16 Month Old Tantrums

FTM

My daughter just turned 16 months old and all of a sudden she is having VERY big emotions. Out of no where she will start doing this like high pitch whine-scream if she doesn’t get her way (*if she wants to walk around in a store and we don’t let her or if we pick her up, if she’s asking for something different to eat - immediate meltdown before I even know what she’s asking for, if I won’t have her up on the couch while I’m working, if she wants to come sleep in bed with us all night*).

I didn’t realize that she’s basically throwing a mini tantrum until yesterday when she wanted up on the couch and finally when I picked her up, she was totally silent and acted like nothing ever happened. We just thought it was because she was teething or gassy or uncomfortable.

My husband stayed up all night with her because she wouldn’t stop doing this - she just wanted to come into bed with us. Up until like 3 nights ago, my daughter slept through the night and would wake up around 5am, we would bring her into bed to snuggle and then we’d get up for the day 7-7:30am. But the last 2-3 nights she would sleep for a couple hours in her crib and then start doing this scream cry thing until my husband would bring her in bed with us for the remainder of the night and she would be okay.

But last night we realized it was a mini tantrum so we didn’t want to give in, which resulted in him being awake with her while she was yelling all night. I’m 9 weeks pregnant, and we can’t have her in bed with us every night despite how much I love the snuggles because I get really crunched for room and uncomfortable, therefore I don’t sleep. I also don’t want to create the habit of she has a fit and we give in, and have the cycle continue.

I’m not really sure how to handle this other than just not giving in to everything she wants right away? I know she’s just learning big emotions and she’s going to need help regulating them. We try our best to always keep a calm voice and ask her what’s wrong and run through a list of words she will

understand to get to the problem. And when we don’t accommodate what she wants we tell her why - but she’s only 16 months so it’s not like she really understands us yet.

Any advice would be helpful!