"terrible twos"

My Oct baby is more sad meltdowns than tantrums like my first so I am taking a different approach this time. Frankly I am wishing I would have done this more with the first because the internal reason is the same he just expresses it as sadness and tears rather than frustration and screaming. Basically, we practice deep breathing in calm times so he has that established skill. When he loses it i just sit on the floor with him and we take deep breaths while i rub his back broadly to calm his nervous system. Once he is calm and can hear me, we talk about the reason he had his melt down and how to handle it differently next time. He has been having these meltdowns for about 6 months and I definitely see them becoming less frequent and shorter. He uses the coping skills we work on now which is so impressive and he uses his feelings words (he might still be crying a little but instead of collapsing to the floor he uses his words and says “this is really disappointing I wanted the blue cup”

Overall, this age has rigid thinking and when their expectations are different then reality it’s upsetting to them so we also do a lot of prep before situations to set realistic expectations. We also use a lot of timers so there is less “big feelings” when things end. (Aka: in 3 minutes we are going to be done playing and get dressed- then when the timer goes off he is ok with it because he was expecting play time to end and emotionally got ready for what’s next) My in laws say “that’s not how life works he has to learn to roll with it” but he will have less concrete thinking as he ages and more coping skills.

he just has tantrums when I say no and drops to the floor but his so emotional. I have tried deep breathing but he just doesn't understand so should I just keep at it ?

he also doesn't talk so I just dunno the right approach for him