Baby crying aggressive neighbours

[didntexpecthis]

I live in a block of flats. Next door neighbours are a family with 3 children, ages ranging between 6 and 16.

I have a 4 month old who until recently was a very placid baby. Relatively little crying (compared to older sibling at the same age), slept through the night etc.
Recently though the crying has increased. Especially first thing in the morning (6am) when he wakes and intermittently during the day.

NDN's 16 year old has been yelling FFS in the morning when DS starts crying and today, I had a knock on the door from NDN. He was very aggresive and told me that if I didn't shut the baby up to expect a call from SS.

I was really shaken up and am scared although DP says to just ignore it.

AIBU?

[topazmilk]

I think a baby should be moved at unsociable hours to a place where the noise is as muted for neighbours as it can possibly

The neighbours are not my priority though. You speak as though the baby is a noisy appliance. It's a human being not a washing machine or alarm clock or a radio with the volume up! Babies need to get used to their own cot, their own room. You can't just shift them from room to room in the night. If anyone should move rooms, it's the neighbour who wants silence.

As for being judgey about CC... have you ever had a baby who wakes every 60-90 mins all night for months, who will only fall asleep when cuddled/breastfed then wakes after the next sleep cycle? This was my DS until we sleep-trained. I didn't do controlled crying but I did let him cry in his cot between feeds, while I sat next to him and stroked his hair, until he learned to fall asleep without being held. Now he often has 5-hour sleep stretches and is less fractious during the day. Sometimes he cries for 20mins in his cot while I sit next to him, as he's still learning to self-settle. I know the neighbours can hear him but his sleep is more important to me than theirs. I'm not going to whisk him into the living room to minimise noise, and undo all his progress. And they are very understanding, having sleep-trained their own babies.

Do you really think mums prioritise neighbours over their own baby?

[goodbyestranger]

I haven't clutched at a single straw Hummy! Not a straw in sight! I said I'd push off because your arguments are empty and rude.

I simply can't imagine anyone in their right mind complaining and threatening social services unless the noise of a baby crying was seriously excessive. We have no evidence that the noise hasn't pushed an otherwise reasonable neighbour over the edge. Please don't equate a measured interpretation of what we know of the facts as 'victim blaming' - that's somewhat tasteless since we're only discussing a baby crying after all. Likewise the term 'abusive' is inappropriate and probably shouldn't be devalued by using it in the case of an angry neighbour.

[startrek90]

I was threatened with SS by a neighbor because my baby was crying because of teething goodbye

People do threaten things like that because they know that is what would upset a new mother and it's obviously worked.

[HunterHearstHelmsley]

I have to say when I was 11-12 our neighbours used to leave their baby to cry and it drove me spare! I wasn't getting enough sleep for school. It was awful. The baby was in the room next to me.

I took to donkey kicking the wall in our hallway (by parents bedroom) so they would do something. It was incredibly selfish of them and they used to complain that I woke them.

Not saying OP is leaving the baby to cry but in my situation if I could have donkey kicked the parents I would have.

[imwithspud]

Someone in my family recently got reported to SS, it was a malicious report, all lies and the case got dropped quickly. If there are people out there willing to falsely report someone to SS then it's reasonable to believe that someone would threaten to report a parent to SS for a normal level of crying from a baby too. Some people are just cunts, to put it bluntly.

Just because you can't imagine it happening, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

I think being aggressive towards someone and threatening with SS if they don't bow down to their demands is bullying and therefore is classed as abusive behaviour of which the OP is a victim of actually.

[ProudAS]

That's why I think party walls should be soundproofed. It's not so that people can get away with being bad neighbours, it's to allow humans who cannot help making noise to happily coexist with the likes of Hunter and with my friend (who needs to wear ear defenders in his flat).

[idontlikealdi]

NDNs baby had colic or reflux or something, he cried from 2 am-6am for three months and it very nearly broke me. We are terraced and their bedroom where baby was is next to ours. DTs had just started to sleep in their room and I had a hope of sleep and then they had their baby.

Because if the configuration DTs cots weren't on their adjoining wall and they didn't really cry.

I would never have said anything to them, I know when I saw the mum she looked even more broken, and embarrassed to boot. Me saying anything would have achieved nothing.

[idontlikealdi]

NDNs baby had colic or reflux or something, he cried from 2 am-6am for three months and it very nearly broke me. We are terraced and their bedroom where baby was is next to ours. DTs had just started to sleep in their room and I had a hope of sleep and then they had their baby.

Because if the configuration DTs cots weren't on their adjoining wall and they didn't really cry.

I would never have said anything to them, I know when I saw the mum she looked even more broken, and embarrassed to boot. Me saying anything would have achieved nothing.

[idontlikealdi]

NDNs baby had colic or reflux or something, he cried from 2 am-6am for three months and it very nearly broke me. We are terraced and their bedroom where baby was is next to ours. DTs had just started to sleep in their room and I had a hope of sleep and then they had their baby.

Because if the configuration DTs cots weren't on their adjoining wall and they didn't really cry.

I would never have said anything to them, I know when I saw the mum she looked even more broken, and embarrassed to boot. Me saying anything would have achieved nothing.

[idontlikealdi]

No idea what happened there.

[Babyroobs]

My ndn 3+ year old still wakes me screaming early in the morning and it drives me nuts as I am already sleep deprived from doing shift work. I would just try to move the baby's cot away from them s far as possible and buy them some ear plugs !

