Neighbour rang the police on us!

Impossible to know whether your neighbour is a PITA, or whether your behaviour is the problem. I have never shouted in my life, but I'm not a shouting person. I can't bear shouting. Ex husband and I managed to fuck up our marriage without ever shouting at one another, ever.

I do think, though, that you need to re-organise how you do things generally. Sleep deprivation is awful. You have two other children who need you. You say you feel guilty about those two children being "dragged into the misery of a life" - but you chose to have a third child, and you need to do your damndest to make sure their lives aren't so miserable. Not shouting at one another so loudly that the police appear is a start. But you also need to re-think your days. You say your husband has high blood pressure as a result of the baby constantly crying. No wonder the baby is constantly crying as nobody is paying him any proper attention. You can't both be working and looking after the baby. Your online business would in any case probably be better off with one person focussing solely on that, and the other looking after the baby as two people half-working and half-baby-minding basically means you will get less work done between you and the baby is neglected too. Could you take it in turns to work/look after the baby, if you don't want to be the one who does it?

You and your husband also need a break from one another.

My baby has recently been going through a phase of waking every hour and I understand how exhausting it is.

The couple next door to us used to scream at each other but I wouldn’t call the police so do agree she shouldn’t have wasted their time. I wouldn’t bother speaking to the neighbour either but I would make sure to keep voices down when having a disagreement. Your DS is just being a baby and learning to sleep. He will sleep better if you can stay calm and patient for him.

You are teaching your DC about relationships by modelling behaviour and if you scream at each other then they will learn that it’s ok to scream at people.

if it’s this bad for you then I would try sleeping in separate rooms and taking it in turns to look after DS. I couldn’t do this because I am breastfeeding but I do the nights and let DP sleep. If I was not coping I would switch to formula and ask him to do the nights at the weekend so I can catch up on sleep.

Either Op and DH must have been really, really loud or neighbour was exaggerating as it's very unusual for Police to go to a domestic with blue lights and shouting 'Police' .

I've heard people who grew up in households where there were never any arguments, saying that this led them, as adults, to be unable to handle confrontation or to express their feelings. Bottom line: parents can't win. We're all going to fuck our kids up somehow. The sooner people realise this and also understand that, for the most part, we're all doing our best, the better off we will all be.

There's a huge difference between disagreeing with someone in front of the kids and terrifying them with a loud, nighttime argument.

It's exhausting, we get that but shouting to the extent the neighbour can hear is not acceptable with three children in the house.

I'm another one whose parents still 100% believe that I slept through their nighttime arguments. Of course I didn't and I would bed yours didn't too. They pretended to be asleep as they didn't want to upset you further. It's an awful feeling.

I've heard people who grew up in households where there were never any arguments, saying that this led them, as adults, to be unable to handle confrontation or to express their feelings. Bottom line: parents can't win. We're all going to fuck our kids up somehow. The sooner people realise this and also understand that, for the most part, we're all doing our best, the better off we will all be.

I think you need to accept that shouting at each other, especially when 3 children are in the house is not ok. You need to find other ways to deal with your stress, go for a walk, take a bath, go to a mates how to offload or whatever.

The only thing I would be saying to your neighbour is sorry, ideally with a bunch of flowers.

The fact you seem to think your behaviour is normal and acceptable is concerning to be honest. I doubt your 2 kids in bed slept though it, although they may have been pretending to be asleep.

I would go round and apologise for being so loud and causing her alarm. Busy body neighbours tend to care about the community they live in and have certain standards. Why should she have to listen to you two screeching about having no sleep? Great the Police came out. Sometimes they must walk in on dreadful scenarios so no harm done.

@123bumblebee Same here, with adults that had shouting matches when were in bed. My sister used to lay crying it’s a really strong memory for me, I went the other way and clammed up emotionally. As adults she was always sort of too nice and very conflict avoidant so got walked over. I was very cool about things and it put me off relationships, I was just lucky I met DH. The man is a very gentle soul.

