Neighbours kids playing outside early…

[FooFightersFan]

It’s the school holidays and I appreciate that by starting this thread I’m going to sound like a right grump, but here goes…

Our garden backs onto two houses, both of which are owned by couples with young kids. All four parents work from home full time.

The kids (youngest 3, all primary school aged) regularly play outside in the gardens. The houses are new build with literally no plants or shrubs. Just lawn surrounded by fence / brick walls. The noise just bounces around as there is nothing to ‘absorb’ it.

I accept that they are noisy when they play because they are young, energetic and kids!

Now that the school summer holidays are well under way, it’s become apparent that getting up and out into the garden at 8am is their routine. And they shout. A lot.
Then at 10am they go inside and there is silence for a while.

I can deal with it, I have 2 kids and I appreciate that’s what kids are like.

and here’s the “but”…

My son works full time and his room overlooks our back garden. He works 12 hour shifts a lot of days, in hospitality. Most shifts mean he is home around 11pm and in bed by midnight. He’s getting increasingly fed up with the neighbour kids’ morning routine.

During term time, the outside playing is just at the weekend. But now it’s a daily occurrence due to the holidays, I really feel for my son, because being woken up 90 mins before he needs to be up for his next shift is pretty miserable.

WIBU to message or pop round to my neighbours and see if they can encourage their kids to be quieter (a big ask) or to not let them out before 9:00.

I’ve become that grumpy neighbour 😩

You could ask them, but I don't think 8am is that bad. Can you son sleep elsewhere in the house? Otherwise noise cancelling headphones, I've slept in them for years with noisy kids downstairs running around at 1am!

Tell him to wear earplugs...easy solution which won't impact on the lives of your neighbours or cause bad feeling.

I would not have let my kids do shouty play outside at 8am because I know that other people might be sleeping. It's possible for children to learn to think about others. I'm sure the parents would ask the kids to be quiet if they had been working nights.

I think 9am would be reasonable.

That said, earplugs are the best solution (for many things in life in fact!).

I hate noisy morning people, but I think 8am on a weekday is acceptable. I'd day 10am on a weekend

White noise will be your sons friend.

Alexa plays it (ask her to play sleep sounds)
I work shifts, and obviously people continue to live their lives, but a new neighbour has 5 children, love hearing them in the garden, but her youngest has 1 volume, and it's foghorn, I genuinely don't know how he manages to be so loud, not his fault, but so frustrating when he wakes or keeps me up, a bit of rain white noise and my brain doesn't even register any outside noise and I have the best sleep.

Don't ruin neighbour relationships if you can, and try other options, it's only a few weeks.

Equally 8am is late when you’ve been awake since 5:30am.

It’s a few weeks a year, probably won’t be an issue on rainy days and is just one of those things you have to put up with. Same as sometimes people have parties outside and keep preschoolers from their usual bedtimes. Sometimes people come home from their late night shifts in hospitality and rev engines, slam car doors, talk outside and make a racket.

I think you sound incredibly precious about your son - he’s a grown man, he has options to reduce the noise and he presumably chose the job. “I really feel for my son, because being woken up 90 mins before he needs to be up for his next shift is pretty miserable” - no it isn’t that miserable at 8am when he’s had eight hours of sleep already and not even tried ear plugs yet.

I think you need a bargaining chip!

Maybe one of your household should take up a new musical instrument. Violin, bagpipes, trumpet or similar and take to practising outdoors for a couple hours a day, near their boundary. Win, win. Either you learn a new skill or the neighbours may come round to ask you to practise indoors and you strike a compromise with their child noise.

8am is a perfectly reasonable time to be out playing in the garden. It’s not like it’s 5-6am.
The children shouldn’t have to accommodate for this. His working hours are irrelevant. Your son could try earplugs or closing the window? When I worked night shifts I didn’t expect people to stop their daily activities on my behalf.

Get a new job 🤣
Buy ear plugs
What time is his car coming and going?
I mean we all have to be reasonable.
I love the sound of kids outside playing screaming, it is life

I wonder how he'd cope if he lived on a school route?

Tonnes of parents, school kids, toddlers etc come past my bedroom window from 7.40am every day, during term time.

You just learn to plug your ears and get on with it.

8am is a perfectly normal time to be up and about during the week. It's not your neighbours' fault that your son works late.

I've done my share of late nights and early mornings and it was my issue to deal with, not someone else's.

We are the only family with