Dreaming about holding a baby: crying, smiling, boy or girl

Dreaming about holding a baby: the short answer

Dream interpretation is not prediction and not diagnosis. This article separates what sleep research observes from what popular interpretation associates with the theme, always saying which is which.

Dreaming about holding a baby does not announce a pregnancy, neither yours nor anyone else's in the family. The dream tends to go along with the wish or the need to look after someone: a nephew or niece who has just arrived, a grandchild, a project you are holding up almost alone, or even the wish to be held and cared for yourself. The baby's mood, calm, crying or smiling, usually says more than the baby itself.

It is a variation of dreaming about a baby, centered on the gesture of holding. Unlike dreaming about a newborn baby, which deals with the first days, the feedings and the sleepless nights, here the focus is the baby in your arms and the feeling it leaves.

Read also: Dreaming about a child and Dreaming about a hug.

Crying, smiling, someone else's: the most common scenes

The baby's sex in the dream usually comes from someone real or from a recent conversation, and it does not indicate the sex of a baby on the way. If the child was older, see dreaming about a boy and dreaming about a girl; if there were two babies, dreaming about twins.

See also: Dreaming about your sister and Dreaming about your daughter.

Why the baby shows up right in your arms

The continuity hypothesis, tested by Michael Schredl and Friedrich Hofmann in 2003, helps explain it: someone who held a baby on a visit to the maternity ward, at a baptism or at Sunday lunch carries that feeling into the night. Grandparents who look after their grandchildren, aunts, nannies and daycare teachers may often have this dream.

During pregnancy, the theme grows. Lara-Carrasco and colleagues compared the dream diaries of women in the third trimester with those of women who were not pregnant, and the expectant mothers more often saw themselves as mothers or alongside babies and children. The mind rehearses a role that is on its way.

There is also the side of desire. People who want children, who are trying to get pregnant or who have decided not to have them may dream about a baby in their arms, and the dream is sometimes sweet, sometimes painful. None of these dreams is a warning.

Sources: Schredl and Hofmann, Continuity between waking activities and dream activities, Consciousness and Cognition, 2003; Lara-Carrasco and colleagues, Maternal representations in the dreams of pregnant women, Frontiers in Psychology, 2013.

The baby in your arms according to Freud, Jung and faith

In Freud's psychoanalysis. When discussing dreams of flying and falling, Freud recalls the games in which an adult lifts a child up in their arms, swings them and pretends to let go. For him, these childhood impressions come back years later in dreams, only without the hands that held them. Along those lines, holding a baby in a dream may touch the oldest memory of all: that of having been held.

In Jung's psychology. In Man and His Symbols, Marie-Louise von Franz describes the anima and the animus, the feminine side in a man's unconscious and the masculine side in a woman's. In a Jungian reading, a baby girl or boy in your arms may point to a side of you that is being born and still needs to be held. It is a symbolic reading, and it does not erase the concrete memory the dream brings.

In symbols and faith. In the Bible, the old man Simeon takes the infant Jesus in his arms and blesses God (Luke 2:28), and Jesus takes the children up in his arms and blesses them (Mark 10:16). Christian art made the image of Our Lady with the Child in her arms a classic, present in so many churches and homes in Brazil.

Bringing both readings together. Research explains where the baby comes from: from the people and the roles that occupy you. Faith adds the sense of blessing and beginning. A good question for the next day: what are you holding right now, and who is holding you?

Sources: Freud, Die Traumdeutung, 1900; Jung (ed.), Man and His Symbols.

When the dream about holding a baby calls for care

Most of the time, it is a good or neutral dream. It calls for attention when it always comes with anguish (dropping the baby, not being able to hold them, waking up and searching the bed for the baby) or when it brings sadness over a longed-for child who never came or over a loss; in that case, also read dreaming about a dead baby. In the postpartum period, restless dreams about the baby are common, but if they take away your sleep or come with sadness and fear during the day, talk to your obstetrician, your pediatrician or another health professional. If you are in intense distress, in the US you can call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), 24 hours a day; outside the US, reach out to your local crisis line. Recurring nightmares can be treated, as the article on how to have fewer nightmares shows.

Source: Morgenthaler and colleagues, Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 2018.

The baby in your arms in dream books

O Livro dos Sonhos, a Brazilian dream book by L. P. Baçan, has no entry for holding someone in your arms. The entry for baby speaks of luck in life and news in love; arm, the closest to the gesture of holding, of help from relatives in life and a breakup in love; boy, of moral worries and indecision. For girl, the book has no entry. These are readings from tradition, not predictions.

Freud criticized these books for giving each image a fixed meaning, without asking who had the dream or what they lived through the day before.

Sources: L. P. Baçan, O Livro dos Sonhos, 2014; Freud, Die Traumdeutung, 1900.

The baby in your arms in folk reading

In folk belief, a baby smiling in your arms is a sign of joy and good news at home; a crying baby, of a pending matter that needs attention; someone else's baby in your arms, of help you are going to give or receive. Many people associate the boy with strength and the girl with gentleness, a reading that says more about culture than about the dream. It is also common to hear that the dream announces a pregnancy in the family, a belief with no basis. See what dream meanings look like according to science and culture.