We got snappy when sleep deprived with small children but screaming and shouting for ten minutes, it’s actually a very long time.

Weird responses. Nutter calling the police on everyone and that's your fault?

I think there are two things at play here:

1. Yes, she could be incredibly nosey and intrusive and a right pain in the arse.
2. Many women ARE physically abused and its not wrong for people to be concerned and calling the police may have saved many women's lives.

Both of these statements can be true at the same time so I think you need to separate her intentions with her actions. Her intentions may well be interfering but that doesnt make what she actually did wrong. If she had called the police due to you having a BBQ then that would be different. Going round there and having a go will achieve nothing but cause her to be more antagonistic. I agree with the poster who said have a sleep and then see how you feel in the morning but I doubt "having a word" will achieve anything but cause you more stress and she may well call the police again and say you are harassing her.

We all argue at times and none of us are perfect so I'd just chalk this up to tiredness and drop it. I hope you get some rest soon x

I live in a house where you can hear neighbors, snoring, laughing, talking slightly more loudly when friends are around, coughing and sneezing. I know exactly the sort of house OP is in. You can hear everything.

Which means you actually can hear the difference between a normal argument and domestic abuse where someone is at risk.

If the police blue lighted it around then the neighbour must have really bigged up what she heard.

OPs account of her neighbour’s motivation is believable.

When you say argue you mean ten minutes of screaming at each other?

No. I can honestly say never. Everyone is different.

Sleep deprivation is just awful. It's a killer (it's the murderer maker 😁). My eldest woke literally every 2 hours for the first 15 months of his life. it was so awful just talking about it makes me want to go lie down.

You need to work something out between you so that you can each get some sleep. Can you each give the other some uninterrupted sleeping time on a regular basis? It's hard to keep calm when you're knackered.

Instead of shouting over having no sleep, work out a schedule that allows you both to sleep. Alternate nights for example. Each take a weekend morning lie in. Those sorts of things.

Yes. How helpful to OP. I expect she’s really grateful. I bet she’d never thought of taking maternity leave. Or paying for childcare. Well done you.

As someone who lives next to a couple who often have explosive rows that sound really upsetting - 10 minutes is a long time to be shouting at each other.

She might be a ‘busy body’ but it’s not pleasant to hear people lose control and you never know if it’s going to flip over into physical violence. When it suddenly goes quiet - it can actually be more worrying.

Did the police actually tell you it was her that complained or are you putting two and two together?

I feel for you OP - no sleep is no fun. I hope you get some soon.

I grew up with parents who argued when we were in bed, I honestly think they think we slept through too. As an adult I can see they were going through an incredibly stressful time. But as a child I was terrified and ,of course, woke up and was scared in bed. I was upset as I thought my parents were divorcing and I had to listen to lots of stuff a young child shouldn’t worry about. I was an anxious, perfectionist child, never wanted to upset my parents. Still anxious today.

We are designed for our fight or flight to kick in when our safety is threatened, your children probably didn’t sleep through they were just scared in their beds awake. Please reflect on this, I would never be brave enough to tell my own parents this but I am being brave for your kids to tell you.

I'm impressed the police responded so quickly. They could have been saving a woman's life so with all the criticism of them let's acknowledge how positive that is.

I also grew up with parents who shouted and screamed . The noise the neighbours must have heard at times, I’d have welcomed someone ringing the police , may have made them think who knows. We were detached though unfortunately so not as affecting for them I suppose.

You can argue but there's absolutely no need to shout.

Why are you shouting and yelling? It's no way to communicate.

I have tried to point out times on MN.

This is AIBU any views expressed on here are not necessarily those of the person posting them.

It’s pointless posting on here and expecting honest answers.

With respect, your normal isn’t everyone’s normal. It’s a wide world out there.

@Lonelymum27 you’d be surprised how much children hear 😢. No one says parents don’t argue but we, as adults, do need to learn how to conduct ourselves in a way that doesn’t cause harm to our children. It’s incredibly hard but there is a lot of advice on line to help. I hope you can find a way through 🥰.