Staying quiet around a sleeping baby

[Moofighter]

Hi everyone. Just wanted your thoughts. I have a big family and at one stage or another someone's younger baby/ toddler has been sleeping in another room. Is it unreasonable to ask the younger grand children ( all boys under 8) to be super quiet? Some of my family go over the top with this and although the grandchildren won't scream intentionally, they make some noise. They are just kids themselves and wouldn't shout at them to stay quiet. What do other's do or think?

YABU

I think there's a big difference between 'white noise' type background noises (tv, music, the hum of people chatting, ambient noises of children playing), and loud shrieking screaming up and down noises which tend to startle babies. If it's the latter, I think the grandchildren should be told to lower the volume a bit or go play loudly elsewhere!

You don’t have to shout at them to be quiet but of course it’s reasonable to ask them to keep the noise or a certain amount. They shouldn’t be screaming their heads off anyway for the neighbours sake as well as someone sleeping.
I love all these “babies will sleep through anything”! Maybe yours but absolutely not mine.
To be fair I wouldn’t want to sleep with someone hovering around me so I can’t blame a baby.
All babies do not sleep through loads of noise, that’s just total rubbish.

Screaming? No, and not just when the baby is asleep. Normal family chatter, running feet etc is fine.

I think routines are great for some babies and children, we wouldnt have it any other way. He knows what to expect and when.

As a baby, we used to aim for his naps to be around the same time, we found a routine that worked for everyone being happier, so we kept to it.

I would never in a million years expect another household/guest to be quiet to accomodate this though.

Sorry, when I said " screaming kids" I did mean the noise that 4 or 5 young boys boys would make together when running around and playing. I can completely understand the anxiety of the mother but when does it ever end!? The children did lower their voices but it wasn't enough. I think parents can have rules in their own households but surely the expectation is different at someone else's place, like the grandparent's home? I was being a bit sensitive when I originally posted as it just ruined the atmosphere 😔.

Nah I had a 15 month old when DS a was born, he slept fine in his basket whilst DD Aran around like a loon. YANBU

'Ran'

And we did end up making more noise than the children when I told my sibling they were being unreasonable 🙈.

Clearly there are some exceptions but most babies won't be disturbed by noise outside of their room, so no I wouldn't ask for quiet. But I would ask them to not go into the room or make sudden loud noises right outside the door.

For those saying “mine slept fine through background noise”…. You either have a baby like this or you don’t. It’s luck. Why do you think people ask for quiet if they have a difficult sleeper? Just for the sake of it? Unless you’ve had a baby who wakes at a pin drop then screams for hours on end you won’t understand but please don’t be smug enough to feel it was your relaxed attitude and allowing background noise that got you there. DD took hours, and I mean hours to get to nap for all of about 15 minutes and it was soul destroying. Even when she was a year old I couldn’t literally walk up the carpeted stairs outside her closed bedroom door as it would wake her up. She’s a brilliant sleeper now so she’s sorted herself out, but I get the rage around smugness of “I kept the tv on and my baby slept”. You clearly had an easier baby, luck nothing more.

This is the thing though isn’t it, everyone always assumes their parenting experience is universal if they’ve only had one or if they had more than one of the same.

For example, DD needs a dark place (room, pram, car, whatever) to sleep. We only figured that out after six months of nightmare napping and now at 2 she has a shade for her car seat and a portable blackout blind that goes wherever we go. DS on the other hand is quite happy to nap in daylight, which we discovered when we had him and thought ‘let’s try with no blind for naps’ and hey presto, he sleeps anyway.

If you’d had 2 of my DSs you might tell me I’d made a rod for my own back with DD and the blind but it’s just down to the kids at the end of the day, they’re individuals. Not everything can be explained away as nurture trumping nature.

Anyway - to the OP, yes it’s not really appropriate to get pissy about naps when you’re with family, you either take kids off for a nap in the pram or just accept it’ll be a shit nap day and so be it. And I say that as someone who has stressed about naptime more than I would like!

We did have fairly rigid evening bed times but nobody had to be super quiet. Learning to sleep through normal family background noise is a useful skill later in life.

Rather than get into an argument surely the 5 boys would be better off playing outside in the garden or park? Can't imagine them running around in the house being much fun for the adults either. I wouldn't want it in my house. Either get them doing something quiet like Lego or playdough or get them outside. Not fair to be telling them to be quiet and sit still but also very stressful for the mum of the non sleeping baby. One of mine was a very light sleeper and it does set you on the edge. The poor mum probably hasn't had a nights sleep for months so try to be considerate.

I don't think it's a learned skill though. Some people are just heavier sleepers than others.

This is just rude and unnecessary though.

There is a middle ground between expecting absolute silence and then just being a dick when someone has a bad sleeper and is struggling with sleep deprivation because ‘I won’t ask kids to be quiet’. It’s completely normal to expect only quieter voices indoor, if they were running around they could have been directed to the garden.
Making a massive issue and being louder than shouting kids just because someone as asked for some consideration for a sleeping baby is just dick behaviour.

I wouldn't like running about screaming whether a baby was napping or not, but definitely no one being super quiet. Normal household activities continued in my house or nothing would have got done.

I think if you have a baby that needs absolute silence to nap then taking them to a family meet up where there will be half a dozen young children is not going to work. Either the baby needs to be taken away for nap time or the other children do.

Agree with this. Getting into a shouting match with a sleep deprived parent over their baby's sleep is pretty unpleasant. Just let them have their own way on this one issue. It sounds as though you don't want them at the family gathering.

We never did the tiptoe thing. My BIL and SIL did and to be frank it was annoying that we all had to pander to their childcare routines which were rigid.

My two sleep through anything now!

It only ended up that way because one of the children opened the door downstairs and was promptly told to close it. Because noise might travel upstairs rolling my eyes. They were being pretty reasonable at that point.

In the end the children did end up outside in a park ( sadly no real garden to play in) and the little one slept well.

Encouraging quietness, making sure they aren't playing right by where baby is asleep yes, silence/no noise......no.

It's not fair to assume you can train a baby to sleep through lots of loud noise though.

You can't. I tried! One of mine sleeps like the dead, you can set a fire alarm off by his bed and he won't flinch. His younger sister, who had to put up with far more noise when sleeping as a baby, stirs very easily if there's a lot of noise, always has.

You also can't train children to sleep in light either. My eldest who will sleep through noise really struggles to sleep if its light (I do too). He is a real lark and wakes with the sun. My youngest however is far less light sensitive.

I'm never quiet when my son is sleeping sometimes I hoover the room he's sleeping in but it never bothers him. He will happily fall asleep in his pushchair at disco's

It won't do the baby any favours in the future

No, it's not that I didn't want them there. It was just almost impossible to expect a group of excitable children to be quiet for 1 sleeping child. They did their best. I remember being a frazzled parent but surely there has to be some understanding both ways?

And I'm new to Mumsnet so may not have replied to individual posts correctly. Thank you for everyone's input, it has helped put my thoughts into perspective.