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!

Any reason why your husband can't get up at 5.30am and take your DC downstairs quietly with some breakfast? He's not working, after all - and it might save you being so tired that you shout at the DC when he is making noise.

(that's probably part of it as well - somebody screaming at a noisy child will keep neither child quiet nor neighbours happy).

My youngest would wake up every day at 5.30, sometimes earlier! We took it in turns to take him downstairs. Are you doing this? Or are you letting him jump around his room, as if it’s the latter than of course they’re going to get annoyed.

Hello there,
I have exactly the same problem with a 22-month-old toddler.
Legally, you are doing nothing wrong but keep an eye on your neighbours because what they are doing is bordering on harassment.
What I have done is contact the police with every incident of anti-social behaviour from the neighbours. The neighbours got worse and worse and it ended up that I, as a disabled single mother with 3 children was subjected to a tirade of abuse from every single member of the neighbours' family. Finally, the police did something which has put an end to the abuse and that is give both of the adults harassment warnings which they breached and they were charged with criminal violation of their warnings. This all sounds dramatic but we can now go in and out in peace because they have jobs to lose if they have criminal records.
I advise you strongly to journal even the smallest issue, report to the police and make sure to get a CAD number,reporteverything to your GP, be tough and ignore them, you can't silence toddlers, you just can't and if the neighbours continue get a solicitor to write a warning letter.
Stay strong. Best wishes.

They've told you very clearly what the problem is why would you need to meet face to face .They're pissed off at being woken up at 5.30 . It's up to you to sort it .We had an easy riser between 5/5.30 you need to get up before them. NOT fair to inflict this on your neighbours completely selfish .

joey
Legally, you are doing nothing wrong but keep an eye on your neighbours because what they are doing is bordering on harassment.

I think you're projecting your own situation onto the OP.
OP's neighbours are not harassing her. If anything, it's the other way round.

Whatever their grievances, they should not put them publicly on Facebook, and should not verbally abuse you. However, if that's the sort of thing they do, then a face-to-face meeting is likely to make matters worse. They are being unreasonable if they think that you can simply force your toddler to be quiet; but you are perhaps being unreasonable in not looking more into logistic solutions. It sounds as though their main and most reasonable problem is with the early-morning waking. Could you take your toddler downstairs, or at least further away from the neighbour's room, and supervise his play when he wakes up? Might it even be possible for you to change bedrooms with him, or somehow move him into a room where he won't be so audible to the neighbours? Would a thick carpet in his room muffle the sound? All of these possibilities are likely to involve some trouble and inconvenience to you, but not as much as constantly worrying about the neighbours. I'd advise against shouting at your son, difficult as it may be to control: it's IMO unlikely to work at this age, and may set a noisy example, so that he starts shouting as well as banging.

I feel sorry for you as have been in a similar position. Not easy keeping a two year old tantrum quiet. We used to have neighbour banging on floor (in flat), all it did was stress us out more and also made son more upset. Found ourselves pandering to the tantrum just to try to keep him quiet...Not good in the long term!

Ultimately, try to do what you can to minimise noise but also try not to let it get to you when you can't. Your child is a child and will grow out of the tantrums, but your neighbours are adults making a conscious decision to be tw*ts!

I agree with the comment that the OP’s DH, who isn’t working, should be getting up in the morning when their toddler wakes up and taking him downstairs, where there is that wonderful TV channel called CBeebies to entertain him.

That would make the OP less stressed and liable to shout at her DS. The shouting might be more of an issue to the neighbours than the DS waking up.

It is simple:

1. Buy a carpet if you have wooden floors or similar
2. The minute he wakes up make it into a game of who can be most like a mouse, as not wake the animals as it is early and creep down the stairs.
3. Switch on childrens TV and make him some breakfast. I am assuming he can play quietly downstairs
4. leave a pot plant and an apology from your little boy for your neighbour and make every effort to be quieter in future

I don't think you are being reasonable to simply shrug and say it can't be helped. What would you expect to get out of the meeting op, it is 5.30am they are getting exhausted because of your child, and it is affecting their wellbeing, of course you must sort this out.

After a few months of peace and quiet I expect relations to improve drastically with them.

I have a neighbour whos 6 year old throws full on screaming fits from the moment she wakes up its amazing when shes in scho but come 3 shes home and screaming and mum screaming back weekends shes bouncing round the upstairs like a baby elephant i feel like shes in my house , but ive never complained , what would be the point , i dont know if the child has any problems and how do you explain to a child that theyre annoying the neighbours . Apart from laying carpet upstairs and soundproofing the adjoining walls theres not much you can do . Make your apologies which you have and just hope as your little one grows it quietens down but quite honestly ive never met one who makes no noise xx

Suggestion for the OP, if you’re following this thread, as another mum who had an early rising toddler. You might find that if you put your DS to bed later, and persevere with this because it doesn’t change things immediately, that before too long he will start waking up later.

