Why Does My Toddler Scratch at 2am? The Night-Time Itch Parents Rarely Get Explained

It is two o’clock in the morning and the house is finally quiet, but your toddler is not sleeping peacefully. You hear movement through the monitor, then the familiar sound of little hands scratching legs, arms, neck or face against the sheets. Perhaps they start crying, asking to be picked up or twisting around because they cannot seem to get comfortable. Their skin may not even have looked particularly bad when you put them to bed, which makes the sudden intensity of the scratching even more confusing. If this happens repeatedly, it is natural to ask one exhausted question: why does my toddler itch so much at night?

Night-time itching can feel mysterious because parents often assume that whatever is making the skin uncomfortable should also be obvious during the day. But several things change after bedtime, including temperature, sweating, attention, clothing, bedding and the amount of time the skin spends in the same environment. Eczema itself is well known for disrupting children’s sleep, and itching and sleep disturbance are important features of childhood eczema. The scratching you hear at two o’clock may therefore be less about something suddenly appearing in the middle of the night and more about pressures that become harder for your toddler’s skin to tolerate after several hours in bed. Understanding those pressures can turn a seemingly random nightly problem into a pattern you can begin to investigate.

Why Does Itching Feel Worse After Everyone Goes to Bed?

During the day, toddlers are extraordinarily busy. They run, climb, eat, play, talk, explore and move from one distraction to another, which means a mild skin sensation may not receive their full attention. At night those distractions disappear and the child is lying quietly with little competing for their attention. An itch that was present but largely ignored during the afternoon can suddenly feel much more noticeable. The absence of distraction is one reason eczema related itching may seem more intense after bedtime.

There are physical changes happening as well. Skin temperature, moisture levels and inflammatory processes can vary across the twenty four hour cycle, while warm bedding can add another layer of heat around already vulnerable skin. A toddler who was comfortable at bedtime may gradually become warmer as the night progresses. If that child already has dry, itchy and eczema-prone skin, the combination can make scratching increasingly difficult to ignore. This helps explain why parents sometimes see relatively calm skin at seven o’clock and a very uncomfortable child several hours later.

The 2am Pattern Is Often Giving You a Clue

Parents sometimes describe nighttime itching as though a switch is being turned on at exactly the same hour every night. In reality, the timing may tell you how long it takes for particular pressures to build after your child falls asleep. If bedtime is around seven or eight o’clock and intense scratching appears around midnight or two in the morning, several hours of warmth, dryness, sweat and friction have already accumulated. The skin has also spent those hours moving repeatedly against pyjamas and bedding. Looking at the timing this way can make the pattern much easier to understand.

Try to notice whether the scratching truly begins suddenly or whether your toddler has been restless beforehand. Watch for repeated turning, rubbing the legs together, pulling at pyjamas or rubbing the face into the pillow before they fully wake. Those smaller behaviours may be the earliest signs that the skin is becoming uncomfortable. If the same progression appears night after night, write down approximately when it starts. A simple pattern record can become surprisingly useful when deciding what to change.

Heat Is One of the First Things Worth Checking

Toddlers are often dressed warmly for sleep because parents understandably worry about them becoming cold during the night. The problem is that children with eczema-prone skin can be particularly sensitive to overheating. Heat is a common eczema trigger, and keeping children with eczema comfortably cool can be important. Thick pyjamas, heavy bedding, warm rooms and sleeping close to another person’s body can all trap heat around the skin. A child does not need to be visibly drenched in sweat for warmth to contribute to itching.

Instead of checking only the bedroom thermometer, feel your toddler’s torso or the back of the neck when they wake scratching. If the skin feels hot or damp, that gives you useful information. Compare difficult nights with cooler nights and notice whether heavier bedding changes the pattern. If your toddler is repeatedly hot when the itching begins, experiment with lighter sleepwear and appropriate breathable bedding while still following safe sleep guidance for their age. Sometimes the most useful change is not another cream but simply reducing the heat the skin has been dealing with for hours.

Sweat Can Make Vulnerable Skin Feel Much More Uncomfortable

Sweat deserves its own attention because it does more than tell you that the child is warm. It can collect around the neck, behind the knees, inside the elbows, around the waistband and anywhere clothing traps moisture against the skin. Those are also common areas where eczema appears in toddlers and older children. When the skin barrier is already dry or inflamed, sweat and friction together can create considerable discomfort. The child begins scratching, which adds another layer of stress to the surface.

