15 month old screaming all the time! I can't take it any more!

[toolonglurking]

I really hope someone else has had this, everyone I meet in real life seems to have never experienced it before.
My 15 month old DS screams, shrieks really, at the top of his voice all the time. It's absolutely ear piercing, and I'm really really struggling with it.

By 'all the time' I mean he does it a lot, I'm not sure how to quantify exactly how much...

I've tried-
Asking him to stop
Whispering
Singing
Clapping
Playing
Asking what's the matter
More naps
Fewer naps
Food
Water
And I've even shrieked back once (I know, I know, I feel horrible about it still, but I was really losing the will to carry on).

Nothing has helped. I'm at my wits end. It's been going on for about 5 months, so it's really not a phase, and my HV is very unhelpful and just says 'Its fine' before I've finished telling her about it.

I sound like a terrible mum, and I'm worried he's doing it because I am a terrible mum.

Earplugs

That's really fucking helpful. Thanks.

I don't have any advice on how to stop it, but just wanted to say I think it's pretty normal. I remember my ds doing it a lot between 12 and 18 months and my 9 month old dd has just started doing it.

For me, they don't really do it in an angry way. Sometimes it's excitement, sometimes it's for attention but most of the time it's just to hear their own voice. It's a bit of a pre-curser to speaking, like all the babbling they do in between.

I'm sorry if it's not terribly helpful but I really wouldn't worry about it. Maybe get some flash cards and work on animal sounds and first words if your ds is really ready to get vocal.

Just to add, it's definitely not only us. Every baby I've ever known has gone through this stage, maybe why the health visitor was so dismissive.

Thank you Funnyface1, I will order some flash cards and give that a go. He's definitely getting closer to speaking so hopefully that's it. It's nice to hear your kids did/do it too, I don't have many friends with kids so I'm a bit lost on this one.
Apologies for my snarky response earlier, I'm just feeding quite stressed about it and no one has taken me seriously so far, I feel quite isolated.
I really appreciate your reply

I have a really loud 12mo. Loud whether happy, sad, angry, excited, hungry, tired etc etc. When she's not shouting/screeching/yelling, she's singing. She's been like this for about 4 months and it drives me nuts, so you have my complete sympathy. She's so loud a number of people have commented, most days in fact, so I know I'm not imagining it. This is DC2 so I know it's not normal, unless DC1 is the strange one! DH thought I was overstating it too until we went on holiday a few weeks ago: he gets it now
Like you OP I've tried many different strategies unsuccessfully to get her to quieten down a bit. I was going to ask the HV about it but your experience hasn't given me much hope I know the first response wasn't the most helpful, but it's going to be my new (temporary) strategy and if things haven't changed in a couple of months I'll be putting in a request for noise cancelling headphones for my birthday.
So no help, but sympathy. If you come up with a solution, please post it my way. My sanity is being slowly chipped away and it feels awful wishing your baby would just STFU when actually she's just being happy. Then added to that other people's judginess when you're doing the best you can

Not much you can do about volume unfortunately until they are much older and able to regulate it better. Some DC's are just louder than others. I would second earplugs.

Hi OP, we went through one of these stages although my DD was a bit younger, I think 9-10 months? The worst part was every time she screamed the dog howled I thought I was going to lose my mind! It did pass - it was one of those things I didn't notice passing until one day DH went 'remember that really fucking annoying noise she uses to make?' Lol.

One suggestion- I wasn't totally clear from your posts on whether this is a happy scream or a sad scream or a mixture. If it is always a frustrated kind of scream, have you taken him to have his ears checked? Cause we also went through an ear infections phase which was miserable and also presented with screaming/ whinging, sometimes out of nowhere.

Hi, I know this is an old post but did you child grow out of this? Currently have a 15month old doing the exact same thing! I don't mind it but when it's 6am and he wakes up screaming and shouting because he can't do something he wants to do it's becoming alot! Any advice/tips or when this stopped would be helpful

Ha! I’m here too because my 23 months old just woke up screaming!

to be honest, I think there is nothing to be done. If they are not in pain or in danger, then they are fine. as another poster said, it’s a precursor to speaking - they have thoughts and feelings they can’t express in a way to make us understand and so get frustrated. As they pick up language, the frustration will ease.

in the case of this kids waking up screaming, well it’s probably a bad dream. One day, he’ll tell me all about the bad dreams, until then, cuddles will have to do.

also, when your little one is kicking off, just try different things to distract them if you can’t quickly figure out what they want… distract by changing the scenery, - go for a walk, or even just go to the next room - pick something random up that they’ve not seen in a while, and try get them interested.

My neighbour’s kid had an extended screaming phase, but suddenly stopped at age 3, now the child barely speaks above a sweet little whisper!

This is my only hope! He has around 5/10 words that he uses at the moment so I do honestly beleive he screams when his happy, sad or anything in between at this stage.
I tried this today to move him on to the next thing which seemed to help a bit! I hope for us both by the age of 3 were all through this 🙂 thank you for making me feel not alone this morning 🙂

Aww, @Strawberrybuba you made me feel like I wasn’t alone. 💙

Glad the distraction tactic seemed to work a bit today. Amazing that your little one has a few works.. hopefully as his vocabulary grows, the frustration of not being able to communicate reduce. And yes, I’m looking forward to the end of the terrible two (which we both seem to have entered early with our boys!) but let’s try to enjoy these moments (between the screeches of course!)