If your toddler is woken up with a nightmare, the first and foremost thing that you should do is go in to them and comfort them. Turn the light on and make sure that they are okay. Tell them it’s fine and just give them lots of hugs, lots of kisses, lots of cuddles. If they’re a year or younger, they cannot differentiate the difference between the reality and non-reality, so there’s no point in telling your toddler of a year that it’s not real. He doesn’t understand that. All he needs is love from you and just the cuddles. If your toddler is over a year, then he can differentiate the difference between reality and non-reality, so it’s fine to tell him that it wasn’t real, it’s just a nightmare. And also make sure if your child is verbal, that you can sit and listen to what the nightmare was and make comments on it. And say, “Wow, that seems really scary, but that’s not real, that would never happen.” And just reassure them that it’s not real. And just also give them lots of cuddles and hugs and stuff like that. And also, you may have to stay in the room for a large amount of time after nightmare – they might have a hard time self soothing themselves to sleep, so just be prepared to stay in the room for a good hour to two hours until they get back to sleep.