What is actually reasonable?

[TribbleToilandTrouble]

So long and short of it is that I live in a terrace house and I have two small children. They are noisy, and up early. There are also SEN issues with at least one.

So about ten minutes ago, they were having a particulary noisy moment downstairs and one of the neighbours thumped on the bedroom wall so hard the wall vibrated.

The neighbours have complained before, I'm not insensible of the noise my household can generate, we have taken steps to reduce noise (we now take the kids downstairs as soon as they wake up, they have sanctions for being too noisy upstairs etc).

But I'm not at a point of how much noise is actually reasonable? It's 7am on a Sunday morning, am I suppose to stop the kids playing downstairs now?

This is really upsetting, I'd just about calmed down from the last complaint.

[RomansRevenge]

Considering Sunday is my only lie in, I would be furious if was woken up at 7am by my neighbours kids

[Fluffywhitecloud]

This is way too early. Control your kids, I feel so bad for your neighbours.

[Allthetuppences]

I am thick skinned. If they're not bothered enough to discuss things I'd remain in a state of ignoring thumping on the wall. After all, maybe they were doing DIY at an unreasonable hour.
Other than that do you have wooden floors? Underlay? I know it's a terrace but I had all my bookcases against the party wall in my last place as insulation.

[Allthetuppences]

7am is hardly early for children. If it's so early why are you up now?

[RomansRevenge]

No it’s not early for children. That doesn’t trump everyone else’s sleep.

[jarhead123]

It's difficult. I had a friend who used to moan her neighbours complained about the noise her kids made and I
Felt bad for her.

Then we stayed once and oh my word the noise! No wonder the neighbours were pissed off.

If the walls are thin and the neighbors can hear I would try and keep the noise down til 9am, that seems fair

[Fluffywhitecloud]

7am is ridiculous to listen to noisy children and a child's schedule doesn't come before my need for peace and quiet, it would drive me insane. Then again we stay in a detached house and luckily don't have to deal with it. So many sympathies to OPs neighbour.

[hopingandprayingthistime]

I totally agree that noisy kids at 7am on a Sunday would piss me off too. However, I am sure there are laws to the effect that if it’s just people going about their everyday activities (as opposed to playing really loud music or running industrial machinery) there’s nothing that can be done about it. At the end of the day, if you live in a terraced house you have to expect some noise disturbance! If you’re that bothered... go and live in the middle of nowhere on your own. I have a small baby living next door and I get woken during the night by it’s crying, but I wouldn’t dream of complaining. They’re just living their life!

[Sirzy]

I think you need to try and engage the children in quiet activities as much as possible when they are up early

[namechange2222]

YANBU as long as you continue to keep in mind that people are still sleeping. My 4 yo GS gets up at that time. My rule is no playing in the garden until around 9 and quiet play with lego etc only.
If you allow the children to bang about, play with noisy toys etc YWBU

[LavenderDoll]

I sympathise but YABU
7sm is too early for your neighbour to be disturbed by your noise

[TribbleToilandTrouble]

Control my kids?! They're hardly feral wilderbeasts, and I do thank you very much. We live in a very small house, the walls are ridiculously thin (I can hear my neighbour going to the loo).

We have quietened them down and we do keep the noise down in the mornings, however surely there is a point if we're doing all we can where they have to concede that we are making an effort and some of it is just the fact that we live in terraced housing with thin walls.

[MotherCupboard]

My neighbour is a prick about noise. When we moved in they made it very clear that they expect noise to be kept down at weekends as they value their lie ins. I've had a few shitty texts off them over the 4 years we have been here. It makes me anxious of doing anything even slightly noisy. Kids make noise. If you're doing your best then that's all they can reasonably expect. If you live in a terraced house, you'll have to deal with other people's noise. Tough shit. That's what i tell myself anyway.

[ProseccoMamam]

At 7am I wouldn't be happy having to listen to next doors kids running riot. YABU op sort your kids out

[CocaColaTruck]

You don't seem to have much sympathy for your neighbours being woken by your children. I'd be furious if it was 7am every morning.

[NameChangedAndForgotOldName]

Id love someone to come and control my Sen children. Please.

One of them is loud because as well as being autistic he's also partially deaf

[Greenshoots1]

we are up at 5am every weekday to get to work, if my Sunday lie in was curtailed by chidren's noise at 7.30 I would be very angry, and taking a complaint to the council.

How old are your children though? below 2, children cry, that's human life and nobody can do anything about it. Above about 3 and a half, it is entirely your responsibility to control your child, but there is a grey area in between where the amount of control you have depends on the maturity and understanding of the child.

[IdaDown]

It’s hard to make suggestions if we don’t know the type and severity of the SEND.

[GorgonzolaForever]

Agree with Ida. Are they in mainstream education?

It also totally depends on what they are doing and how often they have these particularly noisy outbursts prior to say 9am on a Sunday.

[GorgonzolaForever]

What exactly were they doing during this noisy moment?

[TribbleToilandTrouble]

Coca-Cola that is because he is an aggressive sort who allows his temper to over ride sense. We have been very open and apologetic about noise before, we are approachable and we will and have made efforts to reduce the noise in the past. It is counter productive to antagonise a neighbour who is perfectly open to a conversation or even a text message.

My oldest has adhd and autism, the youngest suspected autism. I'm not using this as an excuse, but just to say that we do have additional issues with our children. We try, we actually try and keep them quiet. I'm so fed up of being on them constantly. Surely there is a point where we've done all we can.

[ImSoExhausted]

@Greenshoots1 well what do you propose? My DS woke up shrieking at 4am this morning, like most mornings. I moved as quickly as I could out of bed, and brought him downstairs. He doesn't understand spoken language and can't talk. He doesn't understand 'shush, let's play quietly', do you want me to bloody gag him? I tried the tablet and all manners of distraction, but this morning he wanted to do intermittent screeches and walk around flapping his hands. Any attempt to stop that was met with severe meltdowns resulting in violence and screaming.
Luckily, my neighbours are bloody amazing and we make sure we do nice Christmas cards and apologise if we've had a particularly bad night.
Your attitude makes me angry. It's not an excuse, it's just bloody life.

OP, apologise to your neighbours, buy them some really good earplugs and maybe get a big rug to help block footstep noises?

[Greenshoots1]

imsoexhausted.

I have fostered many autisic children. The vast majority can be taught to be quiet in the mornings, but not every single one, some can't, and it sounds like yours is one of them. However, SEN, or ASD in itself, is not a blanket excuse to disturb the neighbours, although it is often used as one

We had a very noisy child in our block, who disturbed the whole block regularly, and the family claimed he was uncontrollable, until they were threatened with eviction, then they suddenly found they could control him after all! I know the family well, and in their case they simply couldn't be bothered to put hte effort in to disciplining the child, until they had to.

They are the opposite end of the spectrum from you, but in between there are an awful lot of parents who could do more, but can't be bothered.

[TribbleToilandTrouble]

I think they were playing with a car, I was upstairs and dh was downstairs with them.

We're going to try and utilise some other techniques with them in the morning and see if that helps.

im oldest has no concept of volume apart from loud and unconscious, he gets so upset when we ask him to use inside voice. He doesn't bloody understand or get the concept. My youngest meltdown something chronic, and will headbang and bite himself wailing like hes being murdered. There are points where I'd like to do the same and so would my husband.