To think that the onus lies with my neighbour to get her toddler into an acceptable routine?

[makingmiracles]

So we live in a flat, upstairs. We’re very conscious of that as lived her over a decade, don’t play music, have carpet throughout, don’t have pets etc. Only use hoover and washing machine during normal waking hours eg 8-7pm. I can appreciate that upstairs flats can be noisy but we try our best not to be deliberately noisy in any way, from 10pm-7am most days, everyone is asleep, so no noise.

Downstairs in complaining about noise, but her toddler dd is sleeping a lot of the daytime and waking around midnight and doesn’t go back to sleep till 5-7am. Consequently, understandably, my neighbour and daughter are then wanting to sleep in the daytime when my household is up and about, walking around and making low level noise, so she is getting irate about not being able to because of our noise, she has contacted the council and they have written us a letter!

Aibu to think that actually her dd is no longer a newborn who can’t distinguish day/night and that she needs to work much harder on getting her dd into a normal sleep pattern?
At the moment she is not doing anything to try and help herself or recitify it-when her dd wakes, she turns on her bedroom light, takes her into her living room and watches tv/starts doing housework, so imo her daughter obviously thinks it’s ok to be waking as mummy lets her watch tv and eat etc.

I know not all children are easy, I’ve been very lucky with mine, but surely most people would have or try to get their 2yr old into a normal day/night pattern by now?

Yes definitely mention to the council about your other upstairs neighbour as she might not be able to tell where the noise is coming from.

I'm sorry you are being harrassed by this clearly unreasonable neighbour. I would not worry too much about the council. Often councils have a policy of not ignoring any noise complaint and thus they have to be seen to do something, ie write you a letter informing you of the neighbour's complaint. But they very likely will at some point soon tell your complaining neighbour that normal living noise is not actionable and they should expect it, living in a flat, especially during normal daytime hours.

I have some familiarity with noise issues and how councils deal with them, having lived next door to neighbours who made completely unreasonable and apparently deliberate and mega-loud noise to upset us, at all hours. It was horrible. The council told me time and time again that it was we who were being unreasonable, expecting perfect quiet in a terraced house. Note: we weren't expecting perfect quiet, just not to have kids deliberately slamming doors 3-4 times per minute the whole day and awful rows going on in the night with family members being slammed against walls. In the end the council moved the noisy family somewhere else.

BTW the council did give us a noise monitor and we recorded all the racket the neighbours were making. The council guy told us poker-faced that it wasn't anything out of the ordinary ( : We knew by then it certainly was out of the ordinary, not just from our own reactions but those of tradesmen and other peoplel who visited our house and heard the neighbours. We also heard later that neighbours right at the end of the street had heard this family's racket and also complained to the council!

In retrospect it's clear to me that the council were avoiding being sued for allowing a noise nuisance to persist on their property (next door house was a council house) and didn't want to admit liability to me by admitting there was a real problem.

YADNBU.

Could you offer a compromise by keeping the noise down during what would be a normal nap time for the toddler e.g. 12-2pm? If she says her toddler naps for longer than that you could then gently suggest that she reduce the day naps and aim for more night time sleep.

YANBU.

As pp have said it's not your business what routine her toddler's in, but equally she's making it your business by complaining! Does she not seemed concerned that she might be waking you and your family up in the middle of the night with their TV watching etc?

No advice other than to carry on as you are! You sound very considerate.

Is she not approachable ? Do you have the same health visitor ? Perhaps she could help the mum with the Sleeping? It can't be good for either of them ! !

Op I have experienced this and can reiterate you MUST keep a log of all noise you experience. You don’t have to say where it came from only that you heard it. Do this for 2 weeks and present that to the council.

It doesn’t sound like you are the issue.

They do address other noise issues ( I had abusive neighbour with mh issues who used their issues, but they mistakenly shouted abuse when council had visited me! They were eventually evicted back to their mums)

I’d be making so much noise during the daytime from 8am until noon every day, vacuum cleaner, washing machine, radio with loud out of tune accompanied singing, stomping across the floor wearing My biggest ever boots and slamming of doors just to piss off the neighbour who complained about you living during the hours of daylight.

She is the one with the problem child and she is expecting you to creep around in silence all day to accommodate her issues. Make her realise what a nice quiet neighbour she used to have. Then log every noise you hear from her flat from midnight until 5am and put in an official complaint with the council.

She is being a cf and needs to learn a lesson.but them I’m a famously vindictive bitch and you may wish to conduct yourself in a more appropriate manner.

