My neighbours are a nice young couple and have a 15 mnth old son, we speak to them on occasion and have never had any trouble, until about 6 months ago when their son started crying in the night/early hours, it has continued on and off since then, most of the time he goes back to sleep but on occasion he really bawls, his room is adjacent to ours and it wakes us and keeps us awake for hours, usually until we get up, my hubby gets up at 5am, i follow shortly after. the couple sleep in the attic and we know they can hear him because they shout down to him to 'shut up and get in bed'. recently the baby was taken to hospital after having a fit due to his temperature being so high, the night he came home he cried in the night for hours without any one checking on him. Also at the weekend he cries from about 6am until about 10.30 am when some one then gets up. how do i handle this, me (18 wk pregnant) and hubby (works almost every hour god sends) are shattered and are upset by the sounds of a child sobbing. i dont want to go round all guns blazing as i dont know the whole story and wouldnd dare tell some one how to deal with there own child especially when i havent had my first (yet). My colleagues say 'well you will have to get used to it' or 'its good practice'. please help, cheers

Oh dear thats awful, my youngest gets up at four every morning same time my partner goes to work and he crys on and off all morning till i get bored of answering his demands for drinks, rewinds and his pencils sharping. my neibours moaned a few times, i just explained i do my best and swaped bedrooms round but unfortunatly he had the same idea and they still remain next to each other Doh!

But it seems odd there toddler crys so much and no one seems to care, even when ill.

Is this upsetting you to the point were you think theres neglect?

tread careful its a tricky situation ,its not to bad if your not bothered about having trouble with them you can go round all guns blazing so to speak. but if you want to keep the cart on its wheels its a different ball game

what an awkward situation. hopefully its just a phase the child is going through that will stop soon. if you went round there and said something, it could cause serious problems ith your neighbours, which in the long run would be worse to deal with. anyway, i hope it stops soon, good luck!

i do want to keep things ok between us, we are both working at the moment and rarely see them, next year i will be at home with our new baby and will see them all the time.I feel like anything i say would be turned round,' what do i know' sort of thing. i think its a bit presumptious to go down neglect paths, but surely he must need to get up and have his breakfast at the weekend, how does he know is saturday?

Your first port of call has to be to the neighbours themselves. Appreciate how hard it must be raising a child - as, you can stress, you're going to find out shortly for yourself - and ask them if they've been offered any suggestions to deal with such a problem. After all, since the *neighbour's* baby crying all night is stopping you getting any sleep, if *your* baby does the same you're going to have serious problems; and any advice you can get before your baby actually arrives puts you that much ahead of the game.

Don't go in with an attitude of complaint, in short. Even if it's justified, it's much too likely to put people's backs up and make them unwilling to help you; and the fact that, given the right spin, this is you complaining about a baby, is going to win you no friends at all.

If this approach gets you nowhere, the next step would be to go to the council and report a noise nuisance.

Don't mean to sound obvious as it's a tricky situation but... have you considered changing bedrooms.

I wonder if these are the same neighbours which are smoking pot?

How do you know for sure they are leaving the baby to cry unattended, you might not be able to hear them with it, it may just be a difficult child. I cant see that there is a lot they can do to prevent it, after all its their home and they cant stop their child crying!

just letting u know your neighbour will not be ignorin there child my little boy is 2 an half an has been like this for some time now u r meant to ignore them an my little boy falls bak to sleep after a while but at the end of the day u can't complain u got it all to come yaself

terraced houses hide very little unfortunatly, they sleep in the attic and we can here when they get up, the baby goes quiet when he hears us get up, im sure he just want attention but he may need reassurance after a nighmare or if he has a temperature, god forbid becomes too hot and has another fit. i am genuinely concerened and appreciate the implications for when our baby comes along, i dont remember hearing their baby when it was newborn.
we could move rooms but we are in the same boat as they are, 2 bedrooms, 1 being the attic, i want our baby to have the bedroom on the same floor as the bathroom for in the future which means we will be in the attic eventually.

this is awful and it making me feel a little upset, if the baby is there un attended crying for long periods of time its cruel. i no the bed time routine thing, i have it in a sleep book and i've tried it but its normaly five/ten minutes leaving the child then nipping in and the out again for five minutes the also the kiss and leave technic for kids that need comfort. but i'm sorry if this poor child is been left long periods crying, that awful.They could be struggling with the baby they may need help. i don't no i'm all work up now.

I don't think this is a case of neglect at all. If the child is well fed and not abused and there are no other signs of mistreatment there is no way they should be reported to the authorities. The child was taken to hospital when he had a temperature and a fit (which no one could have prevented), perhaps his parents were so exhausted when they got back that they didn't hear him crying.

I have a relative who screamed and screamed when he had been told off or did not get his way and it was purely attention seeking. The only way to deal with it was to leave him alone as he learned that any attention was good and would just scream more so that you would comfort him or give him what he wanted just to stop him crying.

I can fully appreciate that being kept up at night is very frustrating, but you should not report a family and risk them going through all sorts of accusations when they may be perfectly good parents.