To be cross, or are our neighbours right to complain?

[MummytoMog]

Genuinely not sure. Our DCs sleep miraculously well and. Consider ourselves very lucky. But DD gets up before we do and plays in her room, so has quite a few toys in there, including a bounce and spin zebra. Our neighbours started renovating their front bedroom about two months ago (I have no idea what's taking them so long) and so moved into the back bedroom, the other side of the wall from DD (who is three). In that time, DD has had a couple of bad nights, one where she woke up at six and was playing very loudly (i woke up and put her back to bed). Neighbours came round to complain at eight, waking everyone up (weekend) and asked if I could take the rocking horse out. So I took out the bounce and spin zebra that DD loves more than her own brother. All good.

Last night DD wakes up at three with an ear infection, much screaming and wailing. I bring her into our room for a couple of hours but she doesn't settle, so I put her in her room with her music box on. She still doesn't settle, and about five she gets up and plays loudly in her room. I go in and put her back to bed, she cries some more. DH spends two hours in bed with her in her room as she cries, bangs her head against the wall and is generally quite obviously unwell. Our neighbours ring the doorbell at eight, waking DD who has finally drifted off, me and DH and DS. I sent DH down to talk to them, and basically they want us to take out every single thing in her room she could possibly make noise with. So that would leave her with a mattress on the floor then? They even said that thy were moving back into the front room soon, so it seems to me they know they're being a bit unreasonable, but I am sleep deprived and possibly being completely unreasonable.

I don't want to be a shitty neighbour, but a couple of noisy nights, when we have a two year old and three year old who slept through straight away, doesn't seem excessive. Should I push back? Should I apologise some more? Should I wait until they have a child and hope they're a screamer then go round and offer 'helpful' advice?

i still think OP INBU. Children in the community are a blessing yet not always silent. Live and let live. If you want complete silence then move to somewhere remote. If you want to be part of a community then being woken up once because the neighbours' small child is ill is just part of the price to pay. The neighbours would have had a much better reception if they had brought round flowers in acknowledgment of the OP having had a bad night. Or a treat for the sick child. That would have made their point about noise just as effectively and increased community cohesion rather than splintered it.

OP, carry on being the nice, thoughtful neighbour and mother that you are.

Good grief there are some dreadful people on here. The OP had a toy in a bedroom that was not near her neighbours room. When they moved rooms they asked if she could move the toy, she apologised and moved it.

Sounds like a very considerate neighbour to me. Her neighbours however are continuing to com

Complain beacause her child was sick and made noise. She apologised to them for that! I think she is lovely and didn't need to apologise. Her neighbours were wrong to complain about sick child.

sorry but I don't think playing a child's mobile is unreasonable noise....it wasn't party level music or something blasting from a boom box. showers, laundry, child playing with toys within reason....all normal household activities that people should be able to do in their own home according to their own schedule IMO. It's hardly unusual for families with young children to start their day past 5:00am.

I would sound proof as much as possible with rugs, set aside hoovering etc but beyond that I would not be tip toeing around in my own house.

OP has said repeated that she tried to calm the child and Put her back to bed when she began playing loudly.

Lots of unpleasant unnecessary comments on this thread

Not read all the thread but can see it from both sides.

Other people's children making noise is irritating especially when some parents have switched off to it years ago.
However it was a different story when your DC was sick, that cannot be helped and its unreasonable of your neighbour to complain about that.

However, my last point, and I fully expect to get flamed for this but am I the only person here who thinks bedrooms are for sleeping in not playing?
I realise its important for children to get their playtime but in the middle of the night is not really acceptable.

I am not sure of the exact solution, but I am pretty sure that neither total compliance or a big fat fuck off ever actually solved anything.

This is a phase, it won't last more than a year/18months, because by then your child will be old enough to be expected to play quietly in the morning.

I have DS1 (early to bed, very early to rise) and DS2 (could stay up all night, won't get up in the morning) but by about 4 years old they both knew that they really needed to play quietly if they were mooching about at unsociable hours (which tends to be either when I'm in bed in the morning, or when I want peace in the evening)...

