What's happened to my 3 year old?

[ApplesandOrangesandPears]

My 3 (nearly 4) year old has, up till recently, been a fairly easy child. She didn't have tantrums - she does get incredibly upset to the point of total devastation and can't tell us what's wrong and that lasts a long time but thats clear upset and not anger and she's been like that since she was tiny but over the past couple of days she's had tantrums. Proper angry tantrums, throwing things and scratching at herself and hitting herself. Yesterday's tantrum lasted 1 hour and 45 minutes. Today's has so far been going on for 45 minutes. She will not calm down, I've tried everything from ignoring her to cuddles to trying to use communication cards (which have been helpful when she's upset before). It's like someone has swapped her and I'm at a loss of what to do.

I thought I'd escaped terrible twos with my daughter then 'threenager' hit! I found the only thing was to remove her to a different space as any attempt by me to intervene just made it worse and she needed time and space to calm down. It gradually got better as she got older!

Yes! Threenager! DD4 was terrible when she kicked off towards the end of being 3, then turned 4 and my goodness the tantrums! And she now has a habit of telling me that I'm naughty if I tell her off, or she will growl, or she will temper so much she pushes things on the floor etc. you are not alone!

It's like a complete personality change, her big sister threw horrific tantrums from a young age but they were so frequent it wasn't unexpected. These ones have just come out of the blue and shocked me lol

Has she got a temperature at all? My threenager has always been able to throw an impressive tantrum but they reallly are spectacular when she's coming down with something.

Is there any chance they are sensory meltdowns rather than tantrums? Is she usually typical in the way she seeks/avoids sensory stimulation?

No temperature but she has got a nasty cold so you might be right about that

Possible ear infection?

I do think she does have sensory issues, but then todays tantrum had a clear cause (she wanted a sweet from the shop) so I'm not sure. Sometimes she will get extremely upset with lots of tears and sobbing over ridiculous things though (for example there was an hour long episode of full on sobbing last week because she didn't want cucumber on her plate) and she can't tell us what's wrong until she has calmed down even though she has fantastic speech otherwise.

If its out of the blue behaviour I'd give calpol and rule out pain as a reason, my back has been sore this week and I am much quicker to shout at the kids than normal so I'd imagine it's even more prevalent in a preschooler.

Is she in nursery? My 3yo was an absolute dream child until he went to nursery and spends the entire time between 3pm and 6.30pm (in bed as early as possible!) Screaming his head off at me. He is just exhausted and the tail end of the week is always worst because it builds up. He goes back to his normal self weekends and holidays. His DB had one tantrum his entire childhood so it definitely threw me!