re: 8 month old having nightmares?

They can fear falling, not being able to find you, etc. They have natural built in fears. They don't need to see scary stuff for them to know what being afraid is. My Ds had night terrors - I think they started around 10 months. He never saw TV even before then, no one fought around him, he slept with us, so he wasn't afraid alone in the dark. It just happens. It runs in my family so it was no surprise to me. I had them, most of my siblings did - my nieces & nephews had them. He outgrew them around age 4 thankfully. They peaked at around 2-2 1/2 yrs old. More stress or lack of sleep can make them worse - but they aren't the cause of them. Plenty of stressed out over tired kids never have a night terror.

Quoting justanothamotha:" They can fear falling, not being able to find you, etc. They have natural built in fears. They don't ... [snip!] ... can make them worse - but they aren't the cause of them. Plenty of stressed out over tired kids never have a night terror."

That makes more sense. I just couldn't figure out what would stress him out or make him fear something when during the day he's fine. He does cry or whine when we walk out of them room when he's in his crib for a bit. So he does miss us or fear not seeing us. Thank you!

If he takes a binky - for us that worked best. I would put that in his mouth & talk softly to him to try to get him to lay back down. NEVER try to rouse them out of it - always try to shhh them back to sleep. You will only turn it into a crazy hysteria if you try to wake them from it.

Quoting justanothamotha:" If he takes a binky - for us that worked best. I would put that in his mouth & talk softly to him ... [snip!] ... out of it - always try to shhh them back to sleep. You will only turn it into a crazy hysteria if you try to wake them from it."

He's never taken a binky. He's always spit them out. I do talk to him softly when he doesn't fully wake up from them though. I let him know I'm there at least. He usually stops but he will wake up anyways after sometimes.