Throwing a tantrum for whatever reason sure can take a lot out of you. After all, your body will need some way to regain all the energy spent on anger and tears, so don't be surprised if you somehow end up feeling drowsy and/or wanting to fall asleep. That's why toddlers are often put down for a nap after they're done with all the kicking and screaming.
This trope happening is obviously more commonly seen in younger characters, though it can happen to (childish) adults as well. It's often used to imply a character's anger is temporary, and they just needed to sleep it off. Narratively, it also helps that their emotional tantrum can be immediately juxtaposed with them being peacefully asleep shortly thereafter (sometimes it can be justified if they were angry because of Sleep Deprivation).
Compare Fell Asleep Crying, when a character literally cries themself to sleep.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In the 14th episode of HuGtto! Pretty Cure, all the babies at the daycare suddenly begin to cry and scream, including Hugtan. The daycare workers calm them down by singing "Yurikago no Uta" and they fall asleep.
- Pokémon Adventures: When her Ratatta evolves into a Raticate, Yellow (who has no idea what evolution is) is so distraught by the changes that she begins hysterically crying to the point where she ends up falling asleep, something that Blue comments on. She's apologetic the next day, though.
Comic Books
- The Incredible Hulk: The Hulk has frequently been portrayed as falling asleep shortly after reverting to Bruce Banner. This ends up being exploited in alternate universe works such as The Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe, where the Punisher ambushes Bruce after a post-rampage nap and kills him.
- This has occurred in two different Runaways stories, both of them written by Kathryn Immonen:
- In "Homeschooling", Klara's chloropathy powers go haywire after she is injured in an accident. During this time, her plants inform her that the house is about to be invaded, and she tries to warn her friends, but they assume that she's delusional and refuse to listen to her. Unable to get them to listen, she throws a tantrum and ends up being magically tranquilized by Nico, at which point she falls into a deep sleep.
- In "It's Not Lupus", Nico accidentally casts a spell on Molly that causes her to throw a superpowered tantrum. When the spell finally wears off, Molly very quickly falls asleep.
Comic Strips
- Played for Laughs in an early Calvin and Hobbes strip. Over the course of two throwaway panels directly before the 'main story', Calvin is seen in the first panel angrily complaining about how it's bedtime for him, that he's not at all tired, and that he doesn't want to go to bed... only to be suddenly fast asleep on the ground in literally the very next panel.
Literature
- Classic Singapore Horror Stories: In one of the featured stories, Stepchild, protagonist Katherine ends up going to bed upset because of her 13th Birthday being ruined by the titular stepchild inexplicably deciding to show off his piano-playing skills even though she is supposed to perform in front of guests. The fact that her dad, rather than consoling her, instead tells Katherine, "Aren't you a bit too old to be playing Three Blind Mice?" doesn't help. Although said stepchild decides to apologize to her before she goes to sleep and give her a small present to make up for being a showoff.
- In the kids' book Cranky Right Now, the protagonist (a little girl) is in a bad mood because she's having a run of bad luck (among other things, her little brother invaded her clubhouse despite the "Keep out, especially boys" sign, and her father told her she couldn't have a granola bar, claiming it was too much sugar, only to eat one himself). She stomps around fuming for a while, which tires her out so much that she takes a nap.
- Elephant & Piggie: In "I Will Take a Nap", Gerald is in a bad mood due to feeling tired and tries to take a nap. When he lashes out at Piggie, this makes her cranky too, so Gerald jokes, "Maybe you need a nap." Piggie angrily shouts, "Maybe I DO need a nap!" and then falls asleep.
- Princesses of the Pizza Parlor: At the end of the third story, Penelope Penskill has a fit of apoplexy about a disliked aunt that leaves her too exhausted to have another one three sentences later.
- Where the Wild Things Are: This classic has young Max sent to his room with no dinner for some rather bad behavior, with his mother calling him "wild thing". One common interpretation of the events that follow is that he falls asleep on his bed and his dream is the rest of the story. He wakes up to a still warm dinner waiting for him in his bedroom.
Live-Action TV
- Game of Thrones: Tywin says Joffery is tired and sends him to bed after throwing a tantrum. In context, this is a powerplay, but seems to be based on this trope.
Web Comics
- In Homestuck, a Cabin Fever-addled John gets so pissed off over Davesprite trolling him by leaving mocking notes in the style of notes from his father that he rages hard enough to fall asleep in his driveway.
Web Original
- Elliot relates an anecdote of this happening to him in The Flophouse. He resonated with a character collapsing with emotion in a movie because he had done it once himself, after being kicked out from camp. As soon as he got away from people being upset at him, he remembers passing out from the sheer emotion of the day.
Western Animation
- Arthur: Defied in "Mei Lin Takes a Stand", in which one-year-old Mei Lin Barnes complains (in Baby Language) that so few characters in her show are babies. When she starts getting angry about it, Pal the dog suggests that she needs a nap. However, she then gets angry at him, as she thinks that the assumption that a baby being angry automatically means tiredness is a stereotype.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: This trope comes into play in "The Desert", where Aang is thrown into his Avatar State confronting the people who stole his Air Bison. Aang is calmed down by Katara, and he immediately falls unconscious into her arms. Overlaps with Fell Asleep Crying.
- Invader Zim: In "FBI Warning of Doom", after Zim turns off his movie, GIR runs around crying and screaming right before he plops onto the floor and starts snoozing.
- The Muppet Babies (2018) episode, "Animal Kong" has Animal throw a fit when he isn't allowed to play his drums during quiet time and turn into Animal Kong, a gigantic version of himself. After Summer Penguin manages to calm Animal down and get him back to his normal self, the episode ends with quiet time being over and Nanny giving Animal his drumsticks back. Animal beats his drums once, then falls asleep.
Nanny: Looks like his little tantrum tired him out.Gonzo: If that was a little tantrum, I'd hate to see a big one.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: At the end of "Ma and Pa's Big Hurrah", SpongeBob is fed up with his parents' wild behavior. He promptly gives them what they want by doing an intense stunt that wrecks his entire house. When the dust settles, he is asleep, and his parents decide to take him back to their house in the meantime.
- Star vs. the Forces of Evil: Star does this in "Storm the Castle", locking herself in her room screaming into her pillow and eventually falling asleep after Marco chews Star out for almost getting them both killed trying to steal a sandwich from a monster.
- Static Shock: This is essential to beating the Hulk-like Tantrum, a teenage Bang Baby who grows into a giant purple monster as a means of expressing his repressed rage. Remembering something his mother did for him when he was a baby, Virgil simply leads Tantrum to a place where he can rage without hurting anyone, then simply holds his attention until he gets tired and passes out.
- Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race: After throwing a tantrum over all the other teams sharing the same bus, Josee, as her partner Jacques puts it, "rages herself to sleep".
- Trolls: TrollsTopia: At the end of "Wormhole Scavenger Hunt", Lownote is irritated by Pushy Poppy's Jerkass behavior, and sends her to the Pillow Dimension so that she can take a nap. Pushy Poppy eventually falls asleep after throwing a temper tantrum.