This is one reason night-time itching can become concentrated in the creases rather than appearing evenly across the body. Feel behind the knees, around the elbows and at the neck when your toddler wakes. If these areas are warm or damp while the rest of the skin feels comfortable, sweat may be part of the pattern. Breathable clothing and avoiding unnecessary layers can reduce one source of pressure. Later in this series we will look much more closely at why these warm, sweaty creases matter for eczema-prone skin.

The Skin May Be Drying Out While Your Toddler Sleeps

Dry skin can become progressively more uncomfortable as the night continues. A compromised skin barrier does not retain moisture as effectively, so the child may begin the night comfortable and become increasingly dry several hours later. Warm air from heating or air conditioning can add to that feeling for some children, particularly when the room becomes very dry. The toddler then scratches because the skin feels tight, rough or irritated. By morning, the redness you see may partly reflect several hours of scratching rather than how the skin looked at bedtime.

This is why supportive skincare before sleep can be important for children whose skin repeatedly becomes dry overnight. Regular use of appropriate moisturising skincare is commonly recommended for childhood eczema, and some children require application more frequently than once or twice daily. The goal is not to coat the child in endless layers of product every time they move. It is to support dry, vulnerable skin consistently enough that bedtime is not beginning with an already compromised barrier. Individual needs and any treatment plan provided by a healthcare professional should guide the routine.

But Moisture Alone Does Not Explain Every 2am Wake Up

If you are already moisturising faithfully and your toddler still wakes scratching, it can become incredibly frustrating. Parents often respond by applying more product, changing brands or buying progressively thicker creams. Sometimes that helps, but sometimes the scratching continues because another pressure is still active. Heat, sweat, friction, irritated skin, active eczema or another cause of itching can remain present even when the skin has been moisturised. This is why the question needs to become bigger than simply how much moisturiser you applied.

We explored this in detail in Moisturising Your Baby Again and Again but They’re Still Itchy? Here’s What Moisture Alone May Miss. Although that article focuses on babies, the principle applies just as strongly to toddlers. Moisturiser can address dryness without removing an overheating problem, changing rough pyjamas or diagnosing a skin condition. If the same child repeatedly wakes at the same stage of the night despite consistent moisturising, the surrounding pattern deserves attention.

Bedding May Be Doing More Than You Realise

Your toddler spends many uninterrupted hours touching the same sheets, pillowcase and sleepwear. That makes the sleep environment very different from most daytime environments, where clothing and surfaces change constantly. Rough fabric, trapped heat, detergent residue and repeated friction can all become more relevant over several hours. Even something that causes very little irritation after ten minutes can become noticeable after half the night. Nighttime therefore gives small pressures a long time to accumulate.

Pay attention to whether itching became worse after changing bedding, detergent or sleepwear. Notice whether particular fabrics seem to coincide with more scratching. Soft, breathable materials may be easier for sensitive skin to tolerate than rough or heat trapping fabrics. Light bedding can also help when overheating is part of the pattern. You do not need to rebuild the entire bedroom, but simplifying what remains against the skin all night can be a useful experiment.

Do Not Forget the Laundry Products on Those Sheets

When parents investigate toddler itching, skincare products usually receive most of the attention. But pyjamas and bedding can carry residues from detergents, fragrances, fabric conditioners and other laundry products directly against the skin for many hours. A toddler who tolerates a shirt during the afternoon may still become uncomfortable when warm bedding and repeated movement increase contact overnight. The skin does not distinguish between something sold as skincare and something remaining on the fabric. It simply responds to what touches it.

If you suspect laundry products, avoid changing five things simultaneously. Simplify the routine and observe whether the nighttime pattern changes over several sleeps. An upcoming article in this series will look specifically at whether laundry detergent may contribute to itching in sensitive baby and toddler skin. For now, the important point is that the sleeping environment includes everything touching the skin, not merely the cream applied before bed. That broader perspective is often where parents start finding useful clues.

Friction Can Quietly Keep the Itch Going

Toddlers rarely remain perfectly still while they sleep. They roll, curl up, stretch their legs, rub their feet together and move repeatedly against sheets and pyjamas. If an area is already dry, those movements create friction over the same vulnerable surface for hours. A child may begin rubbing because of a mild itch and gradually turn that rubbing into more forceful scratching. The more irritated the surface becomes, the stronger the urge to scratch can feel.

