4.yo Night Time Tantrums

[20FlowerPower]

My 4.5 y.o has never been an amazing sleeper, but for the last few months she's been much better and has slept through consistently. Every evening she goes to bed between 7-7.30pm as standard, with absolutely no issues, but for the last fortnight she has been waking up between 9.30-11.30pm and proceeds to have a full blown tantrum that generally takes about an hour for her to work through.

It's not night terrors - she's had them before and this is different. She wakes up crying (/pretend crying / shouting) and will not calm down - rather she will just continue shouting at us, no matter what we try. Gradually the shouting/crying builds up to being out of bed, turning all the lights on, running all around the house screaming and, as was the case last night, throwing her toys / books around her bedroom. Last night she decided to wreck my bedroom, started throwing my slippers around and throwing things off my bedside table. I cannot get to her any earlier to stop the spiral starting.

I try to be 100% calm and do manage most of the time - she gets NO rise out of me and I calmly try to turn lights back off, tidy up around her etc. I normally lie in my bed and try and explain that mummy (daddy / big brother) is asleep and that she should be too. Eventually she tires herself out / snaps out of it and will calmly say "mummy, I'm ready to go back to bed now". She then sleeps through for the rest of the night.

I've tried bribery, sticker charts, new bedding. Everything. Nursery made her a special stick that she can take to bed to wave at anything scary. Nope - she used it to hit me with instead.

Help.....

I've not experienced anything like that.

Think I would ask school for a referral to a Paediatrician for assessment.

She's still at nursery - and they have no other suggestions / concerns about her. She is absolutely fine during the day. We saw the health visitor earlier in the week for her standard 4.y assessment - her suggestion was to sit with her until she calms then slowly move the chair away from her and towards the door. Not convinced that would work for any 4.y.o to be honest, but the fact she simply will not calm until her "red mist" has passed means that suggestion is out the window anyway.

DD used to get a "red mist" at that age as well. Perfectly well behaved at Nursery and then school. The only thing that ever calmed her down was being held.

She's now being assessed for ASD.

Girls are just really great at masking.

One thing you could try is a weighted blanket at night to see if that keeps her calmer.

Is she definitely awake when she does it? Know that might sound a daft thing to ask but my son used to have bouts of full blown night terrors and then Alice in Wonderland Syndrome but it could be tricky when he was a similar age to establish whether he was actually awake and conscious of me being there and speaking to him or whether his frantic shouting and panicking was him still dreaming and immersed in whatever.

If you're sure she's awake and having a tantrum I'd see whether throwing her a complete distraction out of nowhere briefly interrupts and stops her in her tracks as in “Oh my goodness look at that?” and bob your head back out of the bedroom door see if she's still throwing stuff around and not interested in whatever you've seen outside.

That was how I used to determine whether my son was still asleep and dreaming or freaking out with AIWS usually around the same time most commonly 2-4am sort of time.

Still worth having a chat with the Health Visitor though or maybe trying to get her tucked into bed an hour later see if that makes any difference and helps her to go right through if she's still up and doing the same thing just an hour later than usual.