My DD2 (now 7) is no longer an early riser at all, so there is hope that it will pass.

It's hell being woken when you have to sleep, so I sympathize with your neighbours being woken too early.

How to soundproof your house

My instinct would be to start with flooring, but I'm not an expert.

I do think it's a bit weird to let your toddler play unsupervised at 5.30am btw.

I think the OP should try some of the suggestions here of course but the way the neighbours have dealt with it wouldn't make me feel very obliging to be honest.
They really should consider moving to the middle of nowhere. I have the feeling if it wasn't this it would be something else.
I have a toddler who sometimes makes noise but ALL my neighbours do regardless of life stage. If it isn't my toddlers it's their teenagers/dogs/multiple cars driving up /big extensions being built. The noise police in semis need to unclench and get on with it.

I'd hate to live next door to this.

You should be trying to keep him quiet at 5.30! Take him downstairs, find something to do with him that's quiet.

This is all moot as it's yet another post where the OP doesn't come back.

I have no advice really, but my daughter is 4, imnin the process of getting her assed for autism and adhd, she has mega meltdowns quite often! She will bang on the walls ect.. I've had no complaints as of yet, but then again next door have a massive noisy windchime that really pisses me off that they won't remove so stuff them 🤣

Because I’m a bitch I would have replied on facebook with a screenshot of all their abusive posts. Abuse is never on.

Having said that, however, if your toddler is making so much noise someone can hear it through a wall that’s too much noise. If this were me I would have tried adjusting bedtimes to ensure toddler wasn’t waking up at 5:30am or at the very least taking them downstairs.

My neighbours complain because my husband has a shower at 5.30 on workdays - he has an early start and is NOT going to work without a shower. tough - fuck em. Send them some earplugs. Let them move.

Wow the vast majority of the replying posters here are completely dickish.

Haters gonna hate OP. Kids are gonna be kids. These people are the kind of people that will always have a problem no matter what it is.

Don’t like small children noise early in the morning?? Don’t live in a fucking semi detached!!!!

Your being a bit unreasonable here tbh. Our 10mth old is teething and up screaming all night. I take him away from rooms likely to be heard by neighbours in. I also apologised and asked them to let me know if it was bothering th em and I'd try and do something (no idea what though). They were lovely but tbh I'd have understood of they hadn't of been.

We don't know that they've been told exactly what the problem is. They assume that it's just the waking up and jumping about, but she also said that he has tantrums, he's 2 so that's par for the course, and they can happen at any time of the day. What she and her DH want to know is is it just the 5.30am or is it all of having a noisy two-year-old living next door. That's fair enough.

There's also an assumption that neither she nor DH gets up to deal with their DS. We don't know this. The fact is that assuming they do get up, there will still be noise from when they hear him, when they pull themselves out of bed, talk to him and take him downstairs or whatever they do at that point. Five minutes of noise, which is a fair amount of time to hear and get up and deal with, maybe what the neighbours are complaining about. I'm assuming that's what they want to know. Or is it that and other noises their DS makes.

They've sought help, they're trying to do the right thing, being rude and telling the OP that she is horrible, etc, is really unhelpful and if she has left the thread I really don't blame her. Yes, it's really difficult living next door to noise, but if people aren't prepared to sit down and talk about it and if those people then go on to shame their neighbours on a public forum, then I think it's fair to say that the neighbours aren't exactly nice people

I can hear my neighbour snoring, it actually stops me getting to sleep but i am a really light sleeper, the slightest wee thing wakes me up. But 5.30 is far too early, that would piss me off too tbf. If OP has tried everything to keep him quiet then maybe that's why she's trying to meet up with them to explain. If they don't have kids they should get earplugs.

Can you swap rooms or move bed away from neighbours wall?
Is there carpet down?
Essentially though you need to set your alarm for 5 and be ready to take him down stairs before he’s jumping about.

I am more fascinated at these neighbours having phone numbers to text.

This is second post seen that I have lived next to mine for 5 years and never exchanged numbers

• carpets no floorboards or laminate
• bedroom moved to the other side
• get up when your toddler wakes

- take him downstairs

• put children’s tv on

-give him breakfast

Let the neighbours sleep! They don’t care why he is doing it. They just want you to stop it. A ‘meeting’ is pointless. If you are willing to do some things to change then do it, they don’t bloody care what it is!! No wonder they don’t want to meet with you. They sound like they are at their wits end to be honest.