Noisy toddler next door

[Sukie272]

I live in a small flat and my next-door neighbours have a toddler who is about 2. This child seems to stay up all night as well as most of the day- he screams, cries, yells, bangs toys on the walls and runs around their flat constantly, until around 3am.
The walls are very thin, so he wakes me up repeatedly. After 6 months of being woken 4-5 times a night (the sound of him running on hardwood floors sounds like someone is hamnering nails into the floor) I complained to landlord. He agreed this level of noise at night is unacceptable and spoke to the family. For a few weeks the noise calmed down and they seemed to make an effort to keep him away from the partition wall at night, but now the noise is unbearable again.
I've tried politely talking to the parents (who are Eastern European and don't speak much English), I've also put leaflets under their door about SureStart and other sources of help. At times I bang on the wall in desperation. I just want some peace and quiet!
Is it normal for a 2-year-old to cry for several hours every day, and to run around screaming for hours at a time, several times a night? I'm worried he may be being abused/neglected... should I contact Social Services? The parents rarely take him out of the flat, so maybe he is just bored?
I'm in first trimester of pregnancy and currently off work sick, so I can't escape the noise even in the daytime. I feel so angry that these people let their child cause such a disturbance! Earplugs make little difference, and I can hear him in every room in my flat, even though my bedroom is not next to the partition wall.
What can I do about this? Does anyone have a similar experience?

Theres no reason why you should be Lulu. Why on earth would you think that? Your baby is just tiny at the moment. Although admittedly, if you decide that he's going to rule the roost then he probably will. Children do take over your life, that can't be denied. But they're in constant training / guidance until adulthood, initiated by you.

Just reading what everyone is saying about their unstoppable toddlers.

DH and I looked after a friend's little boy for a day when I as about 3 months pregnant and he ran us ragged. We had to have a lie down when they took him home. We were rubbish at being firm.

Give either of us a class of 20 naughty teenage boys and we are fine. 1 toddler was unamanageable by both of us.

I expect by then we will have trained ours up a bit.

OP, how does your partner cope? Is he being woken up too?

Could you go round and speak to them op? Now, whilst the noise is occurring, in person, not in writing?

I'm awake, not because of dd, who has been asleep since 7.30,but because dh is snoring fit to wake the dead.

This thread seems to have developed a number of sub-debates and I am afraid I haven't read all of them.

Op, I never said hitting a wall at three am is gentle parenting. I was replying to your (I hope joking) comment that you rather wished they would try leaving LO behind stairgate even if crying until 'learns night is for sleeping.' That CIO/controlled crying is a technique that several have said they think may already be being deployed (since it is famously noisy), and is furthermore one that not every parent wishes to do. As I very clearly said in my post.

I am very troubled by a lot of things about this discussion. I asked you OP if you realised how patronising/condescending you sound towards your neighbours - you have said you don't think they know the value of discipline or sleep routines, and you consistently speak as though they lack your expertise. Do you really truly honestly think you know more than they do? I Am not asking provocatively. You dont even need to reply to me - I just want to try to encourage you to register (even privately to yourself ) that it is a v condescending stance.

i do think it sounds wise to move. And truly if you can move to somewhere detached it would probably suit you better. Even quiet and well behaved kids will be audible especially in the daytime and you have said repeatedly you struggle with that too. It's not just 3 am.

Lastly I would just chime in - before necessarily seeing controlled crying as the default 'sleep training' method its also worth considering the work of people like Elizabeth Pantley, Sarah ockwell-smith, laura markham, who all describe alternatives. It is impossible to generalise, so the fact that my 2.5 year old LO sleeps well usually and is v responsive when I explain she shouldn't hit walls because it wakes people , is likely due to luck as much as to sympathetic parenting. Obviously I am grateful and I think gentle parenting is a great thing for us - it works v well with my Dd. But children are all different and some will be loud - and as several people have mentioned, the parents will be far more knowledgeable of what's going on in there.

