Son waking up in full blown temper tantrums

[ttremble88]

My son (4 years) has something similar but it only happens when he is woken up in the middle of the night. For example if we leave familys house late and he falls asleep in the car for an hour and then we need to wake him up. He just wakes up crying. You ask him to unbutton his seat belt, crying. You ask him to get out of the car, crying. And he can not seem to control it. It is like his eyes are open and he can hear you, but can not comprehend or do what you are asking. But if I wake him during naps, he is completely fine. And he wakes himself in the middle of the night for pee or such, he is fine.

[Cadillac]

if it's not night terrors, the tantrums are still very normal for little boys his age. many young ones do it and its a bit of a way to get all the emotions of the morning out, release pent up energy and even just sort through things in his own head (weird way to do it, i know)

I've known tons of little ones that wake up and tantrum.

Let him exhaust most of his energy and then gently and quietly go in and give him a big solid and tight hug for a minute or two. makes then feel safe and secure enough to calm down and move on with the day.

he'll probably struggle for a sec but help him with quiet susshing or a very quietly sung song he loves

[AcornsFalling]

My daughter used to do this when she woke up from her nap from about age 2- when she dropped her nap at about 3.5. Nothing I would offer her or try to do would settle her down. She could not seem to get going after her nap. I let her watch tv for a little while and all of a sudden she would snap out of it and be her usual self. I think she just needed to wake up more.
The worst was when we had to get her up and head out the door right after nap. Asking for trouble .
She never had night terrors but was not a great night sleeper until she was almost 3 and had all her teeth. We also had never sleep trained her.