too warm.** The AAP advises dressing your baby in no more than one layer more than an adult would wear in the same room.
- **Discomfort** from teething, a cold or ear pain.

## What to Do When Your Baby Is Noisy at Night

1. **Pause before you pick up.** A minute of watching often shows that your baby is still asleep.
2. **Check for signs of being awake:** open eyes, crying that builds, rooting.
3. **Keep the sleep space safe:** on the back, on a flat, firm surface, with nothing soft in the crib. No wedges or inclined sleepers to quiet grunting or spit-up.
4. **Share the room, not the bed.** The AAP recommends room-sharing for at least the first 6 months. You will hear more noises, and you will also be close by if something is wrong.
5. **Don't rely on a monitor.** The AAP says not to use home cardiorespiratory monitors as a way to reduce the risk of SIDS, and not to let devices give you a false sense of security.
6. **Film what worries you.** A short video of grunting, breathing or jerking helps a doctor far more than a description.
7. **Write it down.** Note when the noisy nights happen and how your baby seems the next day.

## When to Call the Doctor or 911

**Call 911 (or your local emergency number) if your baby:**

- grunts or moans with every breath, or is struggling to breathe,
- has blue or gray lips, tongue or face,
- stops breathing for more than 20 seconds,
- can't be woken, or is floppy or very weak.

**Call your pediatrician right away if your baby:**

- is under 3 months old and has a temperature of 100.4°F (38°C) or higher, as the [AAP advises](https://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/conditions/fever/Pages/When-to-Call-the-Pediatrician.aspx),
- has breathing pauses longer than 10 seconds, or breathes fast with skin pulling in at the ribs or neck,
- has jerking that happens while awake or lasts more than 10 seconds,
- is under 1 month old and looks or acts abnormal in any way,
- has crying that sounds different from usual and can't be settled, or is feeding poorly.

**Mention at your next visit:** squeaky breathing (especially with feeding trouble), loud snoring most nights, or straining with hard stools.

## How Dozling Helps

When nights are noisy, it is easy to lose track of how much your baby actually slept. [Dozling](https://dozling.com) logs naps and night sleep with one tap, tracks the current wake window, and shows weekly trends, so you can see whether restless nights follow long wake windows or a missed nap. The [sleep insights](https://dozling.com/features/sleep-insights) view makes those changes easy to spot. It is a sleep log, not a medical monitor, and it can't tell you whether a sound or movement is normal.

## The Bottom Line

Babies are noisy sleepers because so much of their sleep is active sleep. Twitches, grunts, whimpers and short pauses in breathing are usually normal, and a short pause before you respond lets a baby who is still asleep stay that way. Grunting with every breath, color changes, struggling to breathe, and jerking that continues when your baby wakes are not normal and need medical help straight away.

*Last updated: November 5, 2026. Sources: American Academy of Pediatrics (Stages of Newborn Sleep; Newborn Reflexes and Behavior symptom checker; Sleep Apnea in Children; Nightmares and Night Terrors; Stridor and Laryngomalacia; safe sleep guidance; fever guidance), Sokoloff et al. (2021), Roffwarg, Muzio and Dement (1966), Wolke et al. (2017), Benninga et al. (2016), Zeevenhooven et al. (2017), Maurer et al. (2010), Scher and Cohen (2005).*

> “A noisy sleeper is usually a baby in active sleep. Watch for a moment, then decide whether your baby needs you.”
>
> — Dozling Editorial Team

## Frequently Asked Questions

### Why does my baby cry in their sleep?

Most often because they are in active sleep or moving between sleep cycles. The American Academy of Pediatrics notes that during light sleep babies can normally whimper, cry, groan or make other strange noises, and many settle again within a minute. If the crying builds, their eyes open, or they root for a feed, they are awake and need you.

### Can newborns have bad dreams?

No one knows. Newborns spend about half their sleep in active (REM) sleep, but they have very little experience to dream about, and researchers think active sleep mainly supports brain development at this age. The AAP says children may start having nightmares as young as 6 months, and that nightmares peak between 3 and 12 years.

### Why does my newborn grunt so much while sleeping?

Usually for one of three reasons: they are learning to coordinate the muscles needed to pass a stool, there is saliva or milk in the throat or a little mucus in the nose, or they are simply in active sleep. Grunting that ends with a soft stool is normal. Grunting or moaning with every breath is not, and is a reason to call 911.

### Is it normal for babies to twitch and jerk in their sleep?

Yes. Twitches of the face, fingers, arms and legs during active sleep are normal and are thought to help the developing nervous system. Call your doctor if jerking happens while your baby is awake, lasts more than 10 seconds, or doesn't stop when your baby wakes up.

### Should I pick up my baby when they cry in their sleep?

Give it a moment first. A baby crying in active sleep often settles alone, and picking them up can wake them fully. If the crying builds or your baby is clearly awake or hungry, go to them. Newborns still need night feeds, so a short pause is not the same as leaving a baby to cry.

### What breathing pauses are normal in a newborn?

The AAP describes pauses of 5 to 10 seconds, followed by a few faster breaths and with no change in skin color, as normal periodic breathing that babies generally outgrow by about the middle of the first year. Call your doctor if pauses last more than 10 seconds, and call 911 if breathing stops for more than 20 seconds or the lips or face turn blue or gray.

## Related

- [7 Month Old Sleep Schedule: Wake Windows, Naps & Sample Days](https://dozling.com/blog/7-month-old-sleep-schedule)
- [4 Month Old Sleep Schedule: Wake Windows, Naps & Sample Days](https://dozling.com/blog/4-month-old-sleep-schedule)
- [Sleep Science](https://dozling.com/blog/category/sleep-science)