Neighbours complaining about toddler noise

[NadT]

Hello,

I'm looking for opinions and any advice please. We are a family of 3 living in a semi-detached house. We have a 2 and a half year old. Over the last few months, just as he turned 2, the neighbours started sending messages stating they could hear 'constant banging' particularly in the mornings. Without more specific information we assumed that they were referring to our toddler waking at 5.30, getting out of his bed and running around his room and jumping. For the record my husband and I hate this too! I was out at the time and so sent a reasonable message back apologising and explaining. My husband sent a friendly message to her husband also explaining. We had return comments such as "It's not on" and "we believe you can do something about it". We asked them for a face to face to discuss exactly what their grievances were and they ignored the message.

After that they blocked us and cut off communication. This week one of them posted a Facebook post on our private residents page complaining about inconsiderate neighbours and that they would be moving as a result of noise in a few years. We were highly embarrassed by this as other neighbours contacted us asking what was going on.

We felt this was unwarranted and so contacted them again asking for a face to face so we could find out exactly what it was that we are doing that is bothering them do much. We received responses full of abuse and our offer to meet was firmly rejected.

We are now uncomfortable and anxious in our own home. I find myself panicking and shouting at my poor toddler every time he makes some sort of noise. We have tried everything to get him to sleep in later in the mornings such as Gro clock, rewards, modifying naps and asking the health visitor for advice. Nothing works. He wakes early.

The banging is also probably coming from his tantrums which at the moment are epic! Again we deal with them but we can't stop them outright or predict when they are going to happen!

My confidence has been severely damaged by their comments towards me and my toddler. Heavily implying that my toddler is an inconvience because of his noise. Whilst I genuinely sympathise and appreciate the noise isn't fun I would like the opportunity to give them context and insight so that they can at least understand why it's happening. I'm also genuinely happy to try and change a few things but by refusing to meet us to discuss it I'm not sure how I can move forward without information about exactly what is bothering them. My husband struggles with depression and this has set him back too especially in his search for a job.

We live in Scotland so far away from our families and hence any support or option to go and stay with them for a bit. We aren't financially able to move house and don't want to leave anyway.

Advice gratefully appreciated. And shared experiences!

Excellent response Yabbers - my ex-neighbour was in the same situation with her NDN's child ''sleeping" against the party wall. The NDN refused to do anything.

VampireSlayer19

You have a point. And how come they can find each other on Facebook? There’s more to this than we’ve been told.

Sadly we’re probably not going to find out, as I don’t think the OP will be back.

I understand hearing a toddler at 5:30 am is annoying but he is exactly that a TODDLER & toddlers don’t care who they wake or when they wake them as adults they should be a little more understanding to fact he’s still a baby. Next door to us have 18 month old twins we hear them all the time! But why cause issues when I can clearly see in mums face she is exhausted and obviously doesn’t want to be up in the night either - Posting it on Facebook is ridiculous- that’s as childish as a 2 year olds tantrum. I don’t think you have been unreasonable atall I also don’t think you should be advised on how to parent. What about all of the self soothe methods out there?

Jamct23
Really ...

toddlers don’t care who they wake or when they wake them

Of course they don’t. How could they? But their parents sure as hell should.

op take no notice he's a child, children make noise only on mn do people do all things possible to make sure children stay quiet at all times. As long as you are tending to your child then stuff em. I'm sick to death of people treating children as if they should be seen and not heard, if a child makes any kind of peep then there's always someone to moan about it.

I'd forgotten how uptight suburban brits are when it comes to kids.

Yanbu OP. Kids make noise and it takes a village to raise a child. Ergo, the villagers will need to endure a bit of noise now and again.

Jamct23 if you are one of my neighbours you are lovely.

Oh you’re not living in a new build are you OP? If you break wind you can hear it vibrate through the walls!! Unfortunately houses aren’t built the way they used to be. Paper thin walls!

There’s so much pressure to be perfect in every way, even in your own home. It sounds like you’re trying to communicate with your neighbours in an adult manner but has possibly come across wrongly. However, it sounds like it’s more to do with let’s hide behind FB. Also people can be nasty and although the noise has been annoying for them, they also like creating dramas and don’t want it to be resolved!

Have you tried black out blinds in his room and putting him to bed an hour later?

I suggest you get a new, carpet with thick underlay and put thick rugs where the toddler makes the most noise. Things like that.

I would just do something about it as suggested then tell them what you've done to try to mitigate the issue.

I'm hyper sensitive to noise and live next to a rather noisy young family. It's utter utter bliss when they go away. But they're lovely people and I try my best to be tolerant. I think this goes a long way when trying to compromise.

I am looking to move though, when I can to a quieter spot with fewer young families. Since I moved here the make up of the area has changed and there are more young children, constantly shrieking in the holidays. It really gets to me.

It's a shame as I've been here ages and love my house, and it's super convenient. Some people have no clue, or don't care about the impact of their noise and behaviour, or that of their offspring, on others.

