Neighbours asked us to be quiet

[sillystupidupset]

My next door neighbours told us we are being to loud in the mornings. I have a 8 month old baby who is awake around 6. He is finding his voice and talking loudly and shouting. He doesn't cry, and is happy... just learning to make noises I suppose.

I can't control this at all, playing, holding, rocking etc does not stop him from doing it.

I feel so awful about my neighbours but what can I do?

I guess I'm just asking on a scale of 1 to 10, how bad should I feel

If they say it again you reply "Yes, he's an 8mo baby who is learning he has a voice but doesn't yet understand volume control. Shushing and distraction doesn't work. If you have any constructive suggestions, do let me know"

I get that it must be disruptive being woken at 6am but, short of gagging your poor child, what do they expect you to do?

I’d ignore them. Even face to face I would not even respond. You’re not doing anything wrong, they’re drama llamas.

@sillystupidupset
If you can hear your neighbours I’d just respond with a ‘oh you can hear us too? The walls are awfully thin aren’t they. Guess that’s just estate life’ or something to that effect

Hi Op

Please dnt feel bad, it's horrible when you feel like you have got to be sooo quiet.

Just do your best and carry on, babies are babies, I would be more worried if your baby didn't make a noise.

You sound a very considerate neighbour.
Please dnt worry, all the best.

Why not OP? It seems to work for every parent in continental Europe? If the infant is up for the day at 6 push bedtime back by two hours. Sorted.

Continental european here, nope, doesn't work for any of us. Babies are babies. You can't teach them to be quiet till they're a bit older. Thankfully it's just a short phase and 6 am doesn't sound too bad (my nieces loved getting up at 5).

Put the child to bed at 9pm. No waking until after 8am. Problem solved

Never worked with my DC, they'd always wake up at 6am, and be grumpy for the rest of the day.

I can't believe all these people saying it's your fault. Your neighbours are being absurd. Even before I had children I understood that babies cry and make noise and there isn't much you can do about it. It's not at all like dogs. You can train dogs not to bark. Funnily enough they haven't trained their dogs!

I don't like noisy people either but you have to judge the situation. Someone having a loud party every night, unreasonable, my next door neighbours who have learning disabilities singing at the top of their voices, make me smile that they're having such a good time. It would be unkind to make them shut up, just as it's unkind to make a baby shut up. Neither of them are doing any harm and neither are being inconsiderate, which changes how I feel about the noise.

It sounds like you are doing every thing you can to reduce the noise but don't be forever shushing your baby, it's not good for them.

They sound utterly unreasonable especially given their own noise levels. I would ignore them. Do not shush your happy baby (or put him to bed at 9pm to suit them ffs). If they persist tell them to speak to the council, so they can get laughed at, or tell them you’ll report them for harassment. But please enjoy your baby.

Propose to her that you both build a noise proofing structure on the shared wall you have, or she does this only on her side if you are not willing to invest money. This should help. I hate hearing noise from neighbors too, but actually noise from kids does not annoy me much. Whereas music or other deliberate noise really gets to me. I’d say your neighbor is BU.

And I also find it a sad thought you’d have to quiet your baby’s happy chatter! Don’t do it because of your neighbor!

How does this noise wake them up, but not your 4yo in the same flat?

What did they actually say in their complaint? was it done by text or face to face? Have you ever had issues with them before?

They have 4 children and yes if they are adults now it's been a long time since they lived with a baby but they surely cant be that clueless that they expect you to be able to silence them.
And having 2 barking dogs themselves makes them very unreasonable to complain about any baby noise even if he was screaming his head off every morning theres not a lot you can do about a baby making normal baby noises.
If they are normally good neighbours I think you should say you will try be quieter for the sake of maintaining neighbourly relations but leave it there.

I subscribe to the 'happy but daft brigade'. I smile a lot. Wave a lot. And take no notice of the words that come out of their mouths. So long as I am doing my best to act in a reasonable neighbourly manner, I've done my bit.

Smile and wave. They'll think you can't construct a sentence and will take pity on you. ☺️

I'm happy to the the local smiley idiot🤣

There's nothing you can do about it OP.

Hold the baby up and say, 'You explain it to him then.'

Then laugh.

And walk away.

Op please ignore the comments telling you to simply put your baby to bed 2 hours later. It never helped my kids, or my friends kids, and it currently hasn't helped my cousin with her baby. You get no evening to catch up on a few things, or some downtime / time together with your oh. The baby gets overtired and it also messes with the routine and natural sleep pattern their bodies are used to. They still wake up early, add to that they then get super grumpy and in my experience just get upset and cry more the next day, so if anything it will probably give your neighbours even more to complain about.

You sound like me, I take things to heart, dh thinks I'm over sensitive and should care a lot less about what other people think of me. You've already done everything you can to minimise the noise, I agree with others who have said to tell your neighbours what you're doing to try and reduce the noise they hear, then ask as experienced parents themselves do they have any other ideas or suggestions? Tell them you've tried putting your baby to bed later but he still wakes up at 6 (which I class as very normal for a baby). I would also drop in that you're just glad he's making normal day to day baby communication noises, and that he's not screaming and crying all day and night (like one of mine used to!) That's babies, they should know but sounds like they've forgotten

Also their dogs, you have every right to complain back about their noise if you feel it's unreasonable / excessive. The suggestion someone made up thread was good, about making it clear the noise travels both ways, and would they be interested in getting some sound proofing done on either side of the shared wall and splitting the cost?!

next time just tell them you had no idea they could hear your baby giggling above the sound of their dogs barking.

Have the neighbours said that the problem is the baby? In your OP you say they have complained "we" (presumably meaning your household) are too loud.

Could it be that you are focussing in the baby’s noise as that starts first, but actually it's the rest of the morning sounds that are carrying? Ask them what exactly they can hear, and what they think you can do to mitigate it.

As an aside, I was in conversation with someone from the council who deals with neighbours complaints about noise. He said there'd been an upsurge in complaints during lockdown, which he put down to a combination of factors:

• people are at home and don't feel they can escape from the noise

• people are working/ socialising less so are less tired and wake earlier/ easier
• people have time on their hands to complain and they enjoy the contact they receive from having someone to listen to their problems.

The neighbour approached us politely, by knocking on the door.

My 4 year old will sleep through anything.. THANK GOD! She has been in a strict bedtime routine from 6 months old and it's paid off! Wooo!

The noise is specifically the baby, that is what they said. "The baby is very loud so early in the morning"

Definitely made worse by lockdown issue as they used to leave their house earlier than my DH for work.

I live in a terraced house, and their house is on the end and has been extended. No neighbors on their other side. Their house is significantly bigger than mine.

I definitely need to speak to my DH to tell him to stop shushing. And if neighbors say anything again I will Explain that I'm unable to stop the babbling, but am taking baby straight downstairs to minimize the effect on them.

Tell them to fuck off.

Its a baby, not a battery operated toy you can switch off.

Tell them to silence their dogs too....noise pollution works both ways. They sound like proper bellends.

If they say anything again, agree with them. I'm sure you'd love it if your baby preferred to only make noise during office hours, and if you could convince baby that that was a good idea, everybody would be happy. Ask them for suggestions as to what you should do to solve the problem.

They won't have any, but it'll help them see it from your side, and they won't come back and complain again.

Just switch your baby off! Or put a mute button on him. They're just like radios you know.

I agree at 6am when everything is quiet any noise is amplified so I get their point of view.

I agree if you are doing your best and following some of the advice already posted don't feel too bad!

Thanks everyone

Cant wait till you have a rampaging toddler next to them then! Then they will know (or remember hopefully) what noise is.