This is the beginning of the itch scratch cycle. An itch leads to scratching, scratching creates more irritation, and that irritation can create yet more itching. Repeated scratching can make eczema feel itchier and can increase the risk of skin damage. If you hear your toddler scratching repeatedly every night, the scratching itself may eventually become one of the pressures maintaining the problem. This is why reducing both the itch and the damage caused by scratching matters.

Your Toddler May Be Scratching Without Fully Waking

One of the most difficult things about nighttime eczema is that toddlers may scratch almost automatically while they are still partly asleep. They do not necessarily make the same conscious decision to scratch that an adult might make during the day. Parents may discover fresh scratch marks in the morning even though they never heard the child wake completely. This can create the impression that a flare appeared overnight without warning. In reality, several hours of subconscious scratching may have contributed to what you see in the morning.

Keeping nails short and smooth can therefore reduce some of the physical damage, although it does not remove the underlying itch. Soft sleepwear may also make it harder for sharp fingernails to repeatedly damage the same area. For active eczema that is significantly disrupting sleep, healthcare professionals may recommend additional strategies depending on the child’s individual condition. Those treatments should be used appropriately and according to professional guidance rather than improvised without understanding how they work. The underlying eczema still needs to be adequately managed.

Why Does My Toddler Scratch Behind the Knees at Night?

Behind the knees is one of those areas parents mention again and again. In toddlers and older children, eczema commonly appears in skin creases such as behind the knees and around elbows, wrists and ankles. These locations combine warmth, movement, sweat and friction, which means they can become particularly uncomfortable after several hours under bedding. Your toddler may therefore spend much of the night reaching down to the same small patch behind the knee. What looks like a strangely specific habit may actually be telling you where the skin is under the most pressure.

The same reasoning applies to the neck and elbow creases. These areas bend, trap heat and can remain moist from sweat for longer than exposed skin. When the barrier is already vulnerable, those conditions may make itching more noticeable. Instead of treating every patch as an isolated problem, compare where the eczema appears with where warmth and friction naturally collect. That pattern becomes important later when we discuss heat, sweat and eczema in skin folds more deeply.

What About a Toddler Who Scratches Their Head at Night?

Scalp scratching deserves a little caution because not every itchy scalp is eczema. Dryness and eczema can affect the scalp, but other skin conditions and scalp problems can also produce itching. A toddler who repeatedly scratches the head should therefore be assessed in the context of what the scalp actually looks like. Scaling, sores, crusting, hair changes or persistent severe itching may warrant professional assessment. Simply covering the scalp in oils without knowing the cause can make the situation more confusing.

Also consider whether sweating around the scalp and neck is occurring during sleep. A thick pillow, warm bedroom or heavy sleepwear can contribute to heat around the head and upper body. Watch whether the scratching is isolated to the scalp or occurs alongside itching elsewhere. If the pattern is persistent or worsening, speak with a healthcare professional rather than repeatedly guessing. The right treatment depends on understanding what is actually causing the scalp discomfort.

What If the Skin Looks Normal When They Wake?

This can be one of the most confusing versions of nighttime itching. Your toddler wakes and scratches intensely, yet when you switch on the light you see little or no obvious rash. The absence of visible inflammation does not mean the sensation is imaginary. Our previous article Baby Itching but No Rash? 6 Reasons Skin Can Itch Even When It Looks Normal explains why dryness, heat, friction and early barrier stress can sometimes create itching before the skin looks dramatically different. Toddlers can experience the same pattern.

Observe how the skin feels as well as how it looks. Compare the texture of the itchy area with nearby comfortable skin and consider whether the toddler feels unusually hot. If nighttime itching persists repeatedly without a visible explanation, do not assume eczema is automatically responsible. Persistent unexplained itching is worth discussing with your child’s healthcare professional. An itch is a symptom, not a diagnosis.

Could It Be Something Other Than Eczema?

Yes, and this is an important part of any discussion about severe nighttime itching. Several conditions can cause a child to itch, and not all of them respond to moisturiser or eczema skincare. Scabies is one example that is associated with intense itching that can be particularly troublesome at night. Other possibilities include contact reactions, insect bites, hives and some infections or inflammatory skin conditions. The appearance, location and spread of symptoms can help a clinician distinguish between them.

