18 month old tantrums... crazy!! Advice??

[Babycarmen]

My 18 month old daughter has started having temper tantrums.. but they are wild! My eldest (5) had the 'terrible twos' but nothing like this...

She throws herself around the floor, cries and screams, throws her head back and forth and headbutts the floor, hits herself or the walls, shakes her head wildly.. but this can go on 15-20 minutes and I don't know how to get her out of it. Sometimes holding her close and soothing her works but other times she just squirms to get away and screams even louder.

It can be over silly things like her water cup is empty, tiredness, or because she wants something she can't have and also out of frustration but I am really struggling with how to deal with it.
I start back at college next week and she starts nursery and I am scared she will be like this there :(

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Just ignore and walk away. Know its hard but any attention you give her will basically feed the tantrum.

What are her communication skills like? Could she be frustrated? Have you thought of trying some signing with her? My DS could sign from an early age and hardly ever tantrumed. I got lazy with dd, hardly did any signs plus she had delayed speech, and boy could she tantrum.

I try and work out what the tantrum is about. If it's tiredness, hunger or us taking something away or not letting her have something the scissors we stupidly left out in the open when she doesn't understand, I will try to a degree to distract and placate her. We're having quite a bit of success at the moment with getting down to her level and calmly talking to her about it, for example asking her if she is hungry, and then I say "ok, if you can calm down and say please, we can go and find a biscuit". I want to teach her that of course it's fine to be hungry and want something, but that it is better to ask nicely.

If it's pure temper then I ignore her. If it's safe to do so, I very obviously turn my back on her.

I agree with JJJ that quite often its something related to communication, or when they are going through a big developmental leap that we see the most tantrums.

The best is to try to avoid the obvious triggers like tired or hungry or waaay overstimulated. Otherwise, just being quite matter of fact about it. It's a small person feeling utterly overwhelmed by the world, so gentle ignoring (no reward, no punishment, just being there for when she is finished) seems decent advice. 18 months is easier in some ways bc you can pick them up and move them- harder when they are older!!
She probably won't do it so much at nursery but might do it more in the evenings- be warned!- that is what my DD1 did as she was so tired out by nursery that she was just frenetic at home. I hope your course goes well.

First try and work out and avoid triggers - tired, hungry etc then
Ignore - I know that is easier said than done ...
DD2 went through a stage of hitting herself and pulling her hair - they aren't going to really hurt themselves but it is a good way of getting a reaction ...ignore!
I just used to say 'doesn't that hurt? I don't know what the matter is but I can't help you when you are like this ...tell me when you are ready for a cuddle' - and walk away or 'you know I can't let you have what you want when you behave like that - or you will learn that is a good way of behaving and it isn't - there are better ways of getting what you want'
Also if you can before they get carried away - try distraction - if you can't think of anything 'real' make anything up -
I have thought I have seen an elephant in the supermarket ... Look over their shoulder - 'No! I don't believe it! - that can't be true - I'm sure that was an elephant ...can you see it? etc etc...
Good luck ...it soon passes ... and then they turn into stroppy hormonal pre-teens

Jilted - Yeah I think we are going to just walk away and ignore. She isn't great with speech yet, so very likely that she is frustrated. I will look into signing, don't know much about it.. Thank you.

Unlucky - distraction does seem to work - sometimes! Definitely worth trying though.

This morning she had one because she couldn't reach a toy she wanted, took me a while to figure out what it was because she just sat there screaming 'No no no' So I think it is definitely out of frustration. Thanks for all the advice, seems so much more easy to deal with now!

We didn't go to a class for the signing, just got a book from the library and bought the dvd Sing & Sign via ebay.

Think it might be easier now with Justin doing Makaton on cbeebies. We started with a few simple signs like more, milk and up.

Like I said we have always just ignored, one gave up tantruming very quickly, the other tantrumed more but I think the difference was communication

Don't underestimate tiredness and hunger though. These make my dd wild (she's 21 months).

We use signing to great effect and she's getting more words now.

Will add, I don't ignore her tantrums or her brothers, just tell them what they're feeling and sit with them eg you're tired, hungry, cross etc. my nearly 4 year old is now very good at articulating his feelings (sometimes he wails "I'm tired" and takes himself off to bed!).