Neighbours banging wall at night

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Just looking for opinions on this, I don’t think we are in the wrong but I’m struggling to understand why neighbours are acting this way.

My 16 month old is going through a bad sleep regression and teething. It means 2am and we are awake with lots of tears. I go straight in and try to calm things down but it can take a while at the minute so it might go on for about 30 minutes and worst case scenario an hour on and off.

im trying everything I can to settle them but now my neighbours have started banging the wall, I presume to let us know they have been woken. Which I understand is frustrating but I’m not sure what they are wanting to achieve.

are they just horrible people, should I say something? They haven’t liked us since we moved in due to Diy during the day in the first month we moved however not during unsociable hours.

aibu to be annoyed or are they?

It's a baby fgs. Babies cry at all times, we all know this. Yes, it might disturb them for a while but its just a stage. They are grown adults.

Do not buy them anything! Why would you reward this behaviour. And where will it stop? Ignore them but if they continue to bang, send your husband round to have a very firm word with them, or you could tell them to f off

Don't give them gifts or mess up your night by taking your toddler downstairs in the night. How does that help you settle them?

If they want to live somewhere without neighbour noise then they need to buy a detached house. If they can't afford to then they need to suck up hearing neighbour noise. It's a crying baby, not an all night raver.

They don't even have the decency to knock during the day and talk to you, they just bang on the wall, it's aggressive and shouldn't be encouraged. "They must be exhausted"?? They're not the ones actually getting up with a toddler. OP is the exhausted one who should show compassion to their neighbours despite their neighbours not showing compassion to them? No.

They'll hear the OP moving around. It's outrageous behaviour banging on the wall in the middle of the night. The neighbours should be checking the OP is okay in the morning, not the other way round.

I guess they might be horrible people who have forgotten that young children cry sometimes and want to cause more upset and tension.

But I think it's more likely that they've been quite polite for 16 months and are just fed up of being woken. I imagine they lie there listening for a little while, getting more and more wound up, wondering why she's still crying after 30 mins, wondering why you aren't taking her to another room, and one of them bangs to let you know that they can hear and it's affecting them, incase you don't realise that the walls are thinking enough for the sound to travel.

As next door neighbours I think it's a shame neither of you feel able to have a conversation about it. People generally don't want to be horrible. I would apologise actually, and explain that you're doing everything you can and that you're hoping it's temporary. Sometimes just seeing the other person's point of view in a human way is all that's needed.

I do sympathise with the neighbours.
I feel any situation which creates a lot of disturbance- DIY, building work, baby crying- is always best placated with an explanation and apology, preferably before it happens (not always possible with a baby). I don’t think it’s okay to create that amount of noise and just say nothing.
tbh I’m always much more amenable if someone explains and seems considerate.
I live in a village and it’s the norm for local teenagers to put a note through doors before a big party, and it’s considerate and reassuring.
id go round with chocs personally.

Their behaviour is shit but I really do sympathise with them. I really struggle to get back to sleep when I'm woken in the night and it's even worse when it's a noise that's totally out of my control.

I think you need to take DD in another room to minimise the disruption.

But her neighbours are not showing any empathy for her so why should she show any for them?

Because she's the problem.

You need to move YOUR child away from the adjoining walls op. This is your problem to solve, and minimise the disturbance to your neighbours. Waking them every night because you chose to have children is not acceptable and they don't have to suck it up.

If you came with that attitude to me, I'd be ordering jamo speakers and tapes of crying babies and waking your household at 5am every morning your child slept through.

The OP should absolutely NOT use a dummy if she doesn’t want to. She should not adapt her parenting to the needs of another adult. When you were a baby, how did you express your needs? Verbally? No. By crying. It’s a fact of human development that we need to express our needs by crying. It’s evolution and survival and can not nor should not be suppressed. The adults with fully developed brains should learn to regulate themselves, adapt and use their fully developed frontal cortex to do some rationale thinking. Not aggressively attack parents for doing …. Parenting!!!

Only if you view a crying baby as a ‘problem’ rather than a non verbal human being with needs. This is the neighbours problem. The OP is just living life. Not doing anything wrong. We lived in a terraced house and you just have to accept that there will be noise at times. It’s only anti social behaviour that should prompt action. This is not that.

When my son was little, I had neighbours on both sides and above. When he woke in the night I'd bring him in with me as didn't think it was fair to wake everyone up.
I think banging on the wall is a bit harsh - and not at all helpful. But if it's happening a lot I think you might need to re think your middle of night strategy (not easy when you're probably sleep deprived yourself). I knew my bathroom was the quietist place as only had upstairs joined and no bedrooms nearby so if things were really kicking off we went in there. Do you have an area you can go to? Downstairs/kitchen maybe?

Or the adults with fully developed thinking capacity and power to act could get ear plugs?

We ALL cried and kept adults awake as babies and as adults it’s then our responsibility to accept that babies cry. It’s just life. You just sometimes have to accept and adapt to changing circumstances.

