Help! 3 y/0 daily meltdowns!(long post)

[mikanmom]

Ughhh, it's not even 10 am yet and I'm allready mentally exhausted by my little windup monkey 3 y/o ds and 11 mo/o dd. Yesterday was terrible I really lost my temper screamed at DS and roughly picked him up and put him out of the kitchen (he wanted to "cook" by grabbing all the spices and putting them into a bowl by mixing them all together.

Once inawhile I let him do this when we have time and it's done w/ me w/ help. I didn't have time and wouldn't let him do it and he started screaming, hitting me and throwing things.

I should start off by talking about the root of the problem. DS wakes up from his afternoon naps and is almost everytime a crying angry inconsolable mess. and I really don't know what to do or how to handle it. I end up getting frustrated after 30- 40 minutes of it, sometimes an hour and make things worse by yelling at him to stop

If I am upstairs and he is downstairs, he demands that I carry him upstairs, I offer to hold his hand which he refuses and then about 3 minutes later after I'm allready busy doing something else like BFeeding DD or getting lunch/snack/dinner ready or housework he's ready for me to hold his hand but I can't (if feeding duaghter)

I've tried offering hugs, asking if he had a bad dream, just sitting w/ him but nothing seems to work. This usually happens when I need to start getting ready to cook dinner I end up feeling very resentful and pressured DH has high cholesteral and now has to have a special diet which makes it hard to make dinners that are tasty but healthy with the added challenge of shopping and finding ingredients in a foriegn country.

Why does he wake up such a mess. In the morning when he wakes up he is just fine. Do you think a very predictable routine might be what he needs. Sometimesw he falls asleep on the stroller, the back of the bicycle, the couch, his beanbag....

Maybe a very set bedtime? He usually goes to bed around 8:30 or 9 but sometimes getting the whole routine of teeth, potty, bath, pullup on, book read takes up to an hour.

He wakes up around 7to 7:30 am and goes to pre-k 3 times a week until 2pm
they don't nap at school.
I don't know what to do but I'm just really frustrated with him and when these incidents happen my patience reserve just gets drained. Today I'm starting w/ near 0.

please let my hear your thoughts on how to handle this daily meltdowns upon waking up from naptime(keeping in mind I'm trying to take care of my 11 mo olds needs too)

[ChetMC]

Sleep

It took us about a year to figure out that our second DD has major issues coping with insufficient sleep.

It's hard for her to wind down and go to sleep, when she's overtired she wakes up too early and completely irrational, and unfortunately, she needs a lot of sleep. She's four now and 12 hours in a 24 period is enough for her, but at three she easily needed 13 hours in a 24 period or we all suffered. What I've also found is that group activities are EXTREMELY tiring for her. She's usually fine at the activity, but she comes home exhausted and we get meltdowns afterwards.

A rigid sleep routine helps a lot. Her wake-up time in the morning is pretty much set so in our case, we have to work backwards from that.

What made all of this really difficult to figure out was that if DD had a day with not enough sleep she needed two or three days to recover from it, so for a long time she was just permanently tired and semi-psycho.

Anyway, the fact that your DS is waking up so unhappy from his naps makes me wonder if he is overtired when he goes for the nap, then because of being overtired he has a very poor nap, and so he's waking up too soon and in a very bad mood.

[mikanmom]

Thank you for your reply. I have a hunch it might be sleep related. That would explain the wind-monkey-syndrome we are experiencing.




I'll give it a try, though I have never been good at strict routines and schedules. I guess I'll just have to try harder. Knowing that it might help though is very very motivating!

The main thing for me is getting dinner done on-time. I'm usually delayed becuase DS is running around and always running DD over or harassing her while I'm trying to cook...or has a zillion needs, help wiping his butt etc.
I guess I just have to let him watch something to get things done and make it part of the daily routine.

[newmoon2000]

This may sound completely out of the park, but my solution to this same problem was to stop letting DS take naps. I have 3yo twins. One of them stopped napping a long time ago (before he was 3yo). The other one is like your DS. If he goes down for a nap in the late afternoon, he wakes up grouchy as can be and NOTHING consoles him. We just have to wait it out until he comes around (often an hour later).

So...since his brother seems to be fine without a nap, I decided to try letting the naps go altogether. I just started planning uplifting activities for right around the time he starts to get sleepy in the afternoons (2 or 3pm). I'll take the cushions off the couch and encourage jumping or I'll initiate a game of hide and seek or tag. I'll even admit to resorting to giving him a couple of chocolate chips or a small cookie. Anything just to get him over that hump. Then he's fine the rest of the afternoon and actually goes to bed much earlier (with a nap, he doesn't go to bed until 10 or 11pm...without a nap, it's 9pm). Just a suggestion...

