16mo in a rage after naps

[ShushBaby]

My little girl (16mo) has 1 nap a day or sometimes two, depending on when she wakes and what we're up to. She goes down, usually without a fuss, in her cot. She's always been a cat napper and never sleeps for more than 90 mins at a time in the day. Sometimes much less.

For a while now she's been waking up and SCREAMING for a good ten mins or more after her nap. Whether I go in and pick her up, leave her in her cot and stay with her, leave her alone, take her to her toys- it makes no difference. It's like she is seeing red, which is weird because she's usually very jolly and laid back.

I can only assume she's still tired- today she woke up after 40 mins and was especially bad. Now she is wandering about saying 'snooze' every now and again but I know she would be incensed if I put her back to bed.

I did a mumsnet search about this and now feel quite angsty because the general concensus is that toddlers of this age usually have 2 hour naps in the afternoon ! So now I'm even more convinced that the screeching is down to still being tired. But maybe I'm wrong. And how the hell do you extend a toddler's nap?!

Sorry this is rather rambling. Any tips/anyone been in the same boat?

ps She sleeps through 7pm-6am/6.30am at night

dd1 did this
still tired/groggy plus low blood sugar, i reckon.
i used to immediately park her in front of cbeebies with some juice and some raisins and wait for the storm to pass.

she reminded me of, well, me, before i have my morning coffee.

As Charlotte says - food and drink is probably the cure. I wake from a nap in the day feeling like that so I can only sympathise with your toddler .

Thanks ladies. I accidentally posted this is AIBU too and between the two postings the general concensus seems to be that a snack is the way forward!

She's parked in front of cbeebies now, mostly because I'm flipping knackered and fed up after today's scream-fest which was a corker, complete with clawing at my face and trying to push me as far away as possible!

My two didn't tolerate low blood sugar post nap very well. It gets better as they get older.

I thrust a drink and biscuit in my 16 months olds hand the moment he wakes -
its possible - although not garentee of it working that a stricter routine might help - ie more of a set time and place although it can be bit of a pain if you are out and about
and a friend of mine had this problem and in the end they gave up naps really early 18 months? as she was actually worse than when she had them

My DD was and to some extent is still like this, especially if the nap has been short. As other posters have said, I have found the best way forward by far is to get some food into her as quickly as possible and a fix of cbeebies also goes along way to help out.

Had not actually heard of the low blood sugar thing. Would that still apply even if she'd had lunch before her nap and only slept for a hour or less?

moving I'm a bit scared of getting into too strict a routine- I became quite obsessed with nap routines when she was about 6mo and have worked really hard to loosen up a little! But I agree that it may help.

Well it works with me in that situation Shush . I don't think it would do any harm to try it though.

It could be night terrors/nightmares as well - which could be because she is over-tired.

From a personal perspective I would try and get her to one nap a day as it makes life a bit easier if you are wanting to do stuff during the day. However, I am a bit like you and didn't like the strict routine stuff when DS was younger so it was actually the nursery that managed to get us into that routine. And it has worked well (he is 21 mo now).

Both of mine did this until they gave up naps. I'd agree that a drink and a snack are good ways of heading off the scream. Cbeebies was also good - I think the TV trance was a good half-way house for 10 minutes before they were ready to be sociable again.

OP here, just reporting back that raisins worked a treat! I put them in her cot and backed away. She looked a bit pissed off for a moment then started tucking in and has been perky ever since (also it hasn't spoiled her lunch, which she is now devouring).

I think also for dd, snack/nap/late lunch still works better than lunch/nap at mo. I don't think she's ready to last til after lunch for her nap- I've noticed that the short naps and post-nap meltdowns are worse when she is more tired when she goes down.

Thanks for advice all!