Moo will be 18 months next month and I'm sure what he's doing is completely normal, but I don't know how to handle it.

He is becoming very rough, I'll be carrying him and he'll whack me across the face with his truck or whatever he is holding. Or he'll grab my face and head butt me in the forehead/mouth/collarbone etc.

He'll sleep for his usual 12 or 13 hours overnight but scream from the second he wakes up for at least an hour. Nothing makes him happy. He'll do the same thing after his daytime nap. Just drop to the floor and cry and scream, any effort to distract him he'll physically push me away.

He head butts hard surfaces all the time, not only if he's looking for attention or has been told 'no'. Will be running along, see the door frame and head butt it. Then he'll cry, be consoled, and go straight back and do it again!

Every nappy change, dressing/undressing or shoes on is a major issue. He'll either do the drop (you know, how they go all limp) the whole way through. Or with nappy changes scream, kick and writhe until it's over.

He bites me all the time. Just in passing or if I'm carrying him somewhere.

He is testing his limits BIG TIME! But where we used to be able to distract him from whatever it is, he now won't hear of it and just keeps going back to it until he finally chucks an epic tantrum.

We're at a loss as to what to do in these situations. We've been calmly explaining why we don't want him to do something (like when he hits me "gentle with Mummy, it's not nice to hit people") but it doesn't seem to work anymore.

All my friends smack when their kids do things like this, that's not something we're doing with Moo. We're fast running out of patience here so any tips would be appreciated.