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.

But you are complaining. So it's your problem. The issue is, how do you address it? Not by making it someone else's problem, because they won't accept it. "But our house shouldn't need soundproofing" is all very well, but you're the one with the problem.

IMO relations with neighbours are already a diplomatic minefield, I wouldn't complain about anything that wasn't genuinely a beyond the pail, taking to court issue. Having bad relationships with neighbours is really horrible. Don't risk inflicting that on yourself.

By the way the one strand of comfort I can offer is that when your baby is born, you will be so tired that the sound of someone else's child crying will no longer disturb your sleep. Only your own child's cry will wake you. Or an earthquake.

Your poor neighbour, I bet she is exhausted with 3 kids and up before dawn every morning. You shouldn't say anything unless you are very, very close and consider her a very, very good friend. Even then I would expect a vicious backlash from her. If you are tired and at the point of tears, imagine how she feels. Make the most of the good few hours sleep you get now, because once that baby comes along 5 hours sleep a night will be a distant memory My 1st was a nightmare and she didn't sleep, she was up all hours despite doing everything that was suggested to us. I was a wreck and very, very depressed because of it. I even sedated her for a while because I just needed a good nights sleep. But I still only got about 5 hrs. My DS is better but is an early riser, putting him to bed later doesn't work - he still wakes at 6.
It's hard coping with little sleep, but think of it as a practise run for when your own LO comes along, and try not to get too upset about it.

If things are that bad, get rid of the lodger and sleep in that room, or downstairs for the time being, or get ear plugs. Honestly, it's not worth ruining a decent relationship with your neighbour over, as hard as it seems now. Just try to put yourself in your nighbour's shoes, it's not a walk in the park for her (and being a SAHM means she doesn't get a break, even if she manages to put 3 under 4s to sleep together in the afternoon - if she does, can you pass her number on to me because I struggle putting my 1 to sleep without a drive in the car )

you are being daft now

Say nothing to your neighbors! You, bless your heart, have no idea how much noise a newborn baby can make. Nothing to do with lung power being stronger with age.

Could you install floor to ceiling bookshelves on the offending wall? Failing that, use foam earplugs. They're the best I've found - I suffer from a snoring dp, btw - & I can now wear earplugs because dc sleep through the night.

Good luck.

Bessie, I think you need to stop being so selfish, you're lucky the neighbours before were so quiet.
You seem to think that either there is some magical way to stop the child crying or that it is only fair for them to move the rooms round and inflict this on the other neighbours. What makes you the most important person in the street????

After 6 months of living next door to neighbours who had 6 children 'sleeping' in the bedroom at the front of the terraced house next to our bedroom and after ear plugs and constant hammering on the walls when their children were still rampaging around at midnight and after many miserable nights............we did something very radical. Put the house on the market and sold. Did I mention the problem to the new owners...........?! Am I a cow?

Bessie is grumpy from sleep deprivation & hormones.

fortunecookie,s he is getting a minimum of 6 hours sleep a night, being a pregnant mother of a two year old and a 6 year old, who both like to wake early, I understand only too well what she is feeling.
But it gives ehr no right to say that these neighbours should move around their house, and also, inflict the same noise on the neighbours the other side. It's bessie's house and bessie's problem. She obviously knew when buying the house that double glazing would not be allowed, and surely the real problem here is the students that are making all sorts of noise outside til midnight???

Actually, I am getting a maximum of 5 hours sleep a night and there was no problem until the neighbours changed the rooms around.

5 hrs sleep

Not read the whole thread but I think there are some really unhelpful posts on here. This poor woman is being kept awake by a neighbouring family's new setup and ok, there's not a lot anyone can do about a screaming child but there's no need for all the self-satisfied posts about how she doesn't know she's born...

I have a one year old and one of the things I worry most about is what happens when she wakes up in the night and is inconsolable and disturbs all my neighbours (I'm in a flat). She usually sleeps pretty well but happened to be up for three hours on Saturday night between 12 and 3am. When that happens, I feel it's my duty as a neighbour to try to get the noise down as much as possible so I got up and played with her for three hours when what I actually wanted to do was let her cry...

I agree that the poster should get ear plugs and not raise it if she can avoid it but really, the "oh we parents are so long suffering, nobody understands us" is enough to keep me awake at night with irritation.

Bessie, it is THEIR house, they put their children in what rooms suit THEM.

