Loud DC and unhappy neighbour. Would you move?

Don’t move if you like the house. She can get earplugs. It’s not you or your son’s fault.

It's a terrible situation all round and @YourMintReader can't fix it. She's doing her best to mitigate

My friend is in exactly this situation. They own their own home. Presumably they couldn't afford a detached house with no immediate neighbours or they'd have done it.

They get nasty comments all the time from the neighbours. The stress they are under is extreme.

But what is the solution? Either society provides more suitable accomodation for families like this or else what. ..we go back to the old days where children would be put in institutions? We are in the middle ground right now where the families are stressed and the neighbours are upset. The only answer is people keep moving house.

I'll be honest, if my friend's family moved next to me, I would move. I can't cope with noise. I have my own needs.

It's both unacceptable that neighbours have to be impacted this way and unacceptable that families like my friend's or @YourMintReader , have no better choices.

@YourMintReader to be honest, I think you should stay. It's safe and near his school. No guarantee you won't have same issues and it's worse housing elsewhere. I'm sorry it's so difficult.

I feel for your neighbours, nobody should have to put up with screaming at 4 in the morning. You knew these houses were new builds and therefore the walls would be paper thin, you have created this issue.

We’re different.

I had a neighbour whose kid liked playing on a rusty swing at 5am. Honestly, the squeaking.

I shut the windows, learned to tune it out, got over it.

It wasn’t my disabled child then, and I didn’t have one. That was pre-bias. Still didn’t kick up a stink about a disabled child regulating at an early hour.

Why are we comparing a profoundly disabled child with virtually no understanding of the world around them to a child who is able to kick a football?

Why are we comparing a profoundly disabled child with virtually no understanding of the world around them to a child who is able to kick a football?

I do it because other people matter too. And I don't need the added difficultly of aggro neighbours as that adds stress.

I have a neighbour that told me her son couldn't help but kick the football against the fence for hours everyday. I give the same consideration I get. Funnily enough, the son can now help it. That's why I said, if you can do something it's a good idea to do it, because you may not like how the neighbour's decide to cope with something.

I do it because other people matter too. And I don't need the added difficultly of aggro neighbours as that adds stress.

I have a neighbour that told me her son couldn't help but kick the football against the fence for hours everyday. I give the same consideration I get. Funnily enough, the son can now help it. That's why I said, if you can do something it's a good idea to do it, because you may not like how the neighbour's decide to cope with something.

That’s genuinely very good of you.

But when your life is already difficult enough, quite why you’d intentionally make it even harder is beyond me.

Taking him to the park in the early hours would also make his day longer and harder. More tiring, more meltdowns, more emotional “wobbles,” more aggression. I definitely wouldn’t consider doing that.

There's lots of things I don't want to do but I do them anyway.

I think his needs are higher than those who aren’t disabled, because they are. That’s just a fact.

Okay. Well I work FT, and don’t fancy a trip to a park in the dark at the beginning of a 17hr day, because I won’t be going back to bed while he’s at school.

In the specific case of OP, as that’s why we’re all here, I can well understand why she doesn’t want to drag her exhausted body around that park at 4am.

What most of us want to do is keep them as settled as possible until a normal hour, so it’s at least not full on from the second their eyes are open.

Yes, you've made it clear that whatever you think you or your child needs is higher than anyone else.

I don't think that way. If my child was waking at 4.30am and it was a problem for the neighbour, I'd take them out until 6am at least. Then catch up on some sleep while he's at school. I'd be awake anyway.

Please don’t move because of this horrible selfish women, sounds like you’ve got a great spot for your family. I completely get that you are doing everything you can and that you can’t just ask your son to be quiet. Maybe housing association can help with some sound proofing. Maybe she’ll move!

It’s not ridiculous to believe that disabled people aren’t ruining your life by existing, and their parents aren’t ruining it by having to live somewhere.

I think ruined is a bold statement, to be honest. And I’m saying that from the perspective of someone who’s been awake at 1am. I would never say that that child is ruining my life.

Those properties aren’t available through social housing schemes, it’s like asking for the impossible unfortunately.

