Im curious to hear what other people think of this situation and how they would personally handle it.
We get on with our neighbours relatively well, they have four children, two of which are the same age as two of ours and they all play together regularly out the front of our house as we live at the end of a culdesac.
The only time we really knock on their door is if we have a parcel we have taken in for them, maybe very occasionally about something else but we don't like to bother them especially as they have a disabled daughter who requires a lot of care. The husband however, is knocking on our door almost every day, half the time just for a chat, to which he has his youngest with him who he will allow to just run into our house and start playing/getting toys out ect. On occasions it's been really bad timing, for example we have literally just had a baby start of September, on the days leading up to having our new baby I had to go into hospital for reduced movements and so my partner had to come home from work and do tea and get our children to bed. Whilst he was making tea the husband knocked on the door with two of his children AND his dog which have all come steaming into the house, we have a 10 month old dog ourselves who was super excited to have another dog in the house and was going hyper active so my partner had to shut him in the kitchen where he was then going crazy trying to get out, all whilst the neighbour allowed his dog to run all around our house going on our sofa which we don't even allow our dog to do (because of having young children). My partners tried telling him that I am in hospital and so he's trying to get everything sorted before it's late so it’s not the best time but he still just stands there chatting letting his kids make a huge mess and the dog run round whilst ours is locked in the kitchen going crazy.
The latest incident was yesterday, I am home alone with our 3 year old, 3 week old baby and the dog. Our baby has quite bad colic at the moment, so around midday I spent 2 hours trying to settle him and get him to sleep which finally to my relief I did. As I go to finally make lunch for me and my daughter he knocks on the door with his youngest and asks if I want to have her to play for half an hour, I respond with the fact we were just about to have our lunch. He responded with 'aw she'll be ok, it's 1:30pm now so if I grab her around 2:30pm?' At this point she's already ran in the house and woke up the baby who's now screaming again, I'm stood holding the dog at the front door who's super excited and can feel myself about to burst into tears from where I had a real bad night sleep with the baby and being mentally exhausted from just trying to get him down for the last two hours, whilst still needing to give my 3 year old lunch. Anyway he leaves and I let go of the dog who goes crashing into their little girl as he's so excited by now (she is 3 too), so I have to lock him in the kitchen to which he is howling the house down as he wants to get out, this then means I definitely can't get the baby back down as the dog just keeps waking him up but I can't let the dog out incase he hurts the little girl. So I can't go into the kitchen to finish making lunch because I have the baby in my arms now and so my daughter ends up having lunch close to 3pm when he finally picks her up. Sorry this has gone into a massive rant I know - but it just seems to be endless at the moment.
I just wouldn't put things like this onto other people, let alone when they have just had a baby? It's not just the children/dog running into our house either, they constantly use our drive when they've never asked if that's ok, their children make a game of throwing things over the fence into our garden which our dog constantly finds, on occasion it's been things that if he ate it could of potentially hurt him, the husband is constantly leant over our fence as well so he can chat so we get no privacy whenever we're out there, they got a new puppy a couple days after we came home with the baby which is obviously fine but they let him cry from about 3am onwards until they wake up which keeps me awake after I've already been awake with the baby feeding in the night - I'm so so exhausted. The husband even joked about the fact they're having an extension built start of October so I won't be able to get any sleep in the day now either.
I just don't know how to handle this situation. Am I just unsociable and moody for being like this or is this situation reasonable to be stressed out about? The thing is, we see them near enough every day. The last thing I want is to fall out with them and make things awkward by being firmer with the husband, the children get on well and I do get on with the mum as well - the main problem is the husband. I don't want to cause an atmosphere but at the same time I am at breaking point, how does someone handle this situation without making it awkward?