Best way to deal with 3 year old behaviour

[Winterwarmer21]

My 3 year old girl is going through a particularly difficult phase. She’ll be eating breakfast then suddenly decide she wants her drink in a different cup. There’s nothing wrong with her current cup & the one she wants is dirty so I say not just now, after breakfast when it’s clean.

As a result she hits me & throws her placemat. I put her on time out for 3 minutes but she won’t stay so I put her in her room. She trashes her room throwing books everywhere.

After the 3 minutes we go back down stairs. She starts again about the cup. Should I just give in & change the cup even though everyone is eating breakfast and she’s just being difficult?

This happen constantly it’s so draining.

Before this she asked for Cheerios. I put the Cheerios in her bowl with milk. She decides she doesn’t want Cheerios she wants coco pops & shredders. I bin the Cheerios & then she has a tantrum because she can’t find the shreddies in her bowl. She throws herself onto the floor and when I spoon a shreddie out to show her they are they she gets back up off the floor and then starts on the cup. Help

Hmm it's a tricky one, my daughter is the same age and sometimes something tiny like that gets blown out of all proportion.
I probably would have just given her a new cup in the first place as a case of "pick your battles". However, I wouldn't give in about the cup after a big meltdown and time out, because it defeats the point of going through all that.

Sounds familiar!
I would usually just switch the cup, pick your battles like pp says.

Sometimes it's not about the cup at all though and my child seems to be looking for a reason to scream and shout - who knows what goes on in that tiny head, but sometimes she seems to feel better for getting it all out in a big meltdown.
In this case I just calmly get on with what I'm doing and offer a hug when the storm has passed. It seems her being 3 is hard work for both of us sometimes