Next doors 5 year old kid has been screaming late at night for the past 3 years. Seriously destroying our quality of life.

[sleeplessneighbour]

They moved in around 3 years ago with their toddler, back then he screamed all day every day. Never ending tantrums. When they put him to bed at 6pm he would scream and yell for up to 2 hrs before finally exhausting himself, but often some time after midnight he would wake up again and start yelling and screaming.

For the first year this happened every single day, and I'm not exaggerating. We called over at one point (with wine and a smile I might add!) to talk to them about it and see if there was a solution we could work out. They were immediately defensive and sent us away saying that this is what kids do and refused to entertain any suggestions of moving him to a different part of the house or attempting to soundproof his room.

Over the years he does it less frequently (around 1/2 times a week) but now he is bigger he is even louder. I hear it through earplugs. It's audible in other rooms of the house and not just the one immediately adjacent to his.

I'm at my wits end. I opened my window one night and yelled at him to 'shut up' as he'd been screaming for 20 mins at 2am and the parents were upstairs in their loft conversion apparently oblivious.

WTF do I do? This is getting past the point of acceptable and has been going on for so long now that I doubt he'll ever grow out of it. Can any parents with experience of kids like this help me with how to approach them? We're a bunch of late 20's/early 30s professionals who have 1 party a year and are early to bed. We cause zero disturbance to any of our neighbours.

Any and all help appreciated, thanks from a desperate bunch of tired people.

Nutty noo, please read my post up thread. Of course the parents might not necessarily tell the neighbours if their kid has SEN. Shall I copy and paste?

I think you need to move but noise pollution is horrible to live with regardless of cause and it's obvious things won't change. He's isn't a newborn

I feel for your situation op.

Everyday my son gets up before six and crashes around, shouting and screaming, wakes us and his sister

Surely if that is the case daily, you wake before him and try to keep things calm?

You say that you live above your neighbours but can not soundproof the whole place, why not? I'm genuinely interested why you can not soundproof the floors.

@hooochycoo- suggest you wake up before him to manage him then. A 6:30am daily wake up isn't the end of the world.

I can't believe the level of ignorance on this thread. What do you expect the council or ss to actually do? My Ds has sn, and hardly sleeps. He can be very loud and aggressive. We have spent the last 6 years begging for help, from nursery, child minder, school, gp, camhs, ss. The best they can offer us is 'do you have a friend who can babysit whilst you go out for a break?'

At least weekly I take Ds for a walk at 4am, just to keep him quiet for the sake of the neighbours, but we can only walk for an hours or so, so when we get back at 5 the noise starts again.
Why do you all assume the parents can't hear or don't care? If the noise is loud enough to keep the people next door awake, you can be sure the parents in the same house can hear it too!
And when you are constantly tired, begging for help, worn out, and often injured by your own child, you don't take kindly to people knocking on your door offering 'solutions'. If there was a solution don't you think they would have tried it already?

The floors have soundproofing underlay, floorboards and then carpets and rugs.

We do take it in turns everyday to get up with him.

It is not always possible to keep things calm.

There will always be some level of noise. As much as I try, there will always be.

Move OP if you can. Or try thesr

www.flareaudio.com/products/isolate-aluminium

If the child has SN why didn't the neighbours say so?

I would report them to Social Services then. Leaving a child to scream for hours on end for the last 3 years is wrong

Why would anyone want to discuss their children's medical history with the people next door?

And even if they did, it wouldn't magically cure the child and make all the problems disappear.

Agree Henry. My DH would never tell anyone DS1 had suspected SN. We have never told our neighbours, altho we do apologise for the noise frequently.

My DS has just had a ten minutes screaming inconsolable meltdown because of getting dressed. Or more specifically because I sang the "getting dressed song" too quickly. ( which is one of the strategies we have to help him get dressed, along with laying the clothes out in the same position and order everyday, using social stories, allowing 30 minutes, assisting him with every item) when he started screaming he jerked his body back so hard that it knocked him off his feet and he hit his head on the table as he fell down. Meaning he screamed even more and in his frustration blamed his younger sister, attacking her by pulling her hair and therefore she was screaming too. After calming then both down I am now hiding in the toilet trying to calm down while my DH tries to start the getting dressed process again.

My neighbours probably heard it all too :-(

Oh hoooochycoo, sounds like an average day here. Not easy to 'just keep him quiet' is it???

Move Op

They might have another one

Perhaps he has special needs

I would contact social services and local council and ask for advice.

