Three-year-old tantrums: How much is too much?
Our 3-year-old (i guess 3.5 now) has always tended to be a little more grumpy than our first, who in all honesty was abnormally chill. Older kid didn't have the "terrible twos" or "threenager" stages and, while he did have tantrums sometimes, really barely did. He hit a rough patch when he was four, when then he finally started grappling more with tantrums and has since worked through it (he's 6.5 now).
So our 3-year-old was around and learning when big brother was in his tantrum era, so I kind of attributed that to the 3yo's penchant for grumpery. He doesn't like hugs or anything when he's having a tantrum, or when he gets hurt, but is very snuggly at other times. He doesn't have a tantrum every day, but most days, and not every tantrum is a wild one.
It seems like his tantrums are hitting a fever pitch lately though, and my husband and I are just at a loss. A few times a week, he's having tantrums that last 30+ minutes (one 45 minutes today), and during that time, he's just screaming. Screaming bloody murder. During this time, he will also try hitting and kicking, throwing things, but not the whole time. Clearly, can't talk to him for multiple reasons during this. We try to put him in his room, sit with him with the door closed and just try to let him have it out. But then it just doesn't stop for so long. He'll try to crawl over and claw the door open, screaming "ow ow ow" when he's trying to squeeze between me and the door, for example.
I sent his doctor a message about it, and his doctor is out, so some other doctor there replied, "That is more than we would hopefully expect. They can self-refer to a child therapist." I don't really trust that pediatrician, though, as he also tried to refer my oldest for an unnecessary surgery that his actual pediatrician said, and still says, he doesn't need.
Do we give it a month to see if it calms down? Do we just pursue therapy? Does this mean he's neuro-atypical? Everything else with his development seems on track, but he does seem to struggle with this emotional regulation part at times. I will say, he's also dancing around dropping a nap. He naps probably 2/3 of days, so his rest is inconsistent. He gets too tired and thus emotional when he skips it, and after a couple of days of napping, he struggles to sleep at night, and then gets too tired and thus emotional. Ugh. Cap the naps at an hour? It's usually 1.5-ish hours.
Thank you for reading this brain dump.