To say something to next door about their crying toddler at night

[afizzysweet]

We live in a mid terrace. Our ndn are on the end and they have the end bedroom, their toddler is in the room that backs on to our bedroom, I am assuming his bed is against our wall IYSWIM.

He goes through phases of waking in the night and crying. I have a child of the same age so I get it. It does wake me up every single time. Doesn't always wake DH.
The difficulty is that I think they let him cry it out rather than go in to him. For the 5th night in a row I've been woken up and listened to crying for 20 minutes and now I can't get back to sleep.
I can't confirm that they do let him CIO, I'm just basing it on the fact he continues to cry and gets louder before stopping after a while.

I don't want to use ear plugs because I don't want to risk not hearing my own child.

Should I say something? It seems like a really unreasonable thing to bring up because kids cry at the end of the day and it's not like we live in a dettached house. But I am getting fed up of broken sleep that impacts me the next day.

Our DD at a similar age went through a stage of night terrors, she would be screaming and you'd go in and the poor thing would have no idea you were even there, she would thrash about in your arms absolutely terrified. As a parent it was incredibly traumatic to watch and be helpless to comfort her in anyway. The screaming would get worse and worse as it went on then just suddenly stop.

I'd think very carefully before going to their door OP, you are incredibly entitled and it's all about you and your condition.
If you were my neighbour and bought it up when we were worried and stressed about our child that would be it in terms of neighbourly relations.

Maybe if you don't want to hear neighbours especially a 3yr old girl you shouldn't live in a mid terrace house... just a thought

@Graphista

You have NO idea if they're going in to the child or not

This is normal toddler behaviour tbh and I suspect at some point soon as yours is around the same age the shoe WILL be on the other foot!

Start of nightmares, toothache, a cold, the examples a pp gave of various upsets that can occur around comfort objects...

Loads of reasons why a toddler may be inconsolable for 20 mins or so

Crying for 20 minutes at night over a period of months is certainly not normal toddler behaviour. The kid may have something else going on that makes crying more likely, but the parents should be getting some input to find out what's going on if they don't already know. There are things that can be done for teething (ibuprofen / calpol), night terrors (wake just before the time / sleep apnea referral), melatonin for autism insomnia etc etc. The parents might already be doing something and gentle discussion from OP can uncover that, or they might not and the prompt will improve their lives too.

The op has said she can’t hear anybody comforting him.

I am going against the grain - I don’t think you are being unreasonable discussing with neighbours. Communication in life is key - there might be something simple they could do like move the toddlers bed away from the wall - it’s smaller and more options than your adult bed.

Well she wouldn't if there's a toddler screaming flat out in the room. You generally don't shout at kids to comfort them, we'll I don't anyway. So the likely hood is she would have no idea

Well she’s said she can’t hear anyone with him.

@BlueFlavour

Well she’s said she can’t hear anyone with him.

No, she might not hear anything. As I said earlier when mine were hollering, I went in, made no eye contact, said 'shh' and left. They got the idea that night time was for sleeping because I didn't fuss.

Crying for 20 minutes at night over a period of months is certainly not normal toddler behaviour. The kid may have something else going on that makes crying more likely, but the parents should be getting some input to find out what's going on if they don't already know. There are things that can be done for teething (ibuprofen / calpol), night terrors (wake just before the time / sleep apnea referral), melatonin for autism insomnia etc etc

That's all very well but things like melatonin aren't exactly handed out likes sweeties.

And if your child has developmental delay then you don't even get a diagnosis till late toddler hood at the earliest, so no entitlement to drugs for your child with autism, cerebral palsy etc.

Very ableist comment with no idea of the reality of Sen parents.

You're misreading @Littlemissmuffet720, the actual point is that it isn't "normal" for all toddlers and that the parents should be getting help accordingly. Advice that it's "normal" suggests they should wait it out, when actually they should be seeking a SALT referral if there is suspected autism.

The child has been crying every night for 5 nights, not months. The situation has really moved on from the OP hasn't it?

If they are leaving the child to cry it out, it appears to be working because it stops after 20 minutes and the kid goes back to sleep. If I was in their situation and my neighbour told me that I had to handle my own child’s night time tantrums differently, I would ignore them.

I get that it’s annoying for you but they are probably trying to stop this turning into a long-term problem, so I think you need to buy some ear plugs and sit it out until he grows out of it.

I also think that it’s not really your neighbour’s fault if you can’t get back to sleep once you’ve been woken. I think most people would probably doze off once the noise had stopped. I know you can’t help that, but neither can your neighbours.

@Alltheprettyseahorses

The child has been crying every night for 5 nights, not months. The situation has really moved on from the OP hasn't it?

Even from the first post, OP said he goes through phases of this. She's later clarified further from questions. If you select "see all" then you can read all of OP's posts.

