Neighbours leave 3 yr old DS to cry in the night, any advice?

[Ithaca]

Teraced houses, we hear neighbours' 3 year old DS crying - and by crying I mean screaming out mummy/daddy/mummy i just want you to talk to me/i just want my milk, running around the room bashing into things. This happens pretty much every night and he has been left crying in the night for well over a year, happens about 2/3a.m. and wakes us up, several times a week at bedtime too. Very occasionally we hear neighbours go in and tell him to be quiet but that makes no difference.

We have a 9 month old who wakes up a few times in the night, not crying unless she has a blocked a nose, but DP usually sleeps in the spare room anyway - room next to neighbours' DS - in order to get sleep as he goes to work /gets up early with our baby, but gets woken up by next door, as do I when I've slept in there because ill.

From passing conversations, neighbours know we can hear it, their attitude has been "oh that's just DS" or say how DS has been difficult this past few months. They have another baby a couple of months old now too.

The thing is, not only is the extra lack of sleep making us increasingly annoyed, having our own baby has made us even more upset to hear this poor little boy crying like this so much and just being left. He cries several times during the day too, what I guess you would call terrible twos type stuff though I don't know about that.

I have offered to have him round here to play any time, since they had second child, to give them a break, so far not taken up on that. DP and I have talked it over a lot and can't think of anything we could say that would make them change their tactics, even though has been going on so long it obviously not worked. So is the best we can do just say "the noise is disturbing us please can you try to keep it down"? Any advice on this would be great.

We once rented a detached bungalow in a relatively isolated area, cloud.

It was full of damp, single-glazed and had LPG, was freezing and cost a bomb for miniscule amounts of heat.

The drains were awful.

But it was as close to bliss as I'll probably ever get in this life.

Silence, excepting the noise of animals.

All night.

Every night.

Good parenting doesn't = child that doesn't cry.

Most toddlers go through a stage of exerting their independence and pushing the boundaries. For some children (lots, actually) bedtime is the time they choose to push those buttons.

I'm not saying your neighbours are dealing it with it in the right way - I don't know them and wouldn't dare to judge them - but get off your high horse, please. You obviously don't have much experience with toddlers.

Befriend the mum and ask why he cries so much and so long... Tell her you are in awe of how hard it must be with toddlers and want to know in advance of you getting there. She might provide answers to end speculation and reassure you as to the child's well being (if she says one of then is always in attendance).

I think it's likely that they co slept before the new baby then tried to reverse it too quickly so the tricky toddler is struggling to adjust to baby and new requirement to sleep alone!

Offer to have the baby for an hour. The toddler prob needs some parent time.

my three year old often screams for a drink at night - he has one on his bedside table he just doesnt want to be in bed and uses any excuse he can to get out (i.e coming down for a drink). 20 mins would be a long time for my little boy to cry because he gives up so easily but I have seen toddlers tantrum for MUCH longer than this and the absolute worst thing you can do is give them attention for it (20 mins would turn into an hour the next night).

While I still think that the scenario that the op described sounds cruel, I think the op should understand that parenting a toddler is a very humbling experience - nothing like looking after a baby. I might be a touchy-feely cosleeping attachment parenting type but I have just survived two years of a terrible toddler who did cry and tantrum many times a day, who had to be dragged out of everywhere under my arm because he was totally non-compliant (not how I thought I would parent) and who we did occasionally leave to scream at night when he wanted to play at 4 in the morning (not, however, if he just wanted to cuddle). He is soooo much better now, but I still think he probably cries at least once a day (yesterday a big meltdown because a bandaid fell off).

'Funny how so many people think misbehaving toddlers who cry every day several times a day and at night is the norm. '
So you think that toddlers who cry and have tantrums are misbehaving?

Yes, cornsilk, I wondered that too. OP certainly has very high expectations of her little one if that's the case.

dorothea sounds like we are sharing same problem. Dd1 was a dream sleeper but has turned into a sleep demon in the past month. She is 2.4.

The only thing that works to get her back to sleep is being 'told off' about waking up her sister/threatened with going back into her cot.

Then leaving her to it.

The other night letting her into our bed resulted in her being awake 2-5am running around, fidgeting, kicking us and no one got any sleep. She also woke dd2.

Leaving her to cry means she'll be back to sleep in 20 mins.

This seems to have worked- last two nights she has slept 13 then 12 hours with only a brief wake up around 11pm.

I can see the OPs point but you can't see through their wall and you don't really know what the situation is, toddlers will invent anything and everything to get out of bed.

Also you can be sure that your neighbours are not sleeping through the noise!

They should maybe be a bit more aware of the impact on you though. We need cc with dd1 and pre warned both neighbours and gave them wine..

'Funny how so many people think misbehaving toddlers who cry every day several times a day and at night is the norm'

My toddler has been misbehaving a lot today. She cried when she was woken up earlier than usual, she cried when she had to wear her spare hat and not her favourite one and she cried because on demand has crashed again and she can't watch Scooby Doo. And she's only been up two hours

What punishment would you recommed for this unwanted behavior op?

You see I am in the camp that thinks she s crying because she doesn't understand that Daddy has to go to work early today, so she can't have cuddles in bed while I take dd1 o school, she doesn't understand that she cannot wear her favourite hat because it is in the washing machine and she doesn't understand that the Tv is not working and it's not just that I won't put Scooby Doo on.

Oh she also cried last night because she fell out of bed and was inconsolable for about 15 mins. I was sat with her strokingher hair and shushing her, but I doubt that the neighbours would have known that. She is not crying to 'misbehave'.

