The best advice I ever got was to tell my kids that if they feel scared to 'touch the wall/clock/pillow/toy'. If you can get them to do this regularly, they'll wake themselves up when they feel scared in a dream and try to touch something that either isn't there, or IS there and wakes you up when you touch it.

Weirdly this fixes bed-wetting too (part of the teaching the toilet routine was to always tap the wall first).

Never - NEVER - had a wet bed.

When you talk about her telling you to go away, and not calming even when you're there with her, it sounds to me like you might be dealing with "night frights", which in my experience with my daughter, were very different to nightmares. They involved a different sort of crying, and seemed like she wasn't awake at all, even though her eyes would be open and she'd be talking to me. Sometimes my presence could even make it worse - as if my voice and touch became part of the fright. She eventually seemed to grow out of them. Good luck. Interrupted sleep is the pits.

I used to have nightmares about the wicked witch of the west when I was about 4 or 5 - my Dad told me to go up and punch her in my dream. I did, and the dream stopped happening. I then became very proactive in my dreaming lol.

We have just gone through a similar thing, and finally worked out two nights ago it was molars coming through. Two nights of paracetamol, two good nights sleep :-)

have you thought possibly that she might be starting (subconciously) to associate her room with time out and therefore the 'go away daddy' makes sense? Perhaps you can find another place for time out, so she doesn't associate her room (or bed) with being naughty.

Crystal's (#2) point may be accurate. Night terrors are distinct from nightmares in that the person is still asleep and in slow wave or deep sleep, rather than actually dreaming. The person will not remember any dream (because they are not dreaming), and won't remember the waking incident the enxt day. It's hardest on the parents as it looks terrifying. This is incredibly common in children and mostly disappears with age.

As lease (#3) mentions, recurrent nightmares can be altered. Often this can be done by finishing the dream while awake, i.e. by talking through having mum or dad (or superman) enter the dream and make everything alright. Trying this after the nightmare a few times may allow it to naturally peter out.

yep sounds like night terrors to me. My (now 9year old) son had them from about 18 months to around 6 years old. Sometimes nights on end for a week or two, sometimes just random. Happened most frequently when he was very tired and always within 2 hours of going to sleep.

Has completely grown out of them now, we've had a few years of peaceful nights.

He is however a sleep walker and talker! So still gets a bit noisy sometimes in our household! All the best, she will get through it.

Night terrors and nightmares are quite different in my experience.

With a nightmare the child will wake up and be upset, but can be consoled quite easily with cuddles and perhaps talking through the dream to a happy conclusion. Or try "resetting" the dream to a happier thought process - recall something good which has happened, or which they are looking forward to. This pushes the bad dream out of hte way and lets them go back to a happier dream state.

Night terrors are associated with sleep walking and sleep talking. They are very common in toddlers, through to about 5 years old. During a night terror the child does not fully wake, although their eyes may be open and they will often scream and cry (much more dramatically than with a nightmare). Waking a child from a night terror can be very difficult, and is usually not recommended. The child does not remember the incident in the morning if they are not woken during it.

My youngest had night terrors following the Chch EQs. He would scream and cry, really hard to watch and wait for him to resettle. So I would pick him up and remove him to another room (partly so her wouldn't wake his sister) and just hold him until he settled down. Then he would wake up from the terror, happily have a cuddle and back to bed.

The only way I found to break this cycle (it was happening almost every night) was to get away from hom and go for a holiday out of Chch. He stopped having them as soon as we left, and they have only occurred occasionally since then.

Good luck - it is horrible when they are so upset, even if they are actually still asleep!

@Crystal #2 - I used to have night frights, I had a reccurring dream, cant remember what about, but when mum would come and comfort me, she would become part of the dream because I was still asleep but talking to her. It's weird because, to this day, at 24 years old, if I hear mum say something in that particular tone of voice (which is very rare, it's very, very particular), my stomach lurches and I actually feel like that scared little kid for a moment. Weeeeeird...

My daughter (now 3), went through a patch of night terrors a few months ago (distinct from the odd nightmare she's had, where she can be soothed).

Generally, the terrors hit on nights when she had been over-tired and crashed within minutes/seconds of going to bed. Any night she went to sleep super-quick you could guarantee that, 30 min later, she would 'wake up' screaming. Nothing would work to calm her down, but I'd just make soothing noises, stroke her hair, and wait for her to go back to sleep. Harder on mum/dad than on bubs, I think!

I'm a great one for night terrors myself. Had them as a kid, have them occasionally as an adult (my husband is now used to them, and doesn't even wake up when I scream). Plus some really scary nightmares too. But on the upside, I also have always had some really kick-arse, movie-quality dreams. :)