I have very little time and patience with people whose attitude is 'tough shit it's a toddler and they make noise'. That's not my bloody problem, that's not my bloody child.

Yep! It drives me insane when I see the “what do you expect? It’s a child!” posts. Some people choose not to have children because the don’t like the noise, so why the hell should they be forced to put up with a racket being made by somebody else’s?

Your neighbours are twats, I would give them a piece of my mind tbh. I live alone and the toddler and the baby next door wake me up early but what are they expected to do? gaffa tape them to the bed?
Honestly people are so intolerant and moany these days it makes it almost impossible to live a normal life.
I'd tell them to piss off and move now! I can't be doing with the we want quiet 24 hours a day brigade. If they don't like neighbours they should buy a detached house.

You need to get on that particular Facebook page (we have similar ones round where I live, rant & rave, praise then & shame them etc) and put your side of the story there.
As a mum of 4, all grown up now (thank goodness) and it’s blooming hard when little ones don’t have an alarm clock and choose their own waking times!!
I’m on your side - just be pleasant but firm.
Any other neighbours with young ones will understand.
Perhaps they need to buy a detached house away from everyone if they need total silence!

Tbh I agree with the majority. I don't sleep well and I really don't appreciate neighbour noise of any description. When you live close to other people, you can't just do as you please, you have to control your noise levels and this includes those who have children. Your choices should not impact on me, when my DC are fast on! When I get up very early every day for work, sometimes it's nice to have a sleep in til 8-9 and neighbours with kids in the garden at 6 or banging around doing DIY first thing, really gets my goat. I don't mind music late at night. They can all have parties every night if they wish but please keep the volume down in a morning as once I'm awake, that's me done!!

We had a neighbour before we moved, who's baby and toddler woke at a similar time and they'd be ready and leave the house before 6 some days and apparently go to the paper shop/car boot/ a walk to the park to get out of the way of the neighbours until a more sociable hour as the kids just wouldn't do low volume. The car doors etc would disturb us, as it would at 530 but we did appreciate it as we'd go back to sleep again.

If you come back OP, just do what you can to limit the impact on your neighbours. They didn't chose to have your children.

When my son was that age he also woke at 5.30am - I used to take him for a long walk in his pushchair and it was amazing how much of nature we came across.You might find you grow to enjoy the early starts to your day, and getting him out of the house ought to be more than enough to satisfy your (horrid sounding!) neighbours.

I understand why a toddler’s noise would be frustrating and can sympathise with the OP’s neighbours. But the OP clearly isn’t trying to be awkward, her post seemed exhausted rather than defiant, and out of ideas.

She has no family support so is really struggling to cope. I suspect she might be quite young as well?

Do you have carpeting on the bedrooms as hard flooring can be like a drum. 5.30 am is very early but your neighbours shouldn't have decried you on the FB page. Take turns getting up to pacify your DS keeping the peace and quiet until say 9ish. After that you should just try to normalise the daily nouse levels. DS will hopefully grow out of the very early starts.

I’m very noise-sensitive, and sleep lightly. Since meeting hubby 12 years ago I have slept with earplugs because of his snoring.

I now have tinnitus. Gentle word of warning to anyone using earplugs, it is quite common for regular use to cause tinnitus. My audiologist says the earplugs are the likeliest cause of this awful condition, so please use them sparingly, folks! Same goes for noise-cancelling headphones. It is a horrid condition and there is no cure.

The way forward is a noise generator. I now sleep with rain noise quite loud, or sleep away from hubby if it is too bad.

I know this is unrelated to the OP really but I have seen various replies suggesting earplugs and it makes me cringe, knowing what they can cause.

It's a local community FB site. Most folk in a particular area will have signed on for say local news eg strange folk knocking on doors, anyone know of a plumber, local school Xmas party info etc but neighbours have taken advantage if access to others to berate OP.

Multiplemum3
Why should they take their child downstairs, it's their home. The neighbours do not pay the families mortgage.

I'd pack the removal van for then but not before I told my side on the residents forum.

Obviously you should take toddler downstairs etc. However the posts about just shutting babies up are horrible. My dd had reflux and would just scream. My ds is currently teething and he's really struggling. I was walking around the house with him at 2am the other night. He had teething granules, nurofen and I had tried feeding him on and off for an hour, he kept spitting his dummy out. I would hate to think that my neighbours were thinking I just couldn't be arsed. I had 3 hrs sleep that night and was up at 6:30 with my 4 year old. If someone had told me to just 'shut it up" I probably would have burst into tears.

I agree with many of the other posters, toddler noise is a pain. If I were you I would be getting up with him but would also be getting soundproofing. At least then you can relax a bit about any noise and your DS can play without you worrying.

Your toddler your problem. Get up with toddler and bath it, feed it breakfast, read it stories, cuddle it, put on DVD quietly. You can't just leave a toddler to jump and run around their room waking up the neighbours. Use blackout blinds put child to bed an hour later.