Why Do Babies Rub Their Eyes? Expert Explains The Common Practice

Parents, while raising their baby, often conclude that when a baby rubs their eyes, it means they want to go to sleep. After years of observation, the question arises; why do babies rub their eyes when they’re tired? What function does it serve?

As it turns out, a crying baby cannot explain to us why the baby is rubbing its eyes, Dr Rebecca Dudovitz, an associate professor of general paediatrics at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, revealed to Live Science.

“We’ve observed that when people are tired, they tend to rub their eyes and we suspect that it has to do with just a feeling of discomfort resulting from our eye muscles that have been working for a long time and they’re ready to take a break,” Dudovitz added.

For example, when you have been sitting at a desk all day and feel your shoulders strained, then rubbing your eyes helps you just as similarly. Infants spend a long time looking at objects around them and their eyes get relaxed.

Similarly, starring makes the eyes dry — and as babies blink very few times every minute, their eyes dry up fast as well.

“Tears are not only saltwater but mucus at the top surface, salt water in the middle and eyelids meibomian glands lipid layer to prevent evaporation,” Robert W Arnold, an ophthalmologist at Alaska Children’s Eye & Strabismus, told Live Science via email. “So, the healthy tear is a 3-layer. This 3-layer must be renewed and spread out in the surface uniformly by blinking”, he added.

When our visual attention is completely on one thing with not enough blinking, we start not blinking enough. Moreover, inadequate blinking makes the trilayer loosen and has dry spots on the surface of the cornea, which is the very deep and covered part of the eye that creates the iris and the pupil. The eyestrain considered normal makes rubbing eyes a hint indicating a good time to blink more often.

He further noted that when we are constantly busy or fatigued, we might not inhale oxygen in a sufficient or normal way. Thus, we sigh as for our eyes. Eye rubbing in teenagers is like sighing for eye health. The phenomenon happens to accommodate the influx of people from various parts of the world.

But most likely, babies rub their eyes for the same reasons adults do: The eyes are as tired as if it has been open for days and they also crave a nap.