My 15.5 month old has been super cranky/clingy since the end of April and it is driving me crazy. He has always been high needs but he has been especially difficult this past month. It started with earlier wake ups. He was waking up at 6am / 6:30am for a month or two and now he's back to waking up at 5:30am. When he wakes up he is ANGRY. He yells, and cries for the first 20-30 minutes of the day. It is so difficult to wake up to a yelling, crying toddler. It puts everyone in a bad mood. He is also extremely clingy and has got a serious case of daddy obsession. If dad is around he cries and yells until he picks him up. Meal time has also turned into a nightmare. He refuses most of what we give him. We give him the option to play if he doesn't want to eat or has finished eating, but he will literally stand next to my husband and pull on his arm while yelling and crying until my husband finishes his dinner. My husband will offer to have my son sit in his lap while he finishes dinner but it's always "NOOOOOOOOO!"

I can't really figure out why he is being like this. He is definitely getting 3 teeth at the moment, and it probably started right around the end of April. One of them looks like a molar. I always thought teething irritability was supposed to be mild. His level of crank/cling just seems really high for teething. He is currently on the 2-1 nap transition and it has been tough, but we're figuring it out. Nothing else has changed in the home. He has 30 words so far so he is able to communicate a fair amount of what he needs, although sometimes we can't really figure out what he wants. Is this normal toddler behavior? Is it a phase? Will it get better? I hope it gets better...