I wish the title was an exaggeration. Over the last week and a half my happy, cheerful and pleasant 3.5 year old has had a switch flipped in his head and suddenly NOTHING makes him happy anymore.
We are having tantrum after tantrum over what seems like absolutely nothing. I will add, it is hard to understand him as he is being assessed for autism and has a significant speech/communication delay but we can usually tell what he wants and he does a lot of hand leading.
Anyway, he now suddenly hates going anywhere, usually a lover of parks and soft plays, shopping etc.. now he hates it all. He likes the car but now cries and moans if we stop for too long at traffic lights? It’s mental to me where this has even come from. 50% of the time he seems adamant he cannot walk up and down the stairs and needs to be carried. He is becoming increasingly difficult at meal times, he had a meltdown earlier when I handed him pizza pastries (something that is his favourite) because it wasn’t toast.
This meltdown lasted forever, even though he did pick and eat a little but we tried him with his usual bath afterwards and the meltdown got even worse. Then he came downstairs and was adamant there was something on top of the fridge he wanted, there was nothing, but it ended up with another 15 minute meltdown until he gave in.
He has even been given us his shoes to go out at 8pm? We never go out this late, his bedtime is at 8:30?!! And like I said above, he isn’t happy no matter where he go, he’s still grumpy! It is driving me mad where it’s all come from.
Sorry this is long but is this normal 3/4 year old behaviour? It has shocked us because he is usually such a laid back child, would play for ages on his own, super happy to do anything, loved parks and going out. It’s breaking my heart to see him so miserable and angry all the time 😩