Are you completely missing the point that the neighbours the other side may have been hearing this child for months????

I'm so sorry I credited you a whole extra hours sleep. You'll be at the point soon enough where ten minutes seems like a life time. As I remember your OP says 3 times in the last week, so four days out of seven the child hasnt woken you???

Well said margo!

I think bessie has got the message by now - don't say anything to neighbours. But why all the vitriol and patronising comments?

Because OrmIrian, she has made it pretty clear she expects ther neighbour to move the rooms round to suit her, and obviously has no sympathy for either her neighbours, or the neighbours that would suffer if the rooms were changed around.
There are many things she could do to possibly stop hearing the child yet she has shot them all down with comments on how her 'house shouldn't need soundproofing' because previous neighbours were quiet.

I had my baby's bedroom carpeted to cut down on noise affecting my downstairs neighbours.

My baby. My responsibility.

They repay my attempts to be considerate by not getting upset when she does kick off from time to time.

Honestly, being a parent doesn't get you some medal or mean you get a lifetime's victim status and deserve special treatment.

Agree with you Margo.

OK, so Bessie "doesn't know she's born" but I would hazard a guess that before anyone had their first, no one REALLY had any clue what to expect, so give the poor girl a break! Ditto the SAHM comment. Before he arrived- I thought being "at home" with DS would be a breeze - coffees with pals and naps during the day and so on. Well the reality soon hit home.

BUT she's tired. She's pregnant. SHe's working still, so she's not being unreasonable in feeling peeed off about it - after all - her first post just asked for advice from how to deal with this. I think she has the message now!

I personally wouldn't say anything either. WOuld go down the ear plugs route. Hope it may be a phase that the little one comes out of soon. I wouldn't risk peeeing off the neighbours.

Hope you manage to get some sleep though before your baby arrives.

I agree that the other main problem seems to be the students and teenagers making noise til midnight and preventing you from going to bed earlier.

This is unreasonable and possibly preventable - have you talked to the council's noise pollution section about it or the police (not sure if it is appropriate).

Maybe if you could go to bed at 10.00 the early starts wouldn't be so bad.

Nor does being pregnant and upset about only getting four decent nights sleep a week and three days of 5 hours.

Who is to say the room isnt already carpeted?? Or that the childs bed isnt away from the wall?
These parents could have done as much as possible to try to stop the noise. Why should your neighbours decide where your child sleeps??

What if they have been advised to try controlled crying or such like to make their child sleep better? Should they hold off until they live in a remote cottage in the middle of nowhere before allowing their child to cry??

LoRayningNewtsandFrogs - I do think that if you have a child, you have to take some responsibility for it, though. Other people don't owe you anything just because you have reproduced.

what by gagging it?

can you not read?

By Bessie123 on Tue 09-Oct-07 14:00:07
To be clear, I am not complaining about the child, or expecting my neighbours to magic his crying away. I am just p*ssed off that they have moved the rooms around so that now I hardly get any sleep.

I suppose, Margo, the problem is all mums have been in a situation similar to the neighbours', all of us have had nights of unbroken sleep because our toddler/baby/older child hasn't slept and all of us would hate anyone to say anything to us about it. Maybe (probably/definately!) Bessie is getting a little unfairly treated....but this is the AIBU section, and everyone uses this section to vent and be generally mardy. (I only come on these when I am a bit mardy and need cheering up - so shoot me!)
Bessie, I do genuinely feel for you - being PG is a rollercoaster of emotions and the most ridiculous things used to semm like the end of the world to me (once I wanted a cheese pastie, from Greggs, but I was in a fancy hotel and no Greggs was open or nearby - I sobbed my heart out like someone had died). But until your baby is born - get to Boots, get the earplugs and get into bed earlier.

don't be so rude I am just wondering how you expect the parents to 'take responsibility for their child' in the context of it crying?????????

bessie - sometimes you just cannot stop a baby/toddler from crying
they are probably doing some sleep training to get her to Stop waking at 5.00 am
so, short term, yes you are disturbed but long term it will settle down

Bessie, of course you don't owe them anything. But they aren't asking you for anything.

You are asking them to make changes to suit you, because you feel that a child crying is unreasonable.

By all means ask them to soundproof their childrens bedroom, or to swap rooms. But at the end of the day they will see you as unreasonable and it will cause tension.