To quickly ask how to deal with this?

[Quickadvicepls]

Toddler is 3 in November. Twice now he’s fallen asleep and woken up in an awful mood that quickly goes to out and out hysterics where he’s screaming and shouting. He won’t accept food, drinks, TV etc. if you ignore him (I don’t mean horribly but say something like ok I’m here when you’re ready) it’s like he can’t hear you. But if I walk away he follows me crying / screaming mummy, if I sit down he hits me.
it lasts well over an hour. And I don’t know what to do. Please please help!

Sorry, is this when he wakes in the morning or is he waking up early/in the night?

My eldest is nearly 2, if he wakes up when he wants to still be asleep (eg if we've had to wake him from a nap or if he wakes up by himself very soon after he goes to sleep at night) then he turns into an absolutely inconsolable mess. Nothing we do helps him, he just wants me to hold him while he screams himself back to sleep. It's awful.

Could it be something like that?

Sounds like the ‘night terrors’ my son used to have when he was roughly the same age, happened occasionally after naps too. I found that taking him to the toilet often snapped him out of it. It was a bit creepy at times though as his eyes used to look right through me. Grew out of it before starting school

Mine used to do this sometimes if he fell asleep when hungry - eg if we were driving back from a long day out. We’d try to stop him dropping off in the car and get him home to feed him, but it didn’t always work. So he’d drop off, we’d carry him into the house, and when he woke he would be furious.

The best solution we found (not in the parenting books) was to make a small sandwich eg jam or honey, hold him on my lap, put peppa pig on, and literally hold the sandwich in front of his mouth. I’d sort of encourage him to wake with a bit of noise or jiggling, then as he was coming round I’d get him to take a sleepy bite of the sandwich. He’d slowly wake and nibble it, notice the telly, and just start coming round, while distracted by food and telly.

Told you it wasn’t a great technique. But it did work for real one-offs. Normally we’d make sure he’d eaten plenty before napping as he didn’t (and still doesn’t now he’s a teen) do at all well if hungry.

So basically I’m saying try to distract and try to get him to eat. Don’t try to reason or particularly comfort by making a big deal of it. I never found that cajoling helped. Ours was usually furious because he was hungry.

@Lulasun that’s exactly what happens here, it’s awful … I’m reassured it happened to you too though even though it’s horrible. Only he doesn’t want to be held, he just doesn’t even know what he wants.