Teaching my son to play / occupy himself.

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Help !

My son has ZERO play skills and does not know how to engage himself. I am at the end of my rope as it is impossible to keep someone engaged 24/7. I don't mind him stimming visually, but he has these loud vocal stims to go with his visual stims, and my neighbours are starting to complain. They are still polite, but these people never said anything before, but are now starting to approach me to talk about it.

We live in a condo now, and don't have a backyard, anymore. I do have a trampoline he can jump on, and I have his favourite song playlist on YouTube always set up so he can go there anytime. But how long will he jump and how long should I expect him to watch his music videos ?

I also realized that he only stims when he's not engaged ! ! So this might be a sign of acute boredom ? I always feel guilty and play / dance with him, but I do need a break from time-to-time.

Please help ! How can I teach him to play ? I don't care if the toys are age appropriate or not, or if he plays with them the way they are supposed to be played with or not, as long as he can play by himself and as long as we have some respite from those very very LOUD vocal stims, without us having to actively be working with him.

Please note : I do not intend or want him to stop stimming COMPLETELY. Not going to happen and it would be cruel to try to "extinguish" them. But I would like them to subside a bit during late evenings / early nights when neighbours are putting their little ones to bed or going to bed themselves. A child going va-va-va-va-va-va-va-va-va-va-va-va ad infinitum at 1:00 am is cause to drive anyone crazy.

Thanks.

It should be noted I don't have children.

Some conventional and unconventional solutions to think about.

Take him to a toy specific store and let him pick out what interests him. This may take a while and several trips.

Record his vocalizations then put them on a kid friendly MP3 player and give him earphones. Preferably over the ear kind. You may have to show him several times. If you can find a cassette deck that might work better as he may get fixated on rewinding and playing it.

Weighted blanket at night.

A sound machine, it might be that there is a sound or lack there of at night that is causing him to vocally stim.

A sound machine depending on the type either plays continuous nature sounds like rain, sea shore, birds, babbling creek, etc or it makes a sound like an air conditioner blowing (white noise).

They range in price use a Google search to view the different types and price ranges. You could try a cd as well of nature sounds and put it on repeat to see if it will help before shelling out the money for a sound machine.

How old is he? Does he have any specific interests? (trains, trucks, spacecraft,...)

Is he visually focused (likes bright colors, arranges stuff) or auditory focused (likes music, certain sounds)?

Might just be a task of finding what toys he really likes. Some of us can have odd interests like vaccuum cleaners, etc.