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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To ignore the upstairs neighbour banging on his floor about crying baby

420 replies

MrsHende · 14/03/2015 08:04

Baby hates getting dressed and usually screams her way through the 5-6 minute process. Twice our upstairs neighbours has banged on their floor, presumably because of the noise. Both times were after 7.30 and before 8am, once this morning and once last week, on a week day.

Who IBU?

(My mum thinks I should change the baby in a different room, possibly the best solution for everyone's blood pressure!)

OP posts:

ILovePud · 14/03/2015 22:42

How should their parents have addressed these problems ProudAS? Are you still advocating sticking polystyrene up all over the flat as the solution? I bet the parents of the crying babies and the crying babies themselves were having a tougher time than their neighbours.

CupidStuntSurvivor · 14/03/2015 22:42

Well said fanjo. If I'd read this thread in the early days when babyCupid was tiny and colicky, I'd really have felt horrible.

theboatisleaking · 14/03/2015 22:44

'So many assume that living in a flat is a choice!!! What nonsense. If we had a choice, we would all be living in lovely, spacious, detached houses!!!!'

Notcontent, I disagree that most don't have a choice. In UK we all have free education, access to further studies, opportunities to choose a career and work our way up. Whether we choose this path or not is within our control. It's not a case of some being 'lucky' to afford a house and others never having opportunity to afford more than a flat.
When we had DC1 we couldn't afford a house, but we worked and saved for years before planning DC2 so we could have the house we wanted. If we'd had them close together we'd probably still be in a masionette.
I'm not saying others should do the same, I'm saying people do have a CHOICE about where and when they raise a family. Waiting until we could afford a semi before planning DC2 was the right choice for us, because I don't want to live on tenterhooks about disturbing the neighbours.

OP in a flat you do have to be very considerate. Instead of assuming the students above had hangovers, had you considered they might have been up all night revising for exams, or up early trying to study? Exam stress and coursework deadlines make people sensitive to noise.

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 14/03/2015 22:48

Yes. It would totally ruin their lives to hear a tiny bit of crying at 730am then go back to sleep

Or maybe not.

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 14/03/2015 22:49

We are both working and DH has a well paid IT job and still cannot afford a detached house or a semi here theBoat.

Not that I know why I am answering your sanctimonious one trick.pony posting yet again.

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 14/03/2015 22:50

Don't bother telling me to move out of the city yet again either

ILovePud · 14/03/2015 22:55

You don't have to move out of the city, fanjoforthemammaries you can just redecorate the entire inside of your home with polystyrene that and spend your time apologising profusely to your neighbours for the audacity of your child crying and your own fecklessness for having had a child whilst living in a flat.

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 14/03/2015 22:56

Yes

ProudAS · 14/03/2015 22:59

Maybe the parents were having a worse time than the neighbours Pud but they chose to be parents.

Read the horror stories on this thread. Do you think Boat and her DH deserved to fail their exams? What if it were your DC in a few years time?

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 14/03/2015 23:01

Proud. Please. Think about why that might not be a kind thing to say to pud.

OK am off to sleep before DD wakes me up. And ruins my neighbours lives. My friendly healthy and happy looking neighbours that say a friendly hello to us

CupidStuntSurvivor · 14/03/2015 23:03

Horror stories . Yes, I agree there are a couple of extreme cases. But I hardly think any of these 'horror stories' were born of a 5 minute daily disturbance while a parent was changing their baby. Honestly, any council in the UK would dismiss a noise complaint about a crying baby because that is, quite literally, life.

ILovePud · 14/03/2015 23:06

I think it's rather silly to suggest that people failed exams because of their neighbour's baby, my advice to them and to my DC if they ever find themselves disturbed by a crying baby would be to get some earplugs or ear protectors and stop acting like such hot house flowers.

expatinscotland · 14/03/2015 23:08

Lives ruined . . . by a crying baby. Jesus wept.

Original poster

MrsHende · 14/03/2015 23:08

Thanks for the advice boat. Having lived in flats for 20 years, and being a decent human being with common sense, I do realise that I have to be considerate. (And I think I am being so!)

OP posts:

listsandbudgets · 14/03/2015 23:08

Wow YANBU. They coud stick a pillow over their head or try a little kindness... when dd was a baby we were in a flat. One night when dp was away she screamed SOLIDLY from 11-1.30am. At 1.30am there was a hesitant knock on the door and I answered it in tears to be confronted by a man in his dressing gown...

Him: I like in the flat above and since we're both awake I wondered if you'd like me to hold your baby while you make us both a cup of tea.

I handed her over, he started singing to her and she was asleep on his shoulder within 5 minutes.

He popped her in the moses basket, we had a cup of tea and half an hour later both retired to our beds.

I was deeply grateful to him and still am.

expatinscotland · 14/03/2015 23:11

Yes, fanjo, I remember that thread, you scrounging loser! You had years to move out of the city, where you do not belong with your brat. Shame on you!

CupidStuntSurvivor · 14/03/2015 23:11

Yes, I'd also have assumed that those who were having their lives ruined by the tiny humans making tiny human noises as all tiny humans have done since antiquity would have tried earplugs or noise cancelling head phones. Or tiling their bedrooms with polystyrene tile. Or if their dreams really were circling the drain and nothing was working, moving! Preferably somewhere away from modern civilisation...because that's where babies are!

theboatisleaking · 14/03/2015 23:11

Fanjo I'm not trying to make people with crying babies feel bad, believe me I've been there, with neighbours complaining. But I've also been the exhausted, frustrated neighbour next door unable to study, sleep or concentrate.
I just think people need to be more considerate of neighbours in flats. If they resort to banging on floor they're probably at their wits end.

Barring exceptional circumstances, people generally do have a choice about when to have a baby and where to raise it. I have friends in London who live in flats with their kids, but others chose to move out of the city when they had a baby, either commuting or changing jobs. I'm not saying either choice is wrong, just that they had a choice.

A bit of consideration and respect for neighbours goes a long way. I'm stunned that people are angry with their neighbours for being disturbed, rather than having empathy and taking steps to address the problem.

listsandbudgets · 14/03/2015 23:12

Oh and now look back and think I was mad to let a man I barely knew beyond brief good mornings in the hallway into my home to hold my baby. Sleep depravation and desperation must have hit hard that night. Sometimes I wonder about all the thimgs that could have happened

Original poster

MrsHende · 14/03/2015 23:12

Lists, that is the nicest thing I have read on this thread! That man was a hero!

I think I may have a little weep (silently of course, wouldn't want to ruin the neighbours lives any more than I have already ).

OP posts:

CupidStuntSurvivor · 14/03/2015 23:13

list that's a gem of a neighbour. Mine once knocked on and asked if I'd like him to take my bins out because he knew I'd been up all night. I was so grateful!

ProudAS · 14/03/2015 23:13

As I've already said the OP is not being unreasonable. We are talking about a few minutes crying in the morning and her neighbour is being rude.

The cases mentioned on this thread may be extreme but who is to say that the rights of one individual to pro-create trump those of another to pass their exams?

catzpyjamas · 14/03/2015 23:15

lists do you think he'd fancy a flatswap with MrsH's upstairs neighbours?He sounds like a lovely person

Original poster

MrsHende · 14/03/2015 23:15

Possibly because you can study in many, many places but a baby can only live in their own home?

OP posts:

catzpyjamas · 14/03/2015 23:16

I lived above a pub as a student. You try finding a flat in that city.... I studied in the library.

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