To let my kids be loud outside?

[Imtheterribleneighbour]

When my kids were babies the house next door was sold. The new owners were noisy, music on outside, car doors slamming at 2 in the morning, nothing serious just annoying. I asked them a couple of times if the could be considerate but it made no difference.

Now they have a baby and my kids play outside. They aren’t too bad, a little bit of shouting but the bouncing of a basketball is now the soundtrack to my life. I had a note a few weeks ago asking to limit the kids outside but ignored it. The neighbour has just been around and asked if my kids could stop bouncing the ball in the yard. I said as I already limit when they can be outside (it’s 830 - 845 in the morning and 330 -730 in the afternoon during the week and 930 - 800 on weekends) it’s not constantly happening in those times but limited to. I have said no you just have to live with it. He got upset as it’s annoying and wakes the baby. I said I understand as we had the same issue with them when the kids were little, but they will just have to live with it like we did.
Am I being unreasonable?

Exactly this.

Yanbu. I had neighbours like this once. They moaned they could hear my baby crying. Short of sedating my child there wasn't much I could do. Some people are weird.

This ^.

Their child will likely be just as noisy when your DC are studying for exams etc and they won’t give a toss.

Ignore people saying do the neighbourly thing - your neighbours have done sweet sod all to deserve it.

It's perfectly reasonable for your kids to play in the garden during reasonable hours.

As long as they are t screaming and screeching.

Your neighbours are both unreasonable and unrealistic.

So what you're saying is, you're absolutely no better than they are.

In fact, as far as noise annoyance goes, you're much worse.

You could make them. I would. No ball games are allowed in my garden.

And in 10 years time there will be a thread saying “my neighbours are complaining about my children making noise because their children are revising, but when mine was a baby I asked them to scale the outside noise back a bit and they did nothing. Am I unreasonable”

the Op is just as selfish as the neighbour. Possibly more given it seems it was a party once a month or so and doors shutting so not the same level of constant

Just to clarify they don’t play outside all the times listed. Those are the limits of when they can play outside. They are outdoors maybe 10 minutes in the morning, and two hours in the afternoon during the week. The weekend is a bit of a mix. Some days four hours outside some days one hour.
The neighbours don’t want any ball bouncing.

I did ask the neighbours not to be so noisy and I was ignored.

If they had respected me I would limit the boys to one hour a day.

But after reading the responses on here I will stop the morning play, and limit two hours at a time then take at least an hour break.

The screaming was not mentioned in the original post, only since.

I thought YANBU until I read they only played the music once a month until 11pm. Now I feel sorry for them.

Anyone other than your neighbours I'd consider you being unreasonable. However, in this case, they reap what they sow.

So you've effectively turned into them before they knew better? In your head, you are punishing them and their small baby for how you felt in the past. Did you ever ask them to be more considerate then, by the way?

You admit that the sound of the ball drives you mad, but you are prepared to let it go on because it disturbs your neighbours and that gives you pleasure.

What about the rest of the neighbourhood having to listen to this relentless ball pounding noise?

What about the selfish attitude you are encouraging in your boys? They are gleefully upsetting people's rest and peace with their mum's encouragement. What's that doing for their empathy and manners?

Time to grow up OP. Move on and be a better person. Set a better example for your kids.

YABVVU about the ball bouncing. It’s an incredibly annoying noise. Personally I wouldn’t dream of letting my kids play basketball anywhere other than on a court. Massively antisocial.

YANBU about other general play noise.

My house used to be the house where all the kids were playing ball games. Now my kids are older and don't do it, but a neighbours kids play basketball and make a fair bit of noise. It doesn't bother me at all, children growing up and playing is a part of life. People moan about children staying in on screens all the time, yet also don't want them to be noisy outside?

That sounds like normal kids playing to me. The times of day are perfectly reasonable and it’s all within the bounds of what you should learn to put up with if you live near other people. It’s great your kids are playing sport rather than on their iPads all day. I have a baby too and if something noisy is going on outside that might wake her I put her in the other side of the house.

I'm not sure that 4 hours every weekday and 11 hours every weekend day is exactly limiting the amount of time they can make noise. I'd go bloody mad if I were your neighbour.

Why stop your children having fun doing a healthy physical activity? I rather mine were out playing than on screen.

The times you have set in place are reasonable.

Your kids are being healthy and active kids. As long as they aren't fighting and shrieking, I seriously don't see the problem.

Listen to kids play is part of living in a community.

I'd explain that you do have house rules on when they can play basketball, and ask about the baby's sleep times. If the baby goes down at 7pm, then changing your 7.30 to 7 wouldn't be a big deal.
If they'd been perfect neighbours in the past, that's probably what you'd do, and there's a lot to be said for letting bygones be bygones. Later on I expect theirs will be making a racket when yours have exams the next day, and hopefully your compromise now will help then.

Me too, 10.5 hours of bloody ball bouncing on a Saturday and a Sunday and the boinnng of it going through the hoop would make me feel murderous.
We had hours of trampolining for years from our neighbours, I resorted to wearing headphones or ear plugs when out in the garden.
I often think I was happier living far away from neighbours M

I'm always worried about making too much noise. But my neighbours don't give a fuck. I worry about it but then part of me feels sad that kids aren't allowed to play put like we used to. Along as it's not constant let them carry on. It will be their kid in few years doing it too....

Good kids get to play outside once not doing that constant screaming non stop at the top of their lungs and parents just ignore it, seems to be a new thing and so annoying but more annoying is the constant bouncing of a ball as it goes through your head. A football not as annoying unless they are kicking it against your fence. I would limit the time they use basketball out of respect as that is what makes good neighbours. Surely to god they can play outside and do something else without the basketball all the time. Try to be the better person.

YANBU Yes, kids playing with a ball in the garden is annoying. We’ve recently moved to a farm from an estate with 3 boys and a goalpost in the garden behind us and we definitely don’t miss it! But they’re kids and we were surrounded by noise. I let my daughter make noise in the garden because nobody else seemed to stop it.

As another poster said, their kid will be annoying you in a few years so let them at it 🤣 babies don’t tend to wake with that kind of noise anyway!

Depends how constant the basketball bouncing is really. Do they only play basketball out there?

I think the neighbours ate being a little unreasonable. I have a small baby and sometimes she's woken by kids playing outside. That's life. I'm not going to stop them playing.