Help - other people's screaming children; what to do?

[Bessie123]

I live in a terraced house in London. Our street is quite noisy before midnight, but I usually get up for work at around 7.00, so I can go to sleep around 12-ish, avoid the noise on the street waking me up, get 7 hours, and that is fine.

A couple of weeks ago, our neighbours told me and dp that they are swapping bedrooms with their children (2yrs old and 3 yrs old) so that the children can have a bigger room. The children's new room is on the other side of mine and dp's bedroom wall.

The swap has obviously happened because I have been woken up before 5.00am 3 times in the last week by the 2 year old screaming for his mummy. The parents now sleep in the back bedroom the other side of the house and can't hear anything (I assume they can't; our back bedroom is v quiet and quite far from our bedroom).

I haven't been able to get back to sleep after the 2 year old's screaming has woken me up. I have no children, but am expecting my first in Feb and am more tired than usual anyway at the moment. My reduced sleep from the early wake up calls is making me exhausted and it's interfering with my work.

So, my question is how to deal with this: should I say something to the parents next door (and if so, what), or just put up with it? The neighbours also have a 7 month old baby, but her crying hasn't woken me up before; I can only assume that it is the 2 year old's stronger lungs that are the problem.

All advice welcome.

Don't spend money on a white noise machine! I used white noise on my PFB when he was tiny, and just played the radio between stations....

Have you tried the earplugs Bessie?
How was your night?

1 word - earplugs !

aaargh I am not meant to be here, i am only looking up 3 seater cars

but

this must be a classic thread now, surely?

It has SAHM vs WOHM
Parents of several kids vs parents of one
kids vs dogs
CC vs AP

FWIW I am expecting a baby in February also, and I have a 2 yo and a 4 yo. Based on my experience of having been a WOHM, a WAHM AND a SAHM (so ner), having been pregnant now 3 times, and having neighbouring kids on either side, my advice is

Don't for god's sake say ANYTHING. Please.

Aside from the fact that you will alienate them , you will also wince to yourseld SO many times come February to think what an eegit you have made of yourself. Honestly, you will.

Now I need to return to a detailed comparison of zafiras vs scenics

Hey filly [smiel]

Don't think Zafira's are 3 seaters though

call yourself experienced witha piffling 3 pg's? You need ooh, at least frur

LOL, no they just conducted conversations at a loud level as well. So as she was cooking, she'd demand that he hand her "the farking onions" " the blardy potatoes" etc.

They also watched TV at a mad volume. Their favourite was the Bill, the theme tune of that seemed to be echoing round my flat all the time!

Hellcat - I tried the earplugs, but it felt too weird having stuff in my ears and I couldn't get to sleep(!) I will practise with them, to see if it gets better. Perhaps I didn't mould them enough.

Toddler didn't wake up till about 6 this morning, but my body clock seems to have re-set itself to his sleep patterns this week, so I woke up at 4.30 anyway (grrr)

Seen this topic and seen the extreme reactions it has generated and reminds me that when I was 7 months pregnant I stopped being able to sleep through the night and it was *** annoying. Sometimes being pregnant is shit and you get sleepless nights no matter what the external circumstances and it is depressing knowing you will never get an uninterrupted nights sleep again for about 10 years !!!

Good luck with the ear plugs.

Bessie - I can never get on with those wax earplugs. Have you tried the foam ones?

I do (sort of) sympathise as I felt exactly the same as you when I was heavily pregnant - every noise woke me and I loathed my neighbours for staying up late so I could hear their telly.

Now I have a 7m baby and tbh I'm so bloody tired, I'll sleep through anything. And your baby is going to yell and wake the neighbours at unseemly times so if I were you, I would keep schtum and take deep breaths.

Bessie , please also remember that insomnia and preg are a common mix. With DS2 I woke regularly before 5.00am and even went to the Doctor as it was driving me mad.
( "you're pregnant" he advised me ).
I use the old white noise method by having the radio on when things are disturbing me. This seems to happen whenever DH is away and I put my sudden irritation with the unusually noisy neighbourhood down to MY being more wakeful, not the world suddenly being more noisy. Maybe your acute awareness of this noise is down to pregnancy altered sleep and may improve when babe arrives ( at which point it will be your own little bundle waking you up).
If it were me I would definately speak to the Council and police about noisy students - they have both been very helpful to me when we had a regular bunch of drunks using my road as a cut through. Stopped the problem within a couple of weeks. If you do speak to your neighbours I would only enquire how the kids are doing in their new rooms - you may find an answer to what they have done. My DS2 has ASD and used to only sleep about 4 hours a night. At one point we had to move him away from DS1 as he was waking him and then getting up and attacking him !!! We kind of had to take emergency measures for a few months, placing our room between theirs so I could intercept DS2. And we were told to ignore his waking as responding to him was just making him wake up more.
Not suggesting that this is the same of course - my point is simply that people sometimes have to do stuff that the outside world cannot see.
Good luck !

Persevere with the earplugs Bessie, it'll be worth it. They want to be well squidged first, try rolling them into a ball, and then quite thin at the end you put into your ear. If you do them too thin, then they will go too far into your ear and be uncomfortable. There will be quite a bit left sticking out - I usually squah this into my outer ear to make it more comfortable, and so I can lie on my side. It's a good idea to wait until they have been in your ear for a few minutes and then give them a squidge further in, as they will have warmed and softened. Also, you can tell when they are in right as they are sort of airtight, and you have to tug to get them out.

It does take a bit of getting used to, but it is well worth it - I take them with me everywhere. The foam ones I have found are only slightly less 'there' in your ear, and they don't work half as effectively.

I also find a tiny drop of lavender oil on the bottom corners of my pillow helps me to sleep - but not too much or it has the opposite effect.

Good luck.

Poor thing you have my sympathy. Personally found wax ear plugs better than the foam ones.

I think it does seem selfish of your neighbours not to put the noisy child in the room away from yours. When dd was at her loudest in the middle of the night I used to try and sit in the room that I knew was next to neighbours kitchens/living rooms rather than bedrooms (we live in an old house subdivided in a bizarre way).

I also had noisy neighbours whilst pregnant and although it wasnt a child crying but gangsta rap it really really got to me, more than it usually would have done. I got even more stressed as people kept saying "make the most of having time to sleep before the baby comes" and I couldnt because of the farking quarterwits next door. My neighbour is now pregnant herself and their flat is deathly quiet while she "rests". grrr.