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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Childless houseguests-AIBU to keep my child quiet and out of the way?

463 replies

StressedHost · 10/07/2025 09:11

If you have houseguests without children, that like to have sleep-ins and a quiet house, long meals etc., do you minimize all disruption caused by you child (ren) and adapt your schedule to those of the guests? Or do you go on with your life as usual?
I don't know what is the right thing to do and had a fight with DH over it. Essentially, I think it is basic kindness towards the guests to not disturb their sleep and quiet, and I'm aware that children of other people can be quite annoying, especially if you are childless and not used to the noise levels etc. DH thinks we owe them nothing, since they invited themselves and were aware that they were going to stay in a household with a young child.

For context, the guests are neither friends nor family. It is a former colleague that I know quite well, but am not particularly friends with, and her boyfriend, whom we had never met before he came to stay at our house. They sort of invited themselves for a few long weekends over the summer, because we live in a quite touristy, but expensive city. They are here to do sightseeing/going to events in our city, not to spend time with us. They stay for free obviously, but buy some of their groceries (special things they need due to intolerances).

We have a spare room/office, but our flat is quite small. And unfortunately the spare room is right beside the kitchen/living area, so they could certainly hear us getting up at the crack of dawn with our DC. DC is a typical 6YO, not particularly badly behaved, but will talk loudly, jump or run. DC is also awake latest at 6:30 am.
We have the first weekend behind us, and it was stressful. Especially keeping DC quiet from 6 am until 10 am (when the guests finally decided to get up) was hard. I tried to play as quietly as possible with DC in their room while feeding them only cookies for breakfast, to avoid noise in the kitchen (had no coffee myself as well until 10 am, because of our noisy coffee maker).
The guests are otherwise quite nice people-clean, tidy and did not complain about DC or the noise so far.

YANBU=Yes, it is basic kindness to keep your DC quiet. You agreed to the visits, so you have to do your best to keep the guests comfortable.

YABU=They invited themselves and were aware of the DC before coming, go on with your life as normal.

We will not agree to further visits by this couple (beyond the ones that are already planned), and probably stick with inviting only close friends or family until DC is older. So it is a lesson learned.

OP posts:
ruffler45 · 10/07/2025 11:10

This should be a CF thread

Wishimaywishimight · 10/07/2025 11:08

NasiDagang · 10/07/2025 11:02

Mumsnet is overrun by people pleasers at the moment.😔

It makes me irrationally angry! I can only imagine telling DH we had some people coming to stay; a former work colleague and a boyfriend we had never met. "Have you lost your remaining marble?" would be a likely response!

Amba1998 · 10/07/2025 11:06
  1. never in this lifetime would I be such a people pleaser that an ex colleague and a man I’ve never met would be staying in my house with children. Hard no. You barely know the colleague and you don’t know her boyfriend.
  1. even if I did know these people, I wouldn’t suppress my child in their own home to suit someone else.
lemonraspberry · 10/07/2025 11:05

Give your dc free rein with noisiest toys & they them work
their magic on unwanted house guests.

EdgyCrab · 10/07/2025 11:05

Some posters here need to check themselves honestly - you can disagree with the OP but is is strictly necessary to call her a 'pushover', 'doormat' and other rude things etc? Commenters getting the rush from collective outrage just being unnecessarily unpleasant.

OP - as a child free houseguest to homes with kids, I appreciate my friends making some element of effort to stop their kids barging into my room at 7, but I do expect to fall in with my hosts' routines. But then I am good friends with all people I stay with. In the circumstances you have outlined, I would maaaybe try and keep noise down from 7, but from then go about your business. I also don't think you are obligated to host these people, as you don't know them very well and they seem to be causing quite some disruption to you.

ChaToilLeam · 10/07/2025 11:04

Cancel the future visits, it's crazy that you are that much of a pushover. You're not a hotel and this is your child's home! If a colleague is in town then I'll meet them for dinner and perhaps show them about but I wouldn't put them up unless we are also good friends.

When friends or family with young children are good enough to invite me to visit, then I fall in with their family routine, not the other way around. And I say that as someone determinedly childfree.

SuburbanSprawl · 10/07/2025 11:04

Nope.

My view here is 'you're in our house and this is how we live'.

Now, in practice, one might attenuate that a bit. Like, "can you not play guitar till after ten, so that Jen can have a lie-in?'

But the extent to which I'd do that would be proportional to how well I knew the guests ('no swearing while nan's here').

I wouldn't adjust very much for people I hardly knew who'd invited themselves.

Just as an aside, why did you say yes? More than once?