Baroness... my partner lives in a different city (a long drive away) so he only experiences the noise on rare weekends he stays at my place (he lives in a very quiet apartment so I usually go to stay with him, but am struggling with any kind of travel at present due to HG). His job also takes him abroad a lot so he's used to going without sleep, used to napping on noisy planes, and is content to stay up until 3am anyway. He is more frustrated that he can't hear TV over the noise, but I won't let him turn it up at night in case it bothers my neighbours on other side!

He thinks the parents are inexperienced and lack social awareness, but also believes they probably try to stop it, they just don't know what to do, or that they have given up trying and are waiting for him to grow out of it.

Occasionally, when it gets too much or keeps waking him, he bangs loudly on the partition wall and shouts at them to 'keep it down'. For some reason this seems to work, although it has no effect at all when I try the same! Perhaps an authoritative male voice scares the toddler away from the wall for a while, or maybe the parents are worried he might come and knock on their door (although he's generally laid-back, he lifts weights so looks quite intimidating). Whatever the reason, things seem to calm down for a bit.

He thinks the only option is for us to move, preferably into a detached house, somewhere we can both commute from. The more posts I read here, the more this seems like the safest option

'if you decide that he's going to rule the roost then he probably will. Children do take over your life, that can't be denied. But they're in constant training / guidance until adulthood, initiated by you.'

DancingDinosaur, great post! It sums it up beautifully.
All parents have a responsibility to guide and teach their children, and work at overcoming difficulties, especially when these difficulties are having a negative impact on the child and people around them.

LuluJakey, I wouldn't worry too much or assume you will have the same problems when your child reaches toddler age. While this thread had attracted a lot of people who claim utter helplessness in the face of toddler sleep problems, there are many mums on here who report having overcome these problems successfully. While some claim this is purely luck, the difference in outcomes also seems to be affected by attitude, persistence and seeking appropriate help.

The op isn't argumentative though, she really isn't . And comments like the pp, do you really think think you know more than they do is laughable. Just because someone doesn't have children doesn't mean they can't have an opinion, or valid useful ideas. I worked in a complex needs team for children for a long time before having children of my own. And hell yeah, I really did know more than a lot of the parents whose children were under the care of our team, despite having no children of my own. Being a parent does not automatically make someone an expert in parenting.

omfg op!

"he bangs loudly on the partition wall and shouts at them to 'keep it down'"

The crap neighbour here is you without a doubt, if any of this is real which is seeming more and more unlikely the more you go on and on and on with your exhausting posts.

You need to move and leave those poor people alone.

If you are real I would hope that a bit of life experience will teach you something about negotiation. Your beef here should be with a landlord who hasn't carpeted or made any effort to soundproof. You come across as miserable and utterly boring, only you bear the responsibility to change that. Being ill when pregnant is unpleasant, you have lost all perspective (if you ever had any) and seem happier to wallow in misplaced wrath than to pack a bag, go stay with a friend or in a hotel for a night or two whilst you get a grip and decide if you need to move.

You are the one with the problem, either put up and shut up or move to somewhere you can manage but stop being so bloody poisonous to people you know nothing about in a situation you have no experience of and no nothing about. You are not the boss of them!!

oooh no/know typo! I will blame my stunned disbelief that this thread is still going

from a property law perspective, you would have two basic options. first, you could consider telling the neighbours that they are committing a nuisance, in that they are preventing you from enjoying your property. secondly, you could tell your landlord that he is breaching your rights to quiet enjoyment of your property by failing to take action (more so if he is the landlord of both flats).

now of course in practice those are quite threatening and would be difficult to pursue, but i just thought i'd mention it, as it might be something you wanted to drop lightly into conversation with the landlord, as you never know - might put pressure on him to do something.

you could also tell environmental health. depending on your council, they may come out at night to measure the noise levels etc.

how annoying for you, and how sad for the poor little boy whose parents let him do that :(

i have just seen that there is a lot going on in this thread that i haven't read through yet - clearly people have strong opinions either way!

