18 month old is waking from day naps crying and v upset

[Sinople]

My DD has been waking from her only day nap crying, sometimes it's difficult to console her and we have to resort to DVDs and tempting her with other things that she likes to calm her down (these have worked but not always and are prehaps not working as well as previously... more new dvds on the way). This usually occurs when she doesnt seem to have had enough sleep (she may wake spontaneously, or be accidently woken by something else). The crying is totally out of character and is the opposite to how she wakes in the morning. She doesnt wake in the night crying... i really cant work out what's so upsetting. she has always only ever had one day nap, and this has usually been a 3 hour nap, although it's been getting shorter as she's getting older. She can manage without a day nap on occasions, and her mood rarely deteriorates if she's v tired, so the napping crying is a mistery. Is it so terrible to wake before you are ready? and if she's not ready to get up why not drift back to sleep like she does in the night?
Has anyone out there had a similar problem. I assume its a phase, but it's been a long one, 6 months on and off...
any thoughts would be appreciated :)

[alana39]

DS3 often wakes from his afternoon nap absolutely beside himself - we then have 10 minutes of him being inconsolable and thrashing around whether he is cuddles, put down, fed, read to, shown something on TV.....

And some days it just doesn't happen. Like your DD, he doesn't do this in the morning (happy to lie in bed chattering to himself for ages).

No idea why this is, although I vaguely remember the older 2 doing something similar sometimes. It doesn't seem to matter whether he wakes himself, or is woken so we can go to collect his brothers from school, it just happens sometimes.

Sorry no suggestions as to what you might be able to do, but did want to say it's not just your DD!