2 year old's violent tantrums becoming very distressing

[midwife99]

Our daughter is 2 years 5 months old & is my 4th child (5th between us). Despite our extensive parenting experience (my eldest is 19!) we are at the end of our tether with her behaviour. She has daily violent tantrums that last over an hour at times, regularly screams for up to 2 hours in the middle of the night & nothing will pacify her. She hits & scratches us, her siblings & s couple of times othe children at nursery. We have never hit her & rarely raise our voices & have tried all tactics such as ignoring, comforting & the naughty corner for violence. She throws food & cutlery & toys at her sister, pulls her sister's hair & refuses to cooperate with pretty much everything. Luckily her next oldest siibling is 7 & is extremely patient & never retaliates. Her health & development are otherwise normal. We are in a negative spiral & are exhausted! Help!!!

Could you go to your GP and get a referral to CAMHS? (I know CAMHS are often a bit useless, but I'm not sure at pre-school age which other agancies are available).

What triggers her tantrums? Could she have some sensory integration problems?

BTW I think people will be along to say that's all normal 'terrible toddler' behaviour but I think with all your years of parenting if you think this is different and there is a concern you are probably right!

What seems to set her off is something being slightly different from how she demands it - the towel being "wrong" or me getting her out of bed in the morning instead of daddy or who sits where at the table etc etc etc. She controls her environment in great detail & if we get anything "wrong" she goes mad. The beginning & end of the day are the worst when DH & I are both there for some reason. We don't disagree on how we handle her so it's not a reaction to any conflict. I'm not sure the age range for CAMHS but I guess my HV could help there.

My son had daily tantrums at that age like you describe, he's 3.5 now and although still has tantrums they are shorter and nowhere near as often. He is still occasionally violent though but I have no concerns that he has any psychological issues.
A few weeks ago he started having some real humdingers again due to the fact ( we think) we'd taken his dummy off him and I was recommended the book 1-2-3 Magic. I've read the book and been using the techniques for just over a week and it's like I have a different child already. It's been the calmest Xmas since he was born and he's been the most well behaved lovely sweet little boy.
The book is for kids age 2-12 so it's worth a read if you've ruled out any underlying issue.

I'll try that book thanks! I don't think she has any major health problems we can identify yet anyway. Deep breath taken!