A man awoke to his two-year-old daughter's screams and found her sitting on the lap of a burglar, according to police.

The unnamed father rushed downstairs in the early hours of last Thursday to find his child on the knee of an intruder, who then mouthed: "I'm your friend".

After tossing the child on the sofa, the father got into a ten-minute wrestle with alleged trespasser, Oren Cohen, 34, at the property in Tempe, Arizona.

Cohen, who was arrested on charges of burglary, aggravated assault and kidnapping, later told police he had been blind drunk and mistook the child for a "midget", according to the police report.

The report stated that the father had heard his young daughter scream around 2.30am, only to find her with the disheveled stranger.

While he initially tackled Cohen, the 34-year-old escaped out of the property before being apprehended by police.

Police found that Cohen had used a bathroom in the apartment and drank some orange juice from the family's fridge.

In a videoed court appearance, Cohen described "blacking out" after drinking at a friend's house and going back to the wrong apartment.

In the video, he said he then mistook the two-year-old girl for a "midget".

"And I guess, that's when I saw this midget. It looks like a midget and I thought it's [a] midget", he said.

Cohen will next appear in court on December 27.