My 20mo has never been a great sleeper but we were improving, and when he did wake it was more of wail to let us know he was up and then he was pretty settled once we were with him, he also was always settled in our bed (unless ill).
The last few months I’ve noticed he has infrequently said words in his sleep as he’s stirred like ‘car’ or ‘no’ or ‘dada’ which made me think he could be dreaming. Over the last week or so he’s been waking absolutely distraught, like really upset. Even in our bed last night he’d fall asleep and then wake up crying saying ‘no no no’ :( once he got himself into a deep sleep he was fine, but it took a while as he kept waking up crying.
Is it possible for him to have bad dreams / nightmares? All he knows is love and happiness, he’s truly such a happy little boy so I really don’t know how his head could even make up bad dreams!