[topazmilk]

Hunter, why didn't you sleep elsewhere if the baby was waking you? Couldn't you have slept in the living room/in a siblings room for a while? It's easier for an 11-year-old to camp in another room (or wear earplugs) than to move a baby's cot. Presumably the baby will disturb one of the neighbours whichever room it sleeps in.

[HunterHearstHelmsley]

Not really. At that point there were six of us in a three bedroomed house! I couldn't (and still can't) sleep downstairs so that wasn't an option. I don't agree that it would be easier than the baby moving.

[goodbyestranger]

Babies are massively easy to move - they get put in a moses basket and sleep in that in the lounge. People don't find problems in moving babies when they fancy going on holiday! Babies also don't have work or school to get to and don't need to keep awake and functioning properly all day while they're there. The baby should go wherever it least disturbs the neighbours who have things to do the following day. No reason why everyone in the neighbourhood should be impaired just because a new mother is sleep deprived - it's very inconsiderate to share that particular joy.

[goodbyestranger]

I can't quite get my head around why so many posters seem to thing that other people, who had no part in making the baby, should do all the accommodating. It's the responsibility of the parents, as ordinary decent people, to see that their choices don't make other people's lives extra difficult. In this case the OP knows the teenager sleeps on the other side of the party wall, so even if the baby continues to cry, there's an extremely simple solution in her hands. The fact that this noise is going on in exam season compounds the problem. No doubt the boot will be on the other foot if the teenager celebrates the end of exams by loud parties and thumping music right through the summer.

[crazywriter]

Oh I forgot zoobeedoo we used Ashton and Parsons powder for teething with DD1 and it was a godsend. We have tried it with DD2 and seems to work on a night. I'm just never sure whether it's the powder or she's just tired herself out with crying. A lot of friends recommended it with Dd1 though so decided to try it only thing that worked with her!

She also seems to need to cry to settle herself to sleep. There was nothing wrong but tiredness last night and she screamed the house down for 5 minutes until she finally settled. I just had to bloat her in her crib and lay with my hand through the bars on her so she knew I was there and wait for her to settle. She doesn't like sleep in our arms anymore unless she's ill or in pain.

Ignore judgy pants by the way. Sure nobody has a right to disturb anyone. The problem with a baby is crying is the ONLY way to let you know there's a problem. You have to then figure it out and it's not always easy. On this occasion it isn't easy for you and I'd assume youre doing everything you can to settle DS. Nobody has the right to verbally attack anyone. Stressed or not, worried about his kids exams or not, the father had no right to do what he did and he was entirely unreasonable.

I didn't know about the sleep regression that a previous poster said. That's interesting and could be the reason. Just keep helping DS and let the neighbour call SS. The case would be thrown out quickly if they even bothered.

[CecilyP]

That would be a choice by someone who is above the age of reason. Ops baby is not makig a choice. And I'm sure if you really do have a magic method told to you by a midwife (not entirely sure of the relevance of her job) to stop all crying, op would be all ears. Fwiw, when D's was born, we lived in a old house with only single 4.5 in brick between us and our neighbours and they ever once complained. These neighbours sound really aggressive and nasty. Dont think a baby still fits in a moses basket at 4 months!

[imwithspud]

Both my dc's were in the Moses basket till 5/6 months, but they are both on the small side. I can imagine an average or larger sized baby wouldn't last more than a few weeks in a basket.

There's a huge difference between a baby crying and hosting loud parties with thumping music all night.

There really is a simple solution in this case: ear plugs for the neighbours. Problem solved.

[topazmilk]

Babies are massively easy to move

Not really. I wouldn't want my baby sleeping alone downstairs! And I'm not going to sleep on the floor/sofa just to pacify the neighbour. It's not like using a hairdryer next to the party wall, an inconvenient noise that can be moved to a different room. The baby has a right to sleep in his warm bedroom, in his cot, and the mum should be able to sleep next to him in her own bed. If neighbours are disturbed by crying, they can sleep in a different room or wear earplugs.

What if your neighbour snored very loudly, would you tell him to move his bed away from the party wall? Or would you take the initiative to move yours?

[DeloresJaneUmbridge]

it's the responsibility of the parents, as ordinary decent people, to see that their choices don't make other people's lives extra difficult

And there you go again Goodbye, can you actually hear yourself?

It's also the responsibility of normal decent people NOT to be verbally aggressive. But there you go again with the victim blaming.

[typicallyaverage]

I have an 8 weeks old. He had open heart surgery at 4 weeks and suffers from horrendous reflux. He is tube fed and cries throughout his feed, cries when his bum is changed and cries after he's been winded. He just cries near enough all the time and there is nothing that will settle him. We've tried everything. He was in hospital for 3 weeks and since we've got him we've taken him up A&E twice because we are worried about his constant crying.

They reassured us that everything looks fine and gave us all the medicines they can to help with the reflux. Still, nothing's worked and he can cry for 2 hours at a time of not more. Sometimes he holds his breath and his face goes purple, which worries me about putting strain on his heart. We've tried everything and nothing works. I'm constantly paranoid about the neighbours and getting stressed out during the crying periods because of this. I live in a mid terrace and I'm so conscious of this. We are literally at our wits end though and don't know what else to do.

[HunterHearstHelmsley]

Why do people keep suggesting ear plugs as an easy solution? So when your alarm goes off you won't hear it? The easy solution is moving the baby into another room.

[RaskolnikovsGarret]

I was on a plane yesterday and the baby cried for four hours non stop. I'm pretty sure that the parents were doing all they could, and no one judged them. As they shouldn't.

[imwithspud]

My dp wears ear plugs, they block out noise from outside/downstairs when he's asleep after a night shift but he can hear his alarm just fine.