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Behaviour/development

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Should I be worried about my daughters sudden extreme tantrums?

1 reply

smartiemummy86 · 13/08/2021 21:15

My daughter is 3 years 9 months and is usually a very happy girl. I usually have no concerns about her development or behaviour. We have a great relationship and all is stable and happy at home and at nursery. She is usually pretty good at expressing herself too, and is getting more and more independent each day! The reason I am worried is that she has been suffering with a rather nasty cold virus for 10 days now and last night she woke up in the night and had a very distressing tantrum which was quite aggressive. This is completely out of character for her so my husband and I put it down to exhaustion / overtiredness from feeling ill and frustrated with her congested nose for so long. However she continued to have tantrums when she woke up and throughout the day she just got angrier and angrier to the point she was hitting, biting, kicking me and completely inconsolable. She was definitely more angry than upset. It was so distressing to see and I tried everything to calm her down for about 90 minutes but nothing worked. In the end I called my mum over for support and asked my husband to head home from work early as I was just at my wits end and didn't know what to do. She has never acted like this ever before, its completely out of character. My mum and I managed to calm her down / distract her and get a bit of her old self back, but it would only last a few minutes before she would lash out and scream / throw something again. I managed to get a Dr's appointment and they have checked her over but they think she's probably just fed up from feeling unwell and she just needs to rest and recover. She was good as gold at the Dr's so no wonder they probably thought I was just wasting their time. I managed to get her to sleep without too much drama, but I have to say her extreme anger in the past 24 hrs has really frightened me. I'm doing everything I can to remain as calm and normal and reassuring for her as possible, and am praying that's she's just overtired. I know I'm probably overworrying but I wondered if any parents out there might have had a similar experience with a poorly child and how long the aggressive behaviour lasted for? She has had the odd tantrum in the past but usually very short and easily brought back to calm/happy again with no violence. She does have a short fuse and can be impatient but I have never seen her like this before and I just want reassurance that my lovely, happy, kind girl will be back with us soon.

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Jannt86 · 13/08/2021 22:56

If you're not already I'd be tempted to give plenty of paracetamol and ibuprofen. Even an articulate 3YO won't always be good at telling you what's up. She could have earrache or something. I can see why you're alarmed but I'd just give her lots of cuddles and reassurance and see the doctor again if any other signs she's unwell. I bet she settles down again once she's all better so just ride it out and don't make too big a thing of it xx

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