To be furious that neighbour put letter through door at 5am complaining about dd crying..?

[cheaperthantherapy]

i need some perspective I think... Am 12 weeks pg, so hormones contributing to irrational emotions -AIBU....

We moved to new house in July, semi detached in London. Poor dd, 14 mo, has been unsettled since move and has woken up average twice a night crying. I soothe and put her back down within 15 mins. The past week she's been teething and waking screaming 6 times a night. So I have get in with me to quickly calm and try teething gel.

Last night 5am our neighbour (mid 20s woman) put a letter through our door saying she is fed up with dd crying, she has gone to doc for medication, and asking if she needs to move to get sleep...

My reaction was to write a note back suggesting in an offended and grumpy tone that she clearly has more issues if she needs to see doc because of crying baby and recommended she buy earplugs (I attached a packet of ear plugs for her).

Dh didn't let me put the note in her door - but am still fuming... AIBU?

LOLS at fit2. Just LOLS.

Have you told her you have another one on the way yet OP??

I'm sending sympathy to both of you.

You are all long-term sleep deprived, and we all know that's a form of torture (literally and metaphorically) and it brings out the worst in people. And your poor neighbour doesn't have any of the pleasurable bits of child-rearing to make up for it.

I agree with the posters who say it's best to muster all the kindness to your neighbour that you can. Don't have a "war of notes". Even if it's unlikely to be true, decide to believe she wrote a note because she didn't want to bang on the door and possibly disturb you when you've managed to grab some sleep. See it as an act of desperation by someone who you might actually like in other circumstances (and who you are stuck next to anyhow).

Write a note saying you'd like to explain and give a good times for when she could drop in, or ask when it's convenient for you to call on her. Then explain, much as you have done here, what is going on and what you're doing about it. Do say how sorry you are that she's lost so much sleep (but you don't need to apologise for the crying per se, it's what babies do).

And I think it might be a good idea to have a check at the GP, to see if there is anything underlying that needs attention. That's best for your DC anyway, and you can also tell the neighbour that the issue is under medical supervision, and you are trying your hardest.

And I hope, for the sake of all of you, that you get a night-time breakthrough soon.

...and give the baby a Breach of the peace :)

it's not fair on her,for all you know she could have a really stressfull job and neeeds to be alert, there is nothing worse than getting no sleep night after night. can you put daughter in with you just to give neighbour a break?

No more notes.

You need to speak to your neighbour, apologise and explain what you have been doing to try to calm your dd and what other measures you're going to try after taking some advice.

This problem isn't likely to go away any time soon - I imagine that your dd has a few more teeth to come through yet, and of course there's the baby with a full set to come through, so being reasonable to each other while making sure that you are doing absolutely everything you can to minimise the disturbance to your neighbour is very, very important.

I really don't think that your neighbour WBU, you would have been if you'd delivered your note but luckily your DH was sensible enough to stop you from doing that.

FWIW, combining calpol and ibuprofen while using ashton and parsons powders and anbesol worked well for our ds's (Ds1 was a terrible sleeper when he was teething and we had no complaints from our neighbours)

I'm too. What will the police do, confiscate her pen and paper and give her a 6 month ban on writing?

No Empjusa I do not doubt that someone would go to the GP after a month of not sleeping.
I do however doubt that the neighbour has had a months of not sleeping because a neighbours child wakes up twice a night for 15 minutes.

The six times a night has only been for a week.

Kerry if that post was aimed at me , why thank you, my first MN cunt accusation, I feel fully inducted to the ways of MN manners now.
Do you not get the irony of you spouting manners and decency yet its ok for you to call a poster a cunt , nice but a tad hypocritical

TotemPole egg cartons are probably not a good look on their own but a solution could be putting a nice thick curtain along the adjoining wall and also making sure floors and windows also have nice thick coverings. This will have the effect of absorbing sound rather than bouncing it back.

When DD1 was small she had colic (probably reflux as well but not invented back then!). I didnt realise how much noise she made as we were very taken up with her.