What I don't understand is why some (and not all) people who have children with SN & who make a lot of noise through meltdowns don't explain this to their neighbours & work with them where possible to mitigate it - because it works both ways. Your neighbours might do things that trigger your kids but if you're on good terms with them then they're likely to go out of their to avoid that which makes your life & your kids' lives easier. And kids with SN become adults with SN - at that point your kids might be really struggling with noise sensitivity as I do (I'm autistic) and really need helpfully quiet neighbours. So all I'm saying is, just because your kids can't help making a noise doesn't mean your neighbours should have to just put up with it.
OP - I'd have been yelling out of the window at 2am too (have done at my noisy drunken neighbour!), particularly with your neighbours' less than helpful attitude.

Nikephorus, exactly what do you think the neighbours can do when 'worked with' to mitigate it? If the medical and educational professionals can't help, how can a random neighbour? I understand it must be horrid living next to a noisy child, but the parents have enough of their own stresses without having to worry about the neighbours too.

I'm talking about ideas like moving furniture, soundproofing, that sort of thing. And communicating. It's a lot easier to cope with a screaming child next door if you know they can't help it.

As I said before, I am an intelligent, reasonably well supported, articulate, confident woman in reasonable physical and mental health, and I fucking struggle to cope a lot of the time. My life is already open to doctors, physics, it's, support assistants, teachers, educational physchologists, with meetings meetings meetings, appointments appointments, reviews etc etc.... I don't want to necessarily have meetings with my neighbours too!

I totally sympathise with the OP, it must be awful to have to put up with the screaming and noise . But realistically it isn't solvable with moving wArdrobes and rugs and chats. It isn't predictable and easy to solve.

If you shouted at my child to "shut up" I would be giving you something to start screaming about

Today after the getting dressed meltdown , my DS fell in the hall as he twisted his body to get his coat on and hit his head on the door frame. Again screamed for 5 mins. Then a ten minute meltdown in communal stairs to flats because his socks were wrinkled. And then fell on his face in the street and hurt himself and screamed outside the house for 5 more minutes. I'm sure to my neighbours it must have felt like he was screaming all morning.

What should I have done to mitigate that? Should I soundproof the common stairs? My echoey hall? The pavement outside my house? Should I have popped round earlier and said " apologies my DS's sock is going to be wrinkled and he's going to fall over a few times and not be able to cope with his frustrations and pain and therefore will scream a lot?)

What should I have done to mitigate that? Should I soundproof the common stairs? My echoey hall? The pavement outside my house? Should I have popped round earlier and said " apologies my DS's sock is going to be wrinkled and he's going to fall over a few times and not be able to cope with his frustrations and pain and therefore will scream a lot

I don't know the answer - but although I feel for you I also feel for your neighbours. Maybe they work shifts or finish late at night or have dysphonia or anxiety or have sleep disorders?

I have dysphonia to a degree and high-pitched screaming noises make me physically uncomfortable and even induce tears. This includes children, some machinery, etc. I am also a light sleeper and take ages to get back to sleep when woken. Without sleep, I get sick easily and cannot focus on work.

Others have needs too.

If you shouted at my child to "shut up" I would be giving you something to start screaming about

& you would probably come off verbally worse. What a ridiculous thing to say. The child has been screaming for THREE YEARS. She has every right to lose her shit out of the window. It was hardly in the childs face.

& for those parents of SN children who don't see the point in/won't have a simple chat with the neighbours. That's so selfish. Your neighbours will understand far more if you simply explain why the noise happens. It's called being reasonable, noone is asking you to whack out your DC's medical notes & go in to detail.

The 'mitigation' is simply in respect of your neighbours KNOWING there is an issue. They will still be pissed off with the noise but they will understand better.

I don't necessarily want to go round to my neighbours and try to begin to explain to them what our life is like, the fears I have for my children, the frustrations and pain they go thru on a minute to minute basis, the stress we are all under. And I am reasonably capable .

Add in the fact that the OP's NDN may be stressed, un supported, have poor mental health, have undiagnosed SN themselves or even just be entitled wankers then it's not going to be an easy problem to solve.

I do all I can to try and be considerate of my neighbours, but I'm never going to be able to stop them hearing my DS's meltdowns unless I move house.

In answer to your question OP, you've tried to talk to them about it and they weren't receptive. I think then in your position you either have to learn to accept it or move house yourself. That's shit I know. :-(

This is the unfortunate outcome of a society that no longer wants parents to discipline children. Instead of being a problem parents resolve it just becomes everyone else's problem and apparently you have to move to have a peaceful life rather than them actually fixing the issue. Sad. A real sign of the times when the solution to everything is everyone else putting up with nonsense rather than fixing the cause.