The zebra thing sounds like something straight from hell. (Which is probably why it is so loved).

Seriously undercoverSAHM? They should have brought the child a present for keeping them up all night?!

It doesn't matter if it's a party or a bounce and sodding wiggle tiger or whatever it's called. If noise is going on during night time hours which is making it impossible for the neighbours to sleep it's not reasonable noise and they have every right to complain.

Putting on a childs mobile in the night is not reasonable if your neighbours have already told you that they are being disturbed by electrical toys in your childs room. Particularly if you are pissing back off to bed and leaving them to listen to it.

Take round flowers .Hahhahahhahahahhaha

On which planet

and in which century

Yes, seriously - you realise a neighbour is having a tough time so you take round a token gift to make them happier. Have you never done that, AmIthatWintry? It helps the world go round. And it would also have let the OP know clearly that the neighbours too had been kept awake - but in a nice way rather than a complaining way. Community. I hope it still exists this century.

Maybe the OP should give the neighbours a gift to apologise for their DC waking them up in the middle of the night?

Or maybe the neighbours should go to the dr for some diazepam to help them sleep would that be a good compromise?

That bounce and spin zebra is truly the toy from hell. However, it isn't reasonable to complain about a poorly child.

I do think, though, that had your neighbours not had to endure the awful bouncy thing and regular incidents of "playing loudly" at dawn then they might not have made the one complaint that was entirely unreasonable.

So it's a bit give and take really. You've moved the noisy hellish thing but also it'd help if you could avoid loud play so early in the morning - perhaps take your dd downstairs? However you can't promise that your children will be silent for the rest of their childhood and you shouldn't be expected to remove everything from their bedrooms. But perhaps both of you need to be a little more considerate?

Ok I have read all the available posts and some ppl are being too hard on OP. She's done as the neighbours asked and in future will bring sick child downstairs.
Every child is different as are every parent and we should not force our own ideals on others. Clearly OP knows her daughter better than anyone on here, and is doing a good job.

I had annoyingly noisy neighbours, a single mum of 4 aged between 4 & 10. The kids used to do my head in, they ran wild noisily, the oldest boy played football out the front with his mates kicking their ball against my house persistently even after being asked not to - damaging my hanging plant baskets, breaking the upvc cladding etc. When I moaned to other people that it was pissing me off I would get "oh but they are only playing at least they are not out robbing". True. But what annoyed me more was that mum of said kids was a lazy so and so.
Once I went round to the house to speak to the mum, the second youngest girl aged about 5 answered the door, with no clothes on and just said "are you the police?" I said "no I'm your neighbour is mummy in?" Mum was in but "sleeping"...more like either drunk or stoned.
I could have been anyone knocking at that door!
The boy used to have a plastic ball bearing gun and fired them at my dogs in the garden. Several times I would find various brightly coloured BBs everywhere.
Once I saw the youngest girl stood out on the road in her pjs and no shoes in crying alone! No one else in sight. Poor kids.
I was glad to learn they had been evicted for not paying their rent.

glossy at your neighbours! Those poor children!

I can't believe how much flak the OP is getting, I think she's been entirely reasonable.

OP your neighbours should try living in my house for a week. On one side we have students who like to play metal at full blast and throw themselves at the thin adjoining walls so hard that they actually knocked over our (rather heavy) metal step-ladder than was leaning against said wall. On the other side we have DJs who like to get the party started at 12am and don't finish it until 5am. They play the music so loud that walls do actually vibrate. DH and I have started sleeping on the floor in the kids' room as that's the only room in the house were we can hear the music the least.

We could never go around and complain to either houses though as we'd get seven shades of shit beaten out of us for the pleasure. And your neighbours whine and moan about a sick child crying for a couple of nights! [buhmm]

Well yes dead. Just because you have one set of problems doesn't lessen theirs. I'm sure someone somewhere has the world's worst neighbours; it doesn't stop my neighbours, with their non-stop arguing and loud music playing, being any less annoying to me.

Keep a diary, report to council, or police if there is anything criminal involved.