I think my 2 year old ds is having them. Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night calling out to me: "mommy" or "daddy". He's even screamed in his sleep. As soon as I go back in his room, he'll collapse in my arms, and I rub his back and lay there with him until he falls back asleep. I also tell him that everything is ok and that mommy is with him. I googled nightmares, and the site indicated that sometimes it's due to the child not having a routine or not getting enough sleep. We generally keep him on his routine but he goes off of it on weekends sometimes. Does anyone else's dc have nightmares? How often? Did you figure out what caused them?
Re: Does your toddler have nightmares?
My DS had night terrors for a few months when he was 2 (I had them when I was about that age too). They DON'T calm down when you go to their room for that. Touching them usually makes it worse.
He occasionally has nightmares when he is overtired, though. We'll go in there and he'll calm almost immediately and go to sleep. He is also having other fears (the shadows on the wall, etc). I think it is just that age.
DS is has had one that I know of, he woke up screaming and when I went in he said "Mommy scared" so I'm pretty sure that's what it was. He has also just started (within the last month or so, he's 26 months) to get scared of things. He was completely fearless before, and now he shows fear and talks about being scared of things. The day he had the nightmare, he and DH were playing dinosaurs, and DH started to be a really big scary dinosaur. A month ago he would have thought it was hilarious, that day he came running to me and said "Daddy scary!" and well, DH of course felt terrible! So it could be a routine sleep issue, or it could just be that he is starting to get scared of stuff that wouldn't have scared him before.