She may not be doing anything wrong but the noise is still causing a problem for her neighbours so she needs to do as much as possible to prevent that.

Not everyone can wear earplugs. I can't - they cause impacted wax and ear infections.

You and your child are not doing anything wrong. But, accidentally and without intention, you are creating a tough situation for your neighbours. They may have other issues in their life that are making them less tolerant than they usually would be (and have been over the past 16 months). They may have the sort of job that requires full concentration the next day. It is time to instigate a chat. I never understand people who refuse to apologise. As I say to my children, even if it's unintentional, you can still apologise for the situation.

I have no idea whether I cried as I was a baby (although my mother always told me I was a much better baby than my sister 😏). But I am 100% sure that my parents did not let me disturb the neighbours night after night, on and off for an hour around 2am! People tend not to do their best rational thinking at 2am when they are sleep deprived from their neighbour's child crying. Night after night. Neither is the mother in the best position, being similarly sleep deprived, but possibly not expecting to work full time the next day. 18 months old is not a baby - they are significantly louder than babies - for me an 18 month old is a toddler. Their capacity for shouting and crying is SO much more than a baby of a few months old. I was not aggressively attacking anyone. Just putting the view forward that if I were the next door neighbour, I would be very unhappy at the lack of consideration.

Could your neighbours wear ear plugs?

Great way to escalate the situation even further.
What about when baby finally decides to start sleeping and neighbours decide to start playing music at top volume as revenge?

Neither of you are unreasonable -baby can't communicate any other way, but it's incredibly annoying not to be able to sleep. It doesn't matter if OP is morally in the right, that won't help anything. If you actually want to improve neighbourly relations you should speak to them. It doesn't have to be a grovelling apology and there might not be any solutions to offer but it's better than both of you banging the wall and pissing each other off more!

I have just realised from reading posts that Picturequestion is not capable of "rationale" thought, as she only comes from one perspective. Everyone else who has sympathy for the neighbours, ALSO has sympathy for the mother and toddler. Not Picturequestion. So I am now discounting her responses to this post.

I feel sorry for my adjoining neighbours (even though they are absolutely horrible people). My baby had silent reflux and screamed 24/7 only sleeping for between 5-45 minutes at a time. This went on for months. He was never left alone to cry, I paced with him day and night, but he screamed anyway. My neighbours never once complained (they just complained about everything else!)

She’s comforting the baby. That’s all she needs to do.

Sorry if this has been mentioned before but why don't you just move the cot etc into your room?
Or move the pair of you downstairs for a while?

Seems the obvious thing to do until this stage is over.

Or would that wake your partner and he wants an undisturbed night.... mmmm.

How long has it been going on for? I know you've mentioned this week has been worse but has it been going on for weeks/months? You need to take baby downstairs to minimise the noise. Yes it inconveniences you but it's your baby, not your neighbours. A couple of nights yes you can put up with it. But if it's been for weeks/months they have been putting up with it if the banging has only just started. Of course it's not the right way to deal with it, and they are being unreasonable to bang. You're angry. If they'd knocked onto complain about it though would you be angry or feeling guilty? It would've been nicer for them to knock of course but depending on how your response was when they complained about the DIY noise they may not have been that keen to.

I would write a note and say sorry the baby's crying at night he's only little but the banging isn't helping and makes it worse.

If you'd like to come round for a chat and think of solutions then please come for a cuppa tea.

Personally, when I live in places with party walls that transmit neighbour noise easily I get a) fed up of hearing them and b) paranoid they can hear my every move. Usually I use that wall for the wardrobe or a bookshelf to block sound.

I've got a friend being badly bothered by noise and also wonder if a simple and effective 'fix' is to mount some kind of plasterboard or fire proof MDF with a layer of dense foam or polystyrene or something behind it.

I think you should speak to them, apologise and reassure them that you're doing everything you can to stop her crying in the night. There's not much more you can practically do really. I sympathise with them hugely, but some level of disturbance is inevitable when you live in a house with an adjoining wall. You can't get through life without being inconvenienced by other people in some way, most people are trying their best I think.

The OP should absolutely NOT use a dummy if she doesn’t want to. She should not adapt her parenting to the needs of another adult. When you were a baby, how did you express your needs? Verbally? No. By crying. It’s a fact of human development that we need to express our needs by crying. It’s evolution and survival and can not nor should not be suppressed. The adults with fully developed brains should learn to regulate themselves, adapt and use their fully developed frontal cortex to do some rationale thinking. Not aggressively attack parents for doing …. Parenting!!!

Really ridiculous comment the next door neighbours don't have to pander to the parents decisions to have children. The neighbours may have particular needs that means they need more sleep e.g epilepsy. The world does not revolve around children I think some adults forget that there needs to be compromise all round and if it's been going on for a while and the neighbours have only just started complaining I think they've done their fair share of putting up with it