The person downstairs could have completely exaggerated the noise for her own reasons. (wanting another flat etc.)
Are you allowed to see exactly what she has complained about? So that you can provide your own comment. I agree with the other posters who have said Record, and log everything. If they give her a noise monitoring device, ask for one yourself. Its a nuisance to have to do so, but you can't let her allegations go unanswered.

We spoke this morning face to face admitted she doesn’t want us evicted, just HA to put soundproofing in so walking around noises etc aren’t so loud. Said she can’t nap when dd has been up all night as my toddler running about sounds too loud. Says any little bang or noise wakes her dd from a nap. Said Lo slept yesterday 4pm-1am
My toddler would have slept hours and hours too if I’d have let her, I used to allow her an hour,two max then wake her with a snack so she’d still sleep at night, otherwise no doubt she would of been awake till the early hours too!

Ended up calling police on other neighbour this morning as the row sounded much worse than usual and like they were throwing stuff around and kids screaming, sounded like they were killing each other next door, police came and removed her from the flat.

tbh I think her toddler's routine is up to her and you're focusing in the wrong place if you get bogged down in whose child has the better routine. You don't need to agree on parenting techniques. You do need to be able to live beside each other amicably.
If your noise is only normal household noise then the Council won't uphold her complaint. So you have nothing to worry about.
If, for some reason, your noise is above acceptable levels, then you'll need to change.
fwiw I don't think getting into a discussion on facebook is a good idea.

Poor you OP, your neighbors sound batshit

What she says doesn’t make sense really

It everything in the day was waking LO then the child would be awake during the daytime noise and asleep during the quiet night time.

It is unreasonable for her to be expecting you to not use your home during daytime hours at all so that she can sleep. That’s the crux of it. I cannot see how the HA will even throw money at this issue because it’s not an issue - during the daytime hours most reasonable noise is acceptable, even building work!

I think trying to ignore this as best as you can and just deal with the council, her parenting decisions are not your issue. If she’s sleeping all day and no one is going out of the house at all - not to work, the park, shops - just sleeping then this is her issue not yours as you initially thought

I think she is BVU to expect this of someone and wouldn’t be surprised at all if she was using this as an excuse to get rehoused

Ah sorry I thought you meant you literally only took her outside twice a week, that would drive me crazy!

That does make sense. My son will sleep heavily in certain circumstances and not others so it's not a lie that her daughter might wake more at certain times regarding the noises.

I wonder if your perception of the noise you make is accurate.

I agree. Also seems a lot like “i’m a superior parent and she’s doing it all wrong”

It isn’t superior. If this woman chooses to stay indoors in bed all day and be up doing housework at night you can’t blame your neighbours for it.

And she said that the noise wakes the DD up, but the child is sleeping at ridiculous times of the mothers doing not the neighbours

She could seek help from her HV. I know if this was me when I had DC I don’t think she would have encouraged us to stay indoors all day in bed. A lot of this is common sense! Of which the mother doesn’t seem to have much, or she’s struggling with something more serious and undisclosed

She can't expect everyone to accommodate an unusual sleep pattern

The toddler is sleeping 4pm - 1am

Eek!

Whilst you are basically being asked to accommodate your neighbour's child, just as if she will a accommodate yours by not making a noise early in the morning. It works both ways and your neighbour should appreciate how you try to keep nouse down during normal sleeping times. YANU.

I feel for you OP. We’ve been in this situation twice. Once with scary neighbours where we had to call the police out 9 times in the 8 weeks we lived there and once where we lived in the exact same set up as you with the blocks of 4. We were the ground floor neighbours and upstairs were a living nightmare (kids up and riding their little trucks at 3am in a flat with laminate flooring and no rug/carpet). Oh and the next door ground floor had rows galore! Until they got thrown out.... I’m so relieved we live in a house now. I don’t think I could “do” living in a flat ever again, for us it was just horrendous both times.

Lol,exactly!!
She will get the neighbors toddler on a sensible routine!

What an immature response.

Tell her to get the sound sleeper app or play some other white noise. She chose to live in a downstairs flat, so she can’t expect it to feel like a detached! Writing to the council about you is out of order. Hope no one got killed in the other neighbours flat

Awe I feel for you I lived in a flat never again 🙈

You are not being unreasonable, I would start complaining about upstairs more as they are causing a lot more issues than you.

@MissMooMoo I'd have a great big fuck off ready for when/if your neighbours have the audacity to complain about your child waking once in the night. We are having a terrible time of it ourselves at the moment once a night that seems like night terrors. I have the great big fuck off ready for my neighbours about it too