Our 2.5 year old daughter typically ends up in our bed sometime after midnight. Usually, she just gets up from her bed and comes in our room and I pick her up to put in our bed and she goes to sleep. No big deal.

However, the last couple of nights, she has woken up around 1 AM, walked to our room and then FREAKED OUT when I went to pick her up. She goes rigid, starts to swing her little fists to try and hit whatever is near her and then takes off running into another room of the house. One night, she ran to the kitchen and started demanding breakfast. One night, she just wandered out and sat on the couch. Last night, after running all around and screaming at me, she ended up laying quietly on the couch with my husband. She needed a new diaper but wanted nothing to do with me, so I went back to bed. My husband brought her back in to go to bed after changing her diaper about 5 minutes later. She quickly snuggled up to me, touching my face, and calmly went to sleep.

Is she sleep walking? What should we do to avoid the screaming and hitting? She's gone to bed later than normal the past several nights, is that maybe the cause?