Wadadli · 10/07/2025 11:04

CampCrow · 10/07/2025 09:18

I think a balance of the two. Surely that’s obvious 😅
You are being inconsiderate to let your kid be noisy - jump, run or talk loudly early in the morning if you live in a normal flat regardless of whether you have guests or not but keeping him silenced until 10 is silly too.

It a bit daft to agree to them staying if you don’t actually want them to.

It’s the child’s home: s/he should play as they like and not be restricted by CFers who’ve imposed themselves on the OPs home

MummaMummaMumma · 10/07/2025 11:03

You let a man who you have never even met stay in the house with your young child?
Why would you do that?! What makes you trust him with your kid?
And they invited themselves. Would be a hard no from me. And I'd definitely be cancelling future visits. They're not even friends, just using you!!
If you let them stay that's incredibly unfair on your kid to make them act differently.

Theroadt · 10/07/2025 11:03

I think your reaction was extreme. Stopping noise until 7am would be reasonable concession, nonjumping/shouting. I had a friend who would visit with her 3 year old whi was allowed free runnof house by her mother - including jnto my sons’ rooms (then at school) and play with their legi models accidentally breaking their stuff. Next visit I quietly locked the door and child asked her mother ti get me to unlock it. So bad guests the other way around.

NasiDagang · 10/07/2025 11:02

Mumsnet is overrun by people pleasers at the moment.😔

CoralOP · 10/07/2025 11:02

Donewithallthis · 10/07/2025 10:59

I find it odd that you care more about the comfort and preferences of people who invited themselves to stay in your home despite you not being close to them over the comfort of your children.

It is their home, why should they adapt to these 'guests' ?

Absolutely agree!

Topseyt123 · 10/07/2025 11:02

StressedHost · 10/07/2025 10:36

Thank you all for the reality check. I will definitely be less stressed to keep DC quiet during their next visits. And yes, I am a people pleaser, probably because I am an introvert and quite socially awkward, so I tend to go OTT to be nice to others.
As for how I agreed to the visits, it was sort of a situation where you give your finger and they take your hand. I quite like the colleague, but I had never spent time with her outside of work before. She is a lot younger than me (mid 20s vs early 40s). We had/have a kind of mentee/mentor relationship, where we talk about her career development etc. Over the summer, she has to travel a few times to our city for work, but instead of going back home on Friday, she asked if she could stay at my place for the weekend to do some touristy things. I agreed, thinking that it was just her for one weekend. Then the day before her arrival, she announced that btw, her boyfriend was joining her and surely that was ok? And btw, the boyfriend has some time off at the end of the month, surely it would be ok for them to stay for 4 nights? I tried to say that maybe it would not be very relaxing for them with our DC waking early, that we would not have time to do sightseeing with them and that it was not very convenient. My colleague said that this is all not a problem, they are morning people themselves, they like children and would do sightseeing on their own. Implying that I was a bit "unflexible" and "precious" if I didn't agree. After which I just didn't know what to say.
The reality was then of course different. They were disturbed by DC playing in the living area while they had long drawn out dinners at our kitchen table, the lie-ins, generally wanting to have long conversation over meals without DC interrupting.
DH is pissed (rightly so) with me for inviting them. He was ok with it when it was just the colleague alone for one weekend. I still have to somehow avoid to have a fallout with the colleague, as we are in the same (small) industry and will probably have to work together at some level.

This is even more ridiculous than your OP.

Tell her bluntly "No, you really cannot stay with us. It is uncomfortable for all concerned, really doesn't work for us and our flat just isn't big enough. You'll need to book a hotel."

Nothing other than total bluntness, even to the point of rudeness, gets through to these sorts of cheeky fuckers.

Prioritise your husband, marriage and child here and stop being such a wet lettuce.

If I were your DH I would be very angry with you and might even be considering whether I could live with your people pleasing tendencies going forward. I'd probably also be thinking of making my own point to these cheeky fuckers because I would know that you wouldn't do it. I honestly wouldn't blame him at all if he started being rude to them and banging on about it being time for them to leave with no return invitation.

Lovelyview · 10/07/2025 11:02

Normal noise - chatting, eating, watching TV - is fine from 7.30. (screaming and banging is never fine though). Do you think they are your friends OP? They might be perfectly happy to be woken up by your child, love the family environment and like you and your husband a lot. It seems strange to go from tiptoeing around trying to make everything perfect for them to saying they can't visit at all. If you don't see them as friends, then it's fine to say no. I've got a friend who lives in London and I frequently stay with her when I visit the city. We usually go for a meal together and I often go off on my own during the day. I'm not a CF, that's just how our friendship has developed.

