2.5 year old - aggressive/scared behaviour when waking at night and in morning...

[Lulybelle]

About 4 months ago my ds has gone from sleeping beautifully from 7-7 (why oh why didn't I fully appreciate it then?!), to waking at night and early morning in fits of terror/rage. He is very even tempered, content in the day and sweet in general (aside from usual terrible 2 tantrums or when tired) he has always had a very regular bedtime routine, bath, story and is more than happy to go to bed but this new behaviour does seem to have conicided with him going to a big boys bed from a cot and dropping his afternoon nap. Now most nights he wakes up screaming for Daddy and occasionally Mummy about 1.30am kicking and punching the baby gate (no word of a lie he has broken the last gates plastic hinges and made his feet bleed from the force of these short episodes) if I go to him when he as been shouting for his dad, he will shout 'no, no, no! Daddy Daddy' and physically attack me, throwing himself at me hitting,kicking etc then throw himself on the floor and go into a screaming exorcist temper tantrum of such force (which I have never seen him match in waking hours), after about 5/10 mins he calms down and clings to me rage forgotten and it's very hard to get him back to sleep. If his Dad goes to him he will calm down quicker but still takes a good 30 mins to get him to go back to sleep, if you try and leave the room while he's awake he will get quite hysterical. When he wakes in the morning he is very similar, although slightly easier to calm down and is grumpy for a while but when fully awake seems to have absolutely no recollection. Any ideas what this is about, nightmares/night terrors, anxiety, how we can deal with it? Or is it one of those phases that we just need to ride out? Also, am nearly 9 months preggo which I'm worried that is something to do with it but he's not massively verbal (lots of words and telling us what he wants but not great with 2 way convos yet). He seems quite happy when we talk about the baby but who knows how he really feels or how much he understands? Sorry for looooooooong post!

i wonder if it is night terrors or some other form of incomplete waking?
dd2 has these - will seem awake but it is very hard to get through to her, and she just cries and cries until she's fully roused, which is hard to do.

when she's been having a bad run, we have had some success with deliberately waking her 30 mins or so before the time she normally has a partial awakening, and doing this a few nights on the trot seems to reset her for a while.

My DD 2.2 has done this off and on.

She wakes in the night with something which could not accurately be described as a 'tantrum' by anyone who saw it with their own eyes. We use the word rage as well, but it still doesn't seem to cover it.

Proper foaming at the mouth and flailing about. She's had me really worried at times. She is still in her cot so largely contained until we can get to her.

However, her phases of this only usually last for a couple of nights and then it passes, usually accompanied by a fairly staggering mental leap of some kind. The past two times related to her speech. At 2 she went from barely speaking at all to 4/5 word sentences overnight after one of these episodes.

Recently we have found the only thing that works is to take her downstairs, which seems to break the cycle, and then once she has stopped roaring I carry on holding her tightly in my arms and DH will just chat quietly together about something mundane until she drifts off to sleep. Sometimes this takes some time, which I don't find surprising given what she goes through with it. Occasionally we've had to resort to putting one of her favorite programmes on TV before she will calm down.

How long has it been happening?

Thanks so much for the responses peeps! Rock it's been going on about 3/4 months, it started all of a sudden every night from nowhere and went down to once or twice a week for a while. It seems to have recently gone back to every other night again, although he has had two of his last molars coming through - who knows I feel like I'm making up the causes as I go along sometimes! It's interesting that you say it could be related to speech, as he does seem to have had a bit of a development leap in general the past few months.

It's horrible as feel a bit helpless, especially like you say when they are proper rageful and foaming at the mouth! I'm fine to carry on handling things like we have so far but worried I should be doing something more or that we are making it worse somehow.

It's also a bit pathetic, as I know it's not personal but not sure why it's mainly his dad that can comfort him.

Also feeling a bit mental and hormonal and preggers which isn't helping!