Advice Needed

Hi all, I'm kind of at a loss right now so I hope someone can help me as I've never resorted to this kind of post before. I apologise now for the length.

My son 4.5yr was diagnosed with Level 2 ASD last year. We caught it early as my brother (now 21) was diagnosed with Aspergers in primary school.

We haven't had a real issue with my son (minus fighting to get him an appropriate school placement), but even then that wasn't behavioural. And the issues we did have were appropriate for his age, nothing major.

However, things changed today. He's currently in an Early Intervention pre-school, so the class size is 6 (all with ASD) and there is one teacher and two SNAs. He adores one of the SNAs, and we adore her so it works well. (I'll call her Nina for the sake of the post).

However she contacted me today and essentially told me that it was like he was a completely different child. He was going around to the other children's toys and school work and knocking things over/ruining them, and then laughing at it proving it was done maliciously. He kept calling Nina, trying to get her attention - when obviously the teacher/SNAs were somewhat preoccupied with the meltdowns from the other children that he had just caused.

He was throwing toys, upending his table, refusing to do his work, etc. He even started telling Nina he was going to tell his mummy (me) that Nina hit him and was being mean to him.

Eventually Nina brought him to their sensory room alone to calm him down. This is where it got worse. He out of no where got a swivel rocker and was holding it up behind his head and told her he was going to throw it at her - she of course told him not to, but he did it anyway. While she did duck, he did hit her on the back of the head and cause a small cut that was bleeding. This of course horrified him, and he tried to clean it and put tissues on her head. While he didn't get upset (which he normally would), he did realise what he had done was wrong. However this did not last long, because as soon as he didn't get what he wanted again, he began threatening Nina saying "I'm telling my mummy you hit me in the head"

Apparently he also took his shoes off and threw them at another child's head yesterday but they only told us today.

His childminder then contacted us saying something happened with an older child that ended up with a book in the other child's face (unclear if this was genuinely a game gone wrong or the older child is lying and blaming my son, just very poor timing wise).

I'm very conscious that this behaviour is probably attention seeking and that he is craving 1:1 attention, but of course that isn't always possible.

I'm just at a loss as to what to do. I have reached out requesting an appointment with an OT and his intervention team but that could take weeks.

My husband and I have zero support from family, so it's essentially just us two, that's stressful in itself as it means we don't have a break. We aren't even sleeping in the same bed at the moment as my son refuses point blank to sleep alone so he's with me and my husband is in his bed as we couldn't all fit in our bed.

Sorry again for the lengthy post, but I'm just at a loss and upset and I just feel like somewhat of a failure of a parent even though I know that's not the case.

Thank you all in advance.

(Side note: he had a great night's sleep - 10 hours, and he had a small nap on the school bus home (20 mins or so) so I know it probably wasn't a tired thing in case anyone asks).