Wishimaywishimight · 10/07/2025 11:01

If you live somewhere touristy then myself and DH might pop over for weekend in August? Don't worry, we don't mind a bit of noise. We'll let you know what time we'll be there so you can have lunch ready 😀

Wadadli · 10/07/2025 11:01

StressedHost · 10/07/2025 09:11

If you have houseguests without children, that like to have sleep-ins and a quiet house, long meals etc., do you minimize all disruption caused by you child (ren) and adapt your schedule to those of the guests? Or do you go on with your life as usual?
I don't know what is the right thing to do and had a fight with DH over it. Essentially, I think it is basic kindness towards the guests to not disturb their sleep and quiet, and I'm aware that children of other people can be quite annoying, especially if you are childless and not used to the noise levels etc. DH thinks we owe them nothing, since they invited themselves and were aware that they were going to stay in a household with a young child.

For context, the guests are neither friends nor family. It is a former colleague that I know quite well, but am not particularly friends with, and her boyfriend, whom we had never met before he came to stay at our house. They sort of invited themselves for a few long weekends over the summer, because we live in a quite touristy, but expensive city. They are here to do sightseeing/going to events in our city, not to spend time with us. They stay for free obviously, but buy some of their groceries (special things they need due to intolerances).

We have a spare room/office, but our flat is quite small. And unfortunately the spare room is right beside the kitchen/living area, so they could certainly hear us getting up at the crack of dawn with our DC. DC is a typical 6YO, not particularly badly behaved, but will talk loudly, jump or run. DC is also awake latest at 6:30 am.
We have the first weekend behind us, and it was stressful. Especially keeping DC quiet from 6 am until 10 am (when the guests finally decided to get up) was hard. I tried to play as quietly as possible with DC in their room while feeding them only cookies for breakfast, to avoid noise in the kitchen (had no coffee myself as well until 10 am, because of our noisy coffee maker).
The guests are otherwise quite nice people-clean, tidy and did not complain about DC or the noise so far.

YANBU=Yes, it is basic kindness to keep your DC quiet. You agreed to the visits, so you have to do your best to keep the guests comfortable.

YABU=They invited themselves and were aware of the DC before coming, go on with your life as normal.

We will not agree to further visits by this couple (beyond the ones that are already planned), and probably stick with inviting only close friends or family until DC is older. So it is a lesson learned.

Your husband is right: you’re being unreasonable to him and your child who should not have their lives impacted by CFers who aren’t actually friends of your family. Cancel any planned visits then block them.

BunnyLake · 10/07/2025 11:01

Cancel their next visits. They can book a hotel or AirBnB. This is one of the most ridiculous things I've read. I’m an introvert, that doesn’t mean I’m a walkover.

PansyPotter84 · 10/07/2025 11:00

No bloody chance would they’ve staying with me!

Boyfriend you’ve never met could be an axe murderer or a paedo or anyone!

LilacReader · 10/07/2025 11:00

Let your child be exactly as they normally would. At least if the noise bothers them they definitely won't ask to stay again!

godmum56 · 10/07/2025 11:00

Ellie56 · 10/07/2025 10:53

This is ridiculous. Your DH is right. This is your home and your child's home so you should all just carry on as normal.

Go into the kitchen and make your coffee and breakfast and whatever else you need to do. These people are rude CF freeloading users. Who cares if they get woken up by your normal day to day activities? If they want peace and quiet they can book into a hotel and pay like most people would.

Chances are if you stop tiptoeing around and behave normally, they might cancel their next visits. Win win!

never mind waiting for them to cancel, the OP should be cancelling them now!

labamba18 · 10/07/2025 10:59

Oh yes and agree with others cancel the future visits

Donewithallthis · 10/07/2025 10:59

I find it odd that you care more about the comfort and preferences of people who invited themselves to stay in your home despite you not being close to them over the comfort of your children.

It is their home, why should they adapt to these 'guests' ?

labamba18 · 10/07/2025 10:59

I actually didn’t think this was real when I first read it! OP, you’re getting walked all over here. I can’t believe they wouldn’t offer you any money either. Let your child have fun and relax as normal in your own home!

PoisedGoldBiscuit · 10/07/2025 10:57

Please cancel future visits from these CFs, you owe them nothing!

UpsideDownChairs · 10/07/2025 10:56

Somewhere between the two extremes.

So maybe I'd have an instant coffee if the coffee machine was that bad but I wouldn't do without, I'd remind DS that we have guests and to keep it down, but I wouldn't be cross with him if he forgot, I'd just remind him again.

Basically I'd be reasonable, I wouldn't think 'screw them - I'm doing my normal Zumba at 5:30am', but neither would I be tiptoeing around and hiding in my bedroom