This is clearly a debate where there are strong differences in opinion. Useful to hear both sides of the argument, but incredibly disappointing that people are resorting to some really , truly unpleasant behaviour and very personal digs, albeit using very articulate language. Healthy debate is good but I'm shocked by how much time some posters are spending on writing remarks which really aren't relevant, they're just plain nasty. Please think about what you're saying. Is this really the kind of behaviour that a parent (existing or to-be) should demonstrate to their children? It's certainly not why I come on Mumsnet. I think it's time to close this down & for some of you to agree to disagree!

Joyful that was such a passively agressive nasty post

Has OP pissed on your chips or something because a lot of you seem awfully bothered by it.

'Being a parent does not automatically make someone an expert in parenting'
DancingDinosaur, I agree with this statement wholeheartedly.

People do not need to become parents in order to understand child psychology, infant brain development or any of the numerous cognitive and behavioural theories out there. I fully appreciate many parents research these and apply them to parenting. And many people without children have a lot of experience with other people's children, either through their career, family or social circle. It is rather smug, patronising and condescending when parents try to invalidate the opinions of others simply because 'you don't have your own children yet'. Particularly on a pregnancy forum where many users are mums-to-be.

I'm not saying knowledge is a substitute for experience.
I'm not saying a formal education in psychology or neuroscience guarantees someone will be a good parent, but it certainly seems to help a lot of people. Even basic understanding of conditioning and reward-punishment circuits are tools that help many parents understand their child's behaviour better.
And it's never too early for mums-to-be to start researching this.

LuxuryTrifle... Interesting points.
But I still disagree that toddler behaviour cannot be modified. For example, there are times when it is essential to stop your toddler doing something, because he is at risk of harming himself or others around him (or he is doing something so antisocial that gentle-parenting is not an option as you have to intervene immediately).
For example... what would you do if your toddler started biting another child, or snatched food from a stranger, or ran into the road, or kept pulling another passenger's hair on the bus? You would almost certainly physically stop him. Maybe he would scream and tantrum because he is too young to understand why he mustn't do it. But until he can understand and retain such information, it's the parent's responsibility to prevent him causing harm to himself or others.
In my opinion, causing harm to others includes inflicting sleep deprivation on your neighbours every night.
I see no reason why my neighbours cannot apply the same techniques they would use for other unacceptable antisocial behaviours (eg physically denying him access to the partition wall at night until he is old enough to understand why).

yawn

Scarednoob, thanks for the advice.
Yes, the landlord owns all the flats in the building, and 3 families have moved out in the last month. I have told him about the problem and he's spoken to the neighbours in past about unacceptable noise (things improved but not for long). I complained again a few days ago and he agreed they are breaking the terms of their contract (which includes a clause about not causing a disturbance to neighbours)... but I also told him I plan to move out as soon as find a new place, so I suspect he won't take action for now. Or at least until new people move in and complain! I guess his only option would be to evict them for breaking the terms of the contract, which could be a drawn-out process.

or he might evict you for tormenting them!

I suspect certain posters on here are attempting to flamebait.
Since their posts contain no useful/relevant information and seek only to disrupt the thread, goad, prevoke, gain attention and distract from topics, I suspect they fall into a certain category, and are using this forum as an outlet for the aggression they cannot express in real-life. Or perhaps it is just one person with a number of malicious sockpuppets!

greys - have you actually read op posts? They are stuffed full of passive agressive attacks to anyone that thinks her attitude if off.

Op is entitled to her opinion, yes. It's a shit situation - yes. But her delivery of her opinion (rough guess on child rearing stinks)

She has given her little PA to posters that disagree with and accused them of bring inadequate mothers - this coming from one that isn't even one!

The op accused people of the very same thing she has done through out - goady, provoking, agressive . Just look at her last post.

This is not op first post.

I agree, Allin. OP, it is a shit situation to be in, but accusing anyone who doesn't agree with you of being an inadequate parent is hardly polite form.

Yes greysAnology it was, just behaving the same as Miss know it all.

Morning folks. Crivens! This is all looking rather bunfighty isn't it? Could we have a bit of peace and love here? You know how much we hate having to zap threads. Thanking you.