I guess that your neighbour doesnt know that you are pregnant and hormonal just as you dont know what is going on in her life. Your house is the one making the noise so you are the ones who should be apologising and trying to reduce the impact you have on your neighbour.

Try and do something to muffle the noise and apologise to your neighbour and explain what you are doing to try to improve the situation.

I have manners and common decency and I am also very considerate of my neighbours and ver accommodating when it comes to their children and next doors thump thump thump music.

I still do not apologise for my children crying when they are either in pain or are unsettled for various different reasons. I try as their mother to take away their pain and anxiety, but since small children can only vocalise their discomfort through crying I am at a loss as to why I should apologise for that. They are only communicating their needs and we have to interprate that.

I am also unable to move my kids away from the adjoining wall of my neighbours so if I wish to settle my child in the middle of the night, I would either be in the kitchen or bathroom, or the very cold playroom, none of those I feel are suitable.

Perhaps the OP should just get the duct tape out and be done with it :)

Lol at Kerry calling people cunt then complaining they don't have manners!!

It's not a police matter

Op, are you renting?

If the 15 minute bouts of crying wake her up and she could easily return to sleep, then she has been suffering sleep deprivation for 4 months. And has then had a week of 6 interruptions a night. That is not trivial, and she may well have sought sleeping tablets. She didn't rush to complain - this has been going on for months, and she waited a full week at the more intense level before doing anything. she's sleep deprived, stressed and upset.

Which is more likely to ameliorate the situation: a sympathetic response or a head-on row?

YABU - but you're hormonal. It's horrid for anyone, and, while there's no doubt a limit to what you can do about the crying, no one deserves to be kept up night after night by someone else's relentlessly shrieking child. You aren't entitled to ruin anyone's sleep - er, does that surprise you? Because it shouldn't.

There are things you can do to reduce the effect on the neighbours. Do them, all. Yr neighbour sounds exhausted - the poor woman. Apologise, explain what the problem is and give her an estimate of when you hope the screams will stop.

Or wait for her to have all-night parties seven days a week. Because, you know, she's as entitled as you are.

"I do however doubt that the neighbour has had a months of not sleeping because a neighbours child wakes up twice a night for 15 minutes."

Depends how long it takes her to get back to sleep afterwards. I know that if I get woken suddenly in the night I will be up for at least an hour. So twice a night, losing roughly two hours sleep, every night.

Then a week of being woken 6 times a night.

I'd be asking for medication. Or a frying pan. Or anything just to get some damn sleep.

I don't really agree how one matches the other cory, having all night parties on purpose is quite different to a baby who is crying naturally because she is in pain.

My sympathies are with the neighbour.

As someone else said, you chose to have a baby, she didn't. I get so narky if I'm woken up in the night that it takes me ages to calm down and go back to sleep.

Please take your baby to a downstairs room on the other side of the house when she's crying, it's just courtesy.

SHocking the sense of entitlement on this thread!

I'm with the neighbour, although I don't agree with her method of communication!

It's up to you to do your best so that the noise doesn't disturb the neighbours, after that you can say "tough, babies cry". Only after you've done all you can to keep the noise down.

I'm struggling to understand it's a baby, they cry and unfortunately it was a manufacturing defect that none came with a mute button when they was born? and yes I would have written a note in reply to the neighbour to the same effect :o Personally OP I would catch her on the way back from work and just have a quick quiet chat with her that you understand as you too are just as exhausted at trying your hardest to get her back to sleep each night and hope she has some empathy with you x

I don't understand the venom against the OP.

She's in early pregnancy, her baby is waking at night and she is trying to settle her, she has had a stroppy note from next door.

How is she supposed to stop the baby crying? Babies cry, surely. I don't think that it's usual to go to the doctor because a teething baby is waking at night, and I don't think it's usual for all your neighbours to hate you because you have a baby? They might hat the noise, and being woken, but to hate the family and the baby - I don't understand this thread.