14 month-old tantrums

[deliwoman1]

Welp! It's started! My 14 month-old DD had her first major tantrum a few weeks ago, and now it seems we're always on the brink. 😬

I'm a little worried, though, because they seem extreme? Maybe this is normal but they escalate quickly and can be prolonged - longest was 45 min. I'd say it's more like a meltdown than anything calculated. Usually they start because she doesn't want to do something and she's maybe a bit tired (like get in the bath, or have her nails cut), but within a minute they spiral into these full-on emotional, thrashing, hyperventilating meltdowns that she struggles to come down from, even when we try to distract her. I just try to stay calm while it's happening and stop her from hurting herself/comfort her.

She's a fairly good communicator for her age, I think, and we're pretty sensitive to her cues, so I guess I'm surprised it's happening as often as it is. Totally new territory for us! Is the meltdown thing normal and does anyone have any tips on how to handle it?

I feel like any time she gets annoyed/mildly upset it has the potential to turn into one of these nightmares...

You handle it by completely ignoring it. Only intervene if she is in danger of hurting herself.

There is no reasoning with a toddler, and you need to model calm behaviour. Any attention she gets, even trying to soothe her, only serves to give her a reaction she's looking for.

Say something once, "When you've calmed down, I'll be here to read a book with you." Then sit on the sofa, ignore the tantrum, and act like nothing at all is happening. Stay close by to supervise, but otherwise let her work through it.

Have you seen Big Little Feelings on IG? Useful resource.

Its totally normal. Stay closeby, offer her a hug, tell how she’s feeling “DD is feeling angry/sad/frustrated”, and offer reassurance “it’s ok, mummy is here”. If she starts getting physical make sure to remind her that’s not ok “it’s ok to get angry, it’s not ok to hit”. Eventually you can work on some coping mechanisms for her but step one is for her to learn the emotions.

A lot of these sorts of things are a result of lack of control, so offer her choices. Getting in the bath… “would you like to play with your ducks or your bath crayons?”, nails done… “would you like to watch Duggee or bluey while I do your nails?”.

Dc2 was like this from 2 years old. His tantrums were really, really bad and I was very worried about him, but he's 7 now and an average kid.
His triggers are tiredness and hunger. There's often not much you can do about tiredness, at the end of the day you often get to a point where children are tired no matter how much sleep they have had. As for hunger, I realised (far too late unfortunately) that he needs regular snacks even when he says he's not hungry. So I stopped asking if he wanted a snack and instead said: "It's snack time. Please sit down and have this banana and some yogurt." 9 times out of 10 he would happily sit down and eat, when normally he'd refuse food at least 5 times out of 10. This strategy alone halved the number of tantrums.
As for the tantrums themselves, I think you just have to be patient and calm and wait for them to pass. There's no magic fix unfortunately.

Don’t ignore your child when she is completely dysregulated! What awful advice! You can hold a firm boundary whilst also being loving (and human!) in your relationship with her. I find (if possible) picking up, taking her away to a smaller, calmer, darker room, rocking, and singing a repetitive song helps to really calm my DD when she’s lost the plot. Otherwise just being with her and being the stable container for her big feelings. If she’s a good communicator, and you teach her the words for her feelings, she will also learn to identify these which will help as she gets bigger.