Pay particular attention if other members of the household have also become itchy. Look for new bumps, tracks, blisters, crusting or a rash that behaves differently from your toddler’s usual eczema. If the itching has suddenly become intense or the pattern has changed significantly, seek medical assessment rather than simply assuming the child’s familiar eczema has become worse. This is especially important because some causes require specific treatment for the child and potentially other household members.

When Scratching Starts Breaking the Skin

A toddler’s fingernails can create surprisingly significant damage overnight. Repeated scratching can produce small cuts, raw patches and bleeding before anyone realises how much the child has been scratching. Once the barrier has been broken, the skin becomes more vulnerable to irritation and infection. The child then has both the original itch and the discomfort created by the damaged surface. This is how a difficult night can begin feeding into the next one.

Watch carefully for weeping, crusting, increasing redness, swelling, warmth or pain. Those changes can indicate that the skin needs medical assessment rather than simply another application of moisturiser. Infection is more common when eczema is not well controlled, and infected eczema can become weepy or crusted. If your toddler is unwell or the skin is rapidly worsening, seek professional care promptly. Do not rely on an everyday skincare cream to treat suspected infection.

Why Poor Sleep Can Become Part of the Problem

Nighttime itching does not only affect the skin. A toddler waking repeatedly may become overtired, irritable and difficult to settle the following day, while parents are experiencing the same exhaustion. Sleep disturbance is an important impact of childhood eczema on both the child and the family. Once several poor nights occur together, every part of family life can begin feeling harder. This is why significant nighttime itching deserves attention even when the rash itself does not look severe.

Parents sometimes feel that they should simply tolerate the broken sleep because eczema is considered a minor skin problem. But if itching is waking your toddler repeatedly, that symptom is meaningful. Tell your doctor how often the child wakes, how long they remain awake and how much scratching you are seeing. Sleep disruption helps communicate the real severity of the condition. A photograph of the skin after a difficult night can also be useful if the appearance changes before the appointment.

What Can You Change Before Tonight’s Bedtime?

Start with the environment rather than changing every skincare product in the house. Check whether your toddler is sleeping too warmly and whether their pyjamas and bedding are breathable and comfortable. Look closely at the areas they usually scratch and feel for subtle dryness before they go to bed. Keep nails short and smooth so that unconscious scratching causes less damage. Then keep the routine simple enough that you can tell whether a change actually helps.

If bathing occurs immediately before bed, use comfortably cool or lukewarm water rather than making the bath very hot. Avoid vigorous towel rubbing and unnecessary fragranced products on already sensitive skin. Apply the child’s usual supportive skincare according to their needs or treatment plan. If a healthcare professional has prescribed eczema medication, use it as directed rather than substituting moisturiser for prescribed treatment. The aim is to begin the night with skin that is cool, supported and exposed to as few unnecessary pressures as possible.

Repair: Support the Barrier Before the Longest Part of the Day

The first part of the Skin Trifecta Method™ is Repair. Nighttime is important because it may represent eight, ten or even twelve hours during which the skin remains in one environment. If the barrier is already dry or compromised when your toddler gets into bed, several hours of water loss, friction and warmth may make the discomfort increasingly noticeable. Repair therefore means supporting the physical skin barrier while also reducing behaviours and environmental pressures that repeatedly damage it. It is about supporting the skin before the scratching cycle becomes established.

A simple bedtime routine can fit naturally around this principle. Gentle cleansing when required, appropriate topical support and avoiding excessive heat all contribute to the environment around the barrier. Repair does not mean claiming that a cosmetic cream cures eczema or fixes every cause of itching. It means recognising that dry, vulnerable skin functions better when its protective surface is supported consistently. That becomes particularly valuable during the long uninterrupted hours of sleep.

Nourish: Do Not Wait for the Skin to Look Angry

The second part is Nourish. Parents often become highly attentive to skincare during a dramatic flare and gradually stop the routine once the redness disappears. But a toddler can still have dry, vulnerable skin even when it looks much calmer. Nourish means supporting that skin consistently with appropriate hydration and complementary topical care rather than waiting until it becomes severely dry again. The goal is a more stable daily routine instead of repeated cycles of crisis and rescue.