@MRex

You're misreading *@Littlemissmuffet720*, the actual point is that it isn't "normal" for all toddlers and that the parents should be getting help accordingly. Advice that it's "normal" suggests they should wait it out, when actually they should be seeking a SALT referral if there is suspected autism.

Hogwash. Plenty of our nt friends have babies like that.

And I am not missing the point because a referral does not mean problems will be 'solved' just that a reason is provided.

The reality is if it's bad for the op, it's bad for the parents.

@afizzysweet

A chat about it wouldn't make your sleep any better or your pain any better or your fatigue any better. How would it help other than give you the opportunity for a moan?

I'd know that they were actually in there with their child trying to settle him rather than me doing what I currently do, which is sit there going "are they in there with him? I can usually hear parents talking in that room and I can't, will somebody just f**ing well go in to him?".

This post stood out to me. You are getting wound up and annoyed (understandably so), and in my experience, this is the biggest barrier to sleep, more so than the noise. Noise is one thing, but as soon as you react to it, it becomes impossible to allow your brain to just block it out as being a noise that's not relevant to you, if you see what I mean. This being the case, I think it'd be OK to gently let the neighbours know you can hear it, as long as you do it sensitively (which I'm sure you would). It might allow your frustration to dissolve which would help the sleep, but also there may be something the neighbours could do that they wouldn't necessarily do if they didn't realise the noise could be heard. Maybe not, but it's worth a try.

It shouldn't be too hard to open the conversation, seeing as you both have toddlers.

Take the crying toddler for a drive?

I can see how that will go right now. Step 1. Spend 15 minutes trying to wrestle rigid toddler into car seat. Toddler escalates crying to roughly the level of an air raid siren as he resists. Entire street awake. Fail to get child in car seat. Go back in, child now even more upset.

Even if this big didn’t happen there is no way I’m getting behind the wheel at silly o’clock in the morning, after no sleep, with aforementioned air raid siren going off in the back seat. It’s unsafe for a start, stupid for a finish.

@MRex sorry but you obviously don’t know what it’s like to have a sick child. It took several hospitalisations over 8 months before we saw specialists and things started to get easier. It wasn’t through lack of trying on my part. Waiting lists for paediatric specialists are between 3 and 5 months. How long do you think a sleep apnea referral takes? I can tell you… ours was done last month about 4 months after an issue was first noticed.

People have no right to their neighbours’ medical information, however gentle the discussion.

I’m not unsympathetic OP. Hope you find a solution

Crying for 20 minutes at night over a period of months is certainly not normal toddler behaviour.

I'd say waking up once a night and taking 20 minutes to resettle is well within the normal range? It isn't great, obviously, but I don't think you've get much interest in the issue from a doctor. When I took mine to the GP when he was having night terrors (which could go on for longer than 20 minutes and at the point I took him we're usually happening more than once a night) the GP told me to come back if it was still happening in six months... And actually, yes, it did self-resolve, so the GP was quite right.

@Boatingforthestars but why would you shut down neighbourly relations just because your neighbour simply brought it up, if asked about sensitively? There may or may not be a simple solution and it seems unfair for the OP to continue to compromise her health just in case the neighbours are unreasonably offended

It might be nothing can be done, but it might be completely possible for the child to move rooms, and the neighbour might be more than happy to on being made aware of the problem. If not, nothing is lost (unless they inexplicably decide never to speak to the OP again as you say you would)

I get that night terrors are awful, I have two preschool age children who have both had them, we have been able to move them away from the wall when it is happening.

It seems crazy that everyone has to tread on egg shells and not communicate about it and I don't think OP is "incredibly entitled" for caring about her health

@missymayhemsmum

DD was being woken by the next door neighbours arguments and screaming kid. We lined her wall with an acoustic wallpaper and wall to floor bookshelves and now she doesn't hear them. They could also move their child's bed/ you could move yours away from the party wall/ they could take him in with them when he wakes. You should absolutely have the conversation op.

I was going to say this, there are all sorts of physical non intrusive changes you can make to the walls to provide some soundproofing. Get a set of billy bookcases which spread across the entire wall and then fill them with books from the charity shop, make them fairly shallow so it doesnt impinge on the space too much

@Buttercup54321

Ridiculous. The world doesnt revolve around you.But carry on and point out the obvious. You may then need to add bad neighbours into your problems. Id be extremely annoyed if you whinged to me!!!! Your issues are not your neighbours concern.They are also dealing with broken nights and will be tired and stressed themselves.

The world doesn't revolve around parents and children. She's already got bad selfish neighbours. So what if you or her neighbours are annoyed by being spoken to about selfishly letting the kid cry beside the party wall? The neighbours issues with their child are not op's concern. They should suck up up and take the kid into their bedroom when it cries.

Works both ways.