I am fairly certain that all of the above is completely normal behavior for a toddler.

lol Shiny -- better start saving up for that shrink

The OP said herself it doesn't make any difference when the parents go in! So I would suspect this is why they don't go in. It may even be worse when they DO go in, sometimes it can just make the child redouble their efforts to not want the parent to leave.

Agree that kids this age often cry many times a day.

I think it all sounds incredibly normal.

However, I can also see where the OP is coming from. I was very lucky in that ds was a very contented baby and his only crying would be a minute or so when he knew milk was coming and just couldn't wait.....and luckily for me as well, he talked early so we simply avoided those daily breakdowns into tears from frustration because he could almost always talk to me about what he wanted.

However, he did have humongous tantrums at about 3 and 4, but we won't go there.....

If your child doesn't cry alot it is easy to read too much into this. But for many kids, crying is a many times daily occurrence and I don't think there is any evidence that this is a real problem for them. Just normal.

Sounds like the neighbours child has worms, which cause night time waking or is not eating enough protein and hungry through the night as anything thing else would have worn off by now wouldn't it? Like behaviour issues?

Once my dcs sleep through that's it.

Ah now read thread and have seen that many people have dcs who wake at night, just not mine[smug].

Oh dear posie -- worms?! I am confident that's not an issue for us just at the moment, thank goodness ...

DP was away overnight for work last night, and I am pg, ill and knackered so felt a bit apprehensive about it; but DS only had a couple of tiny wails (less than a minute) before drifting off again

Girlsyearapart, so is your elder DD in a bed now? We have a bed ready for DS, but haven't moved him into it yet -- would like to do it soon though, so that he won't still feel that the cot is "his" when the time comes for DD to use it. I just haven't wanted to further shake things up while we've had this night waking issue going on.

OP - you are unbelieveable. I would be ECSTATIC if my DD (3) only cried several times a day. That would be a really good day for us. Although according to you I should be booking the psychiatric evaluation now!

This morning DD dropped a hair band and asked me to pick it up for her. I (very nicely) asked her to pick it up as I was busy, and she had dropped it. Cue 30 mins of crying and shouting 'why won't you let me have my hairband, I won't ever ever have a hairband, waaahhhhhhhhhhh' etc etc. This mutated into screaming and wailing, which I'm sure my neighbours were fully able to hear. Maybe they thought it was terrible that my DD was crying like this, but really it is none of their business.

And sometimes parents have to do things that perhaps some nosey parkers people may find cruel, because trial and error has shown that is the only way that works.

We went through a period of DD taking hours to go to sleep. In the end the only way we can get her to go to sleep is to switch the light off, and close the door the MINUTE she is tucked up in bed, and then not engage with her. So even if she is shouting 'mummy I want you', 'mummy I need the toilet', 'mummy I'm hungry', we KNOW this is a rouse. I'm sure it sounds terrible to next door though. However, the result is she goes to sleep within 10 mins rather than wandering round the landing for hours keeping DS awake.

OP - would be nice to get an update from you once your DC reaches the toddler years, and once you have more than one DC to look after, to see if you are able to see it from another perspective. How about a bit of empathy!

So I am naive, probably true, base my ideas on the toddlers I know and their parents, who from what posters are saying have just been very lucky, has nothing to do with parenting style (those parents follow Continuum Concept ideas / AP / Sears / Pantley gentle approaches, some of which cite anthropological research showing nonWestern cultures where children grow up without tantrums).

No I don't think crying is misbehaving, I meant one and/or the other.

I knew the shrink comment was crappy, it was late, I was tired and felt defensive in the face of many posters saying lump it, your fault for living in a terraced house, you're judgy, FGS etc. I only posted to see if there was anything we could do that we hadn't thought of, now I know there isn't.

Not responding to someone crying repeatedly for months I think does contribute to how someone develops and I'm not alone in thinking that.

If I were to come back in a couple of years when my only child is a toddler, god forbid she be anything other than crying and having tantrums and not sleeping as I'll only be called smug

I doubt OP is coming back to the thread, but I would like to point out to her gently that knowing people who have toddlers is not the same as living with those toddlers, and witnessing their behaviour over 24 hours. I think she has good intentions but just really doesn't get what life can be like with little kids yet.

Probably I would have been equally horrified at the suggestion that it's normal for toddlers to cry several times a day, pre DS.

snap, it was late and I've been feeling a bit bad for saying you were "being thick".

Fingers x'd that the crying stops, anyway, for all concerned...

OP, many Mn'ers parent in an AP way. Mn has had many fab AP threads over the years.
But I think you may find that crying and even tantrums happen to the most gentile AP parents.
thus, I think you are also a bit naieve re AP. Maybe head off and read some of the old threads.

lol Oblomov, sorry for being a pedant but I suspect you mean "gentle"

Pre ds2 I'd have worried. Post ds2 I'd have bought ear plugs. ds2 can scream and whine and attention seek for BRITAIN

My friend's 2.10 year old SCREAMED in a cafe today because I put a plate down near him. And he did not STOP screaming for 20 minutes.

Tired children scream MORE about LESS.

oh I thought gentile was a derivative of gentle. it is listed under gentle. am i using the word incorrectly then ?
(wouldn't be first time I am pulled up on my appalling use of words)

I would hate it too. Not so much for the disturbance but because it is distressing. But we were namby pamby co-sleepers so what do I know>