This matters at bedtime because skin that begins the night already dry has less capacity to tolerate hours of environmental pressure. A consistent routine gives parents another benefit because it creates a reliable baseline. If skincare remains stable but scratching suddenly increases, you can look more confidently at changes in temperature, bedding, illness or other factors. Constantly switching products makes those patterns much harder to identify. Consistency is often one of the most useful tools parents have.

Defend: Nighttime Scratching Changes the Skin Environment

The third part is Defend. When a toddler repeatedly scratches through the night, tiny breaks can develop in the protective surface even before obvious wounds appear. Our Defend principle focuses on helping the skin defend against bacteria, fungus and other microbes while avoiding harsh stripping of delicate skin. This does not mean attempting to sterilise your toddler’s body or assuming microbes are responsible for every eczema flare. It means recognising that scratched, compromised skin needs thoughtful support.

Defend also involves changing the pressures surrounding the skin. Sweat trapped behind knees, damp fabric around the neck and repeated rubbing against rough sheets can all make the child’s job harder. Reducing those pressures supports the same protective goal as topical skincare. This is why Repair, Nourish and Defend belong together rather than being treated as three separate products. The framework gives parents a way of thinking about the entire nighttime environment.

Where Itch A Bye Baby Repair Cream Fits Into a Toddler’s Bedtime Routine

Itch A Bye Baby Repair Cream was created as supportive everyday skincare for babies and young children with Dry, Itchy and eczema-prone skin. It is made with all natural ingredients and plant botanicals and is fragrance free and non steroidal. Rather than positioning Itch A Bye as simply something that adds temporary surface moisture, we developed the formulation around Repair, Nourish and Defend. That makes it easy to incorporate into a consistent evening skincare routine for dry and vulnerable skin. Its role is supportive rather than diagnostic.

Repair focuses on supporting the physical barrier, Nourish supports dry and stressed skin, and Defend helps the skin defend against bacteria, fungus and other microbes. Itch A Bye cannot cool an overheated bedroom, change irritating fabric or diagnose why a child suddenly begins scratching at two o’clock in the morning. It also should not replace prescribed eczema treatment or medical assessment when those are needed. But when dry and vulnerable skin is part of the pattern, topical support can form one practical part of a much wider routine. You can read more about the approach on our How It Works page.

What If You Have Already Tried Every Bedtime Cream?

Parents dealing with repeated night waking often reach a stage where they feel they have tried everything. There may be several moisturisers on the bedside table, a collection of bath products in the bathroom and another new cream arriving tomorrow. Yet the child is still scratching at two o’clock in the morning. At that point, another random product may not be the most useful next move. The wider pattern becomes much more important.

Ask what is happening before, during and after bedtime. Is the child hot, sweaty or dry when the scratching begins? Is the eczema actually controlled, or are active inflamed areas still present? Are particular fabrics or environments associated with worse nights? Is the scratching severe enough that the treatment plan needs to be reviewed by a healthcare professional? These questions give you more useful information than simply counting how many creams have been tried.

Look Beyond the Surface When the Pattern Keeps Returning

This wider way of thinking is the reason we wrote Beyond the Skin Barrier. The book explores dry, itchy and eczema-prone baby and childhood skin through a broader framework involving the physical skin barrier, immune signalling, microbiome development, the gut skin axis, food sensitivities and allergies, environmental pressures and other early life influences. It does not suggest that every child who wakes scratching has a food allergy, gut problem or hidden condition. Instead, it asks parents to look at how multiple pressures can sometimes combine. That is very different from searching endlessly for one mysterious trigger.

The book describes this through a threshold model. A toddler may cope reasonably well with one small pressure, but dryness plus heat plus sweat plus friction plus repeated scratching may push the skin beyond what it can comfortably tolerate. Another toddler may have a different combination and a different threshold. This is why the same bedtime routine can work beautifully for one child and poorly for another. Understanding the pattern gives parents a more useful starting point than simply copying someone else’s eczema routine.

Do Not Assume Food Is the Answer Because the Itching Happens at Night

Parents often begin looking at dinner when a toddler scratches several hours later. Food allergy can coexist with eczema, but nighttime scratching alone does not prove that dinner caused the itch. Removing multiple foods without professional guidance can create unnecessary restriction and nutritional concerns, particularly in growing children. If you notice a reproducible pattern involving the same food together with other symptoms, record what happened and discuss it with an appropriately qualified healthcare professional. Do not use a difficult night as the sole basis for major dietary restriction.

