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My toddler still wakes up 1-3 times every night! We have had very few nights with no wakeups in her life... I can count them on 2 hands! She is 23 months.
When she wakes, she is instantly crying, shouting our names, clawing at her door, etc.
We either go in their and scratch her back and sing, or take her into the glider and rock her.

We're suckers.

I just bring my daughter to my bed. Luckily, it's never become a habit, so I welcome the snuggles. I think her dreams are just becoming more vivid and she wakes from them sometimes. She also needs to sleep with the lamp light on now. So, she's definitely going through something.

My 21.5 month old is the same way. She wakes up after a few hours of sleep and is inconsolable. The only way she'll go back to sleep is if we take her back to bed with us. Now she refuses to even sleep in her crib. We totally shot ourselves in the foot!

I'm not sure how and when she'll sleep in her room again, but I'm hoping she grows out of it. But I have noticed that she never wakes up crying when she's in our bed. So I'm guessing it's bad dreams? One of her teachers at daycare mentioned that it's normal since she just started daycare and "her mind is expanding". I'm starting to think it's more of an age thing and isn't so much about daycare and everything new.

Usually we leave her and she goes back to sleep after a few minutes. When she's really worked up her cries are different, and we'll either put her in bed with is or let her have a drink of water before laying her back down.

Lorelei did this last night, too! She woke up full on sobbing that Freckles had chewed something that she was using. She was hysterical. I think she must have dreamed it? She had half-woken up and I had gone to lay down with her and get her back to sleep before I came downstairs again to do yoga before I went to bed, and then as soon as I unrolled my yoga mat she was hysterical. I picked her up (usually I don't; usually I just lay down with her and she'll nurse and be back to sleep in seconds). I told her I thought it was a dream. I asked her what she thought would help her. She said, "Talking about that, maybe?" So I talked to her about dreams, and where Freckles actually was (sleeping in his kennel), and where we were, and how all people have dreams (I used our names-- mommy, daddy, Ellie, Lorelei). She said the dream made her feel really sad. I told her that was okay. Dreams sometimes do give us feelings, and sometimes they might be sad feelings or angry feelings, but that we wake up, and if we were sad or angry we can remember that the things that happened were in our imagination, and we can start to feel better and calm down. It was so strange. I was holding her and rocking her, and after a minute or so she put her hand on my face and said, "Is it okay if we lay down and nurse in the bed?" And so I lay her down, and she was out.

Maybe there's something in the air?

This happened last night, she did it 3-4 times, but the weird thing was she wasn't even awake! She was crying in her sleep. So I patted her back hoping to calm her, but didn't want to pick her up because she was still actually sleeping. SO WEIRD!

DD1 did this almost every night for at least 3-4 months. We got up with her, pat her back, gave her milk etc. One night I tried using the mic on the monitor and she went immediately to sleep. I think she just needed the reassurance of us being close by.