[GradysMom]

I have a 3 yo ds who can have real difficulty waking from naps which if he takes them are always late day... then he wake just before dinner and is extremely needy. We are practically routine free right now but I have observed that skipping naps works pretty well now and that it is important to encourage ds to eat a bite of something when he is getting unreasonable. We've even had some really nasty starts to dinner where we demand he put a bite or three i his mouth, and we try not to take him too seriously until a bit later... and we have had him respond half way through dinner... mommy I feel happy now, I feel better.

Consider trying snacks... and if you must let it be the afternoon cookie.

If ds misses the nap, he still needs that food burst to get his mood in shape.

[mikanmom]

I have tried skipping naps but that sometimes makes getting through cooking dinner hard for me because he gets in that super hyper overtired state and ends up zooming around almost running down his sis.

Skipping naps....I guess it could work if I can just get better at having dinner ready at right around 6pm. Maybe I could let him watch something educational while I cook.

I tried talking to DS about the waking up from nap problem when he wasn't grumpy. I asked him if he's mad/sad etc. because he wakes up hungry and he said yes. I told him to tell me next time and I can make him something. Well what you know the very next nap he woke up crying "I'm hungry! I'm hungry!" I gave him a good snack and he was fine.

I'll have to take it on a day to day basis to see if he can skip a nap. Early bedtime sounds so good right now!

My husband finally watched the kids for a couple hours so I could go to the gym today and I asked him how waking up from nap went. he said that DS was sad when he woke up but whenever DH tried to help in anyway DS just yelled screamed or cried so DH just told him he'd be there if he needed him and eventually DS just self soothed.

That never happens with me....I just get all these demands yelled from downstairs and if I don't reply he just gets more and more worked up.

I'll try the snack thing and earlier bedtime routine which might happen easier w/ out the naps.... we'll see how it goes

[PikkuMyy]

I watch several kids so my advice is pieced from them.

1. Kid 1 is 2 and always wakes up from his nap hungry but doesn't always realize that is how he feels so he doesn't tell me he needs to eat. At this point, I get a snack ready while he is sleeping and set at his place at the table. That way no matter when he wakes up, I ask him if he's hungry and if he says no, then when he realizes that he is, he can eat right away instead of being really upset that he has to wait while I prepare something.

2. Kid 1 and kid 2 are usually grumpy or sad upon waking, kid1 just for a few minutes, kid 2 often for longer. When I hear them waking, I pop in, say hi, and ask if they are ready to get up or if they need some time to themselves. They often say they need a few more minutes so they have time to actually wake up before being involved in the family. You might put on a bit of soothing music and provide a book or two for him to look at while he wakes up.

[Jemmind]

my three year old does the same thing, I am watching this thread carefully! mikanmom let me know what suggestions are working for you!

[BanditaMamacita]

My 3 year old is another that needs a TON of sleep to act like herself. She could, on occasion, skip a nap... but we'll all pay for it for 3-4 days. She also seems incapable of self-regulating her sleep (like taking a longer nap if she's more tired), so i have to keep her on a pretty strict schedule. After months and months of her waking up from her nap in HEINOUS mood and then being difficult to put to bed at night, i finally figured out that what works for us is to shift nap time a bit earlier. She used to sleep from about 7 pm to 6 AM and then nap 12-1:30ish. Now she's still sleeping the same at night (but falling asleep MUCH more easily... we were fighting with her for an hour some nights), but now she naps 11-12:30. She wakes up in a better mood and actually falls asleep more easily for naps and bedtime. It's a lil difficult to always fit that early nap ito our day, and it ends up being late sometimes, but overall. it has paid off a LOT. Good luck!

[pixilixi]

Just repeating what others have said, really - my ds is 3.5, and if he takes a nap, he is always grumpy, screaming, the whole works, when he wakes up.

Mostly it seems because he is hungry - unfortunately, he has to calm down before he will eat anything, and this will take 20 minutes or so. And this is the time when he will want to be carried, nursed, not left alone (if it's me), or left alone (if it's anyone else - dh, his nana). Then, once he's eaten, he will be his usual self (and usually quite happy since he's had a sleep and recharged).

Most days we try to get him over the sleepy hump (if he has one) in the mid afternoon by offering fun things to do, yummy snacks etc. Even though he sometimes gets wired in the evening, he at least will go to bed early. He gets as much sleep in 24 hours whether he has a nap or not.

Good luck, know you are not alone! I am at my wit's end sometimes, and I don't even have a baby to care for as well.