It sounded like OP was going into her son’s room at 4am to do just that, try and manage the situation. She also would like him calmer at that hour.

Like most, we’d like patience when we’re trying to manage those situations in our house, or in the community, not to be told he’s in the way or inconvenient. It’s already difficult enough without her needing to read those things about her son.

There’s also different between want and need. I absolutely don’t believe we should let children do what they want at the sacrifice of someone else’s needs. But I don’t think we should not meet their higher needs either.

No. I have a disabled child and their needs are important, but not more important than anyone else's.

For example, they want to run around the doctor's office because it makes them anxious. I could throw my hands up and say, "Stimming. Too bad for all you sick and anxious people, deal with it." Instead I considered the needs of other people and found another way to meet my child's needs that didn't impose on other people's needs at all. Because they matter too.

Well it would absolutely ruin my life. There is no way I could adjust and sleep deprivation makes my life unliveable.

And how ridiculous to frame in that way. Yes if a child is causing it then a child would be ruining my life. Or rather their behaviour would and the fact that they are suddenly living next door in unsuitable housing. Of course it's not deliberate, but that doesn't make things any better.

I think that’s a crazy idea.

The needs of disabled people are higher and therefore more important than mine, I’m not disabled. I don’t need adjustments to live my life, I can tell people when I’m hungry, I’m able to go to the toilet.

My needs cant be as prevalent as anyone who is disabled, because I’m not. Isn’t that just basic human compassion?

I think in the long term, you’d actually adjust to it and wake up at 4am regardless of whether the kid did.

Not to say you should, or that you’d be happy about it, but that’s just how body clocks work.

There’s a difference between being unhappy about something that is bad, and referring to it as ruining your life. I struggle to comprehend the idea that a disabled child could reasonably ruin your life.

I also think that telling the parent of a disabled child that their child is potentially destroying someone’s existence is a really low blow.

Those of you with kids wouldn’t want a horde of people on the internet telling you how inconvenient they are.

The thing is, other people's needs are not less important than the disabled child's needs. The disabled child's needs and rights are not more important the right of the neighbour's teen to have a good shot at their exams without having that compromised by 4.30 wakings all the time. It's not more important than the parents next door who have to go to work and can't catch up on sleep during the day (or their clients who need them at their best). The don't have more rights than the neighbour's to good health, which sleep is imperative to. To say the neighbours will just adjust to waking at 4am is incredibly selfish.

It does. There is absolutely no question that sleep deprivation is stressful, exhausting and debilitating for everyone who has to deal with it.

The point about resilience, was that if it is destroying your MH, your MH likely wasn’t great to begin with. That’s not a targeted thing against you, but we can’t be holding disabled children responsible for someone else’s trauma, or how much push they need to reach the edge.

It would also be very difficult to know if your NDN was mentally vulnerable when you accepted a house for your child.

There’s been a lot of big language on this thread. Suffering, victims, disabled children are problems, life ruining, destroying.

I genuinely think that that’s hyperbolic. I would never refer to someone being awake and existing in the only way they know how as life ruining.

I can well accept that it’s exhausting. I’m exhausted 😂. But if it was ruining my life, I’d assume my life was in a fairly precarious place to begin with.

I think in the long term, you’d actually adjust to it and wake up at 4am regardless of whether the kid did.

Not to say you should, or that you’d be happy about it, but that’s just how body clocks work.

There’s a difference between being unhappy about something that is bad, and referring to it as ruining your life. I struggle to comprehend the idea that a disabled child could reasonably ruin your life.

I also think that telling the parent of a disabled child that their child is potentially destroying someone’s existence is a really low blow.

Those of you with kids wouldn’t want a horde of people on the internet telling you how inconvenient they are.

Lack of resilience??? Good god. I'm pretty resilient, but in those circumstances I know I would crumble. Sleep deprivation is torture - and the having no control and the stress of just waiting for it to start ... It's never happened to me and I pray it never does. But I know that I would go from absolutely fine, as in no history of depression or mental illness or anxiety or anything, to properly suicidal in those circumstances. How you can think that long term sleep deprivation in those circumstances isn't enough on it's own to break someone is beyond me.