We will explore the food question properly later in this series because it deserves much more nuance than a simple yes or no answer. For now, think broadly before blaming the last thing your toddler ate. Heat, sweat, dryness and the itch scratch cycle are often much more immediate bedtime pressures. A pattern becomes more convincing when the same combination of symptoms repeatedly follows the same exposure. Careful observation is more useful than fear driven elimination.

When Does Nighttime Itching Need Medical Attention?

If nighttime scratching is repeatedly disturbing your toddler’s sleep, it is reasonable to discuss the problem with a healthcare professional even if the eczema does not look dramatic during the day. Seek assessment sooner if the skin is painful, bleeding, weeping, crusting, rapidly spreading or becoming increasingly red and swollen. The same applies if your toddler appears unwell, develops fever or the itching suddenly changes from their normal pattern. Persistent scalp symptoms or widespread unexplained itching also deserve proper assessment. A treatment plan should reflect the actual severity of the child’s symptoms, including their sleep.

Urgent medical care is needed for signs of a serious allergic reaction such as difficulty breathing, collapse or significant swelling involving the lips, tongue, mouth or throat. Rapidly worsening painful skin, extensive blistering or a child who appears seriously ill also needs prompt medical assessment. No skincare article or cream should delay appropriate medical care. Parents do not have to identify the diagnosis themselves before asking for help. The job is to recognise that the pattern has moved beyond ordinary home skincare.

A Better 2am Question

When your toddler wakes scratching tonight, the instinctive question may still be, What can I put on it right now? Sometimes immediate soothing and appropriate moisturising are useful, particularly when the skin is dry. But the more valuable question tomorrow morning is, What was happening in the hours before the scratching started? That question leads you towards temperature, sweat, skin dryness, bedding, friction, active eczema and the wider environment. It turns the night from an unexplained crisis into information.

Keep the observations simple. Write down bedtime, when scratching began, which areas were involved and whether your toddler felt warm or sweaty. Note anything unusual about bathing, clothing, illness or the skincare routine. After several nights, patterns may begin appearing that were impossible to see while exhausted in the middle of the night. Those patterns can also give your healthcare professional much better information if medical review is needed.

The Goal Is Not Just Getting Through Tonight

If your family has been living with repeated two o’clock wake ups, it is understandable to focus entirely on tonight’s sleep. But recurring nighttime itching often becomes easier to manage when we stop treating each night as a completely separate emergency. Support the barrier consistently, nourish dry and stressed skin, reduce overheating and friction, and help the skin defend against bacteria, fungus and other microbes without harsh stripping. Then watch for the patterns that tell you which pressures are most important for your individual child. That is the practical value of Repair, Nourish and Defend.

If dry, itchy and eczema-prone skin appears to be part of your toddler’s nighttime pattern, you can explore Itch A Bye Baby Repair Cream here and read more about the Skin Trifecta on our How It Works page. Parents who want to understand the wider root cause and threshold framework can read Beyond the Skin Barrier free here or choose the printed paperback edition here. These resources are designed to support understanding, not replace medical care when your child needs it. The aim is to help you move from reacting to every scratch towards understanding why the skin may be becoming uncomfortable in the first place.

Your Toddler Is Not Scratching at 2am for No Reason

Nighttime scratching can seem irrational when the skin looked relatively comfortable at bedtime. But after several hours of warmth, dryness, sweat, friction and reduced distraction, a mild daytime itch can become much harder for a toddler to tolerate. If eczema is active, that discomfort can become even more intense, and scratching can then add another layer of damage to the barrier. The result is a cycle in which poor sleep and irritated skin feed into each other. Understanding that cycle gives parents somewhere useful to begin.

Your toddler may need cooler sleep conditions, better barrier support, more consistent skincare, a review of active eczema treatment or investigation of another cause entirely. There is no single explanation that fits every child, which is why observing the pattern matters so much. Think about what is happening to the skin before bedtime, what accumulates during the night and what you see when the child wakes. Use Repair, Nourish and Defend as a framework rather than expecting one product to solve every cause of itching. The goal is not simply to stop the hands from scratching at two o’clock, but to help create skin that has less reason to become uncomfortable in the first place.