To ask if these meltdowns are normal or not?

[Cutie18327]

Hi all,

My DD is summerborn (end of August) and just this week started reception. This weekend has been EPIC in terms of meltdowns (I'm talking about 60-90 minutes, hitting, screaming, throwing, biting, most recently she took her clothes off and threatened to wee on the floor!), she has been refusing sleep even though she's tired (it's been taking her 90 minutes to fall asleep despite no nap, being clearly tired, no screens, no sugar etc.). She does have these meltdowns from time to time, they are most definitely worse when she is tired but she always seems to be tired as she is a shocking sleeper. She kind of goes throw stages where she'll have a week of being an absolute nightmare and then a week or so of being an absolute nightmare.

Part of me thinks there could be some kind of neurodivergence there, or possibly she is just naturally quirky.

Can anyone provide any anecdotal evidence on whether this is normal or not. She has just turned 4, am I over thinking it?

Did she have meltdowns like this before starting school? Was she at nursery beforehand?

DS2 the first two weeks of school would come home and then cry/throw things/hit his brother...or just fall asleep. He settled down after a couple of weeks.
He'd been to nursery but it was a very relaxed/outdoorsy one. I think he was just very tired and trying to learn new routines.

He can still get a bit tantrumny/or fall asleep on long days out in a way his older brother never did.

What was she like when she was younger? Are these a new behaviour or something that's been getting progressively worse?

DS started having epic tantrums when he was about 18 months over little things and was fobbed off for years. It wasn't until he started school that people really started seeing what I saw. He was stuck on a 2 year wait list and has just had his first assessment at almost 7 and a half.

Start having conversations with her settings if she's in one, see what they think. Otherwise go have a chat with your GP or health visitor (probably GP as the HV that saw DS the summer before he started school just blamed my parenting)

I wouldn't judge anything on the behaviour in the first month of school. It is a huge change. Even the most confident of my DS's friends stopped sleeping, had meltdowns etc.

Also, meltdowns alone aren't a sign of neurodivergence. Have their been any other struggles or is it just around regulating emotions?

My DS is autistic. He has far fewer meltdowns now because we can manage his triggers/energy levels more. But what seemed to distinguish them was not knowing what caused them - they would just seem to come from nowhere. Eventually we understood that some sensory/social environments are just so draining for him that he's basically on a hair trigger the whole time.

Summer born DS had them almost the whole first term of Reception.

After a while we learned to bring him home without asking him any questions, put out a fairly substantial snack (two pieces of fruit, a slice of toast, a small sweet and a drink) and leave him alone with the snack until he decompressed. He was overwhelmed and us asking how was school and trying to calm him down wasn’t helping. Carbs and alone time were helping.

Thank you for your replies. I think the tipping factor here is that she had these tantrums before starting school too, and I am worried about her coping now. Since about 18 months she has had occasional screaming fits, but then other times she is perfectly lovely and very bubbly and chatty.

I'm not sure if her other symptoms are ND typical or just normal toddler behaviour? She struggles with lack of routine, lacks social boundaries and cues, has struggled with sleep since a baby, gets sensory overload very quickly, and finds it very difficult to emotionally regulate. But I think a lot of these can just be normal for her age so it's hard to distinguish? She is not behind developmentally for her age (if anything she is forward, she has been reading since age 3, has a brilliant memory and is a brilliant talker), so none of this has been picked up at preschool and I'm not even sure it will manifest at school.

Based on what you've written in your last paragraph, I would be looking for getting her on the waiting list for assessment and making an appointment with school to discuss her difficulties and the possibility of ASD, as she'll need additional support and interventions in school. You'll need to get in touch with your GP or health visitors probably, the process seems slightly different in different areas. She's very young for the year, but so was my kid - it was the autism that made him struggle, not the lack of months.

Your descriptions make me think possibly ASD. Girls can present very differently from boys, however, so many GPs, teachers and traditional diagnostics are geared to ASD behaviours in boys.

Girls also tend to be better at masking when younger, making it difficult for teachers to recognise. This means there is often a greater delay is diagnosis, as the social aspect is what raises its head with significance as girls get older.

My daughter is in y2 now but unfortunately until about half way through year one, we had these extreme meltdowns every single day when she got home. They still happen but are less frequent. It's really difficult to manage, especially if you have other children around.

My daughter is very bright - she's reading 250 page books from the library independently. This is not a brag - she can do this but struggles very much to manage her emotions so I'm not one of these people who thinks their kid is better than everyone elses. I think though, that she overthinks things and is a complete perfectionist, she holds it together all day in a busy, noisy, classroom and really what she enjoys is being in her room listening to music or reading a book (and I'm sure many adults can sympathise with!).

ND? well, it has been raised by a couple of people including the school nurse, however we're still on the fence, and school are with us there. I think it's not always obvious at this age and there's a massive overlap between how anxiety can present. She also didn't used to sleep but started sleeping through towards the end of reception. She's also found ways to help her get to sleep now - mostly reading but also certain music and a little routine she's set herself after we've done bedtime.

My daughter is obviously an introvert but has friends. Our plan is to see how year 2 goes. She has a very lovely teacher who works really hard to create a calm and inclusive classroom so I'm hopefully things will improve this year.

Not sure if that's helpful but it sounds as though you are where we were two years ago... It's really hard to know what to do and we've not quite got there yet.

Thank you this is actually really helpful and it does sound like your situation is similar. When I'm falling short of potentially being confident of her having ASD is that when she is well rested, she appears to be a completely different child, but is that just because she is better at masking when she has had enough sleep? Who knows.

Yes, very similar here! In fact I often think there are 2 versions of her. One anxious, stressed, angry and often out of control and one very chilled out! I know she needs down time so I do try and build that into her life as much as I can.

Good luck, regardless of why this happens, the next few years will no doubt be difficult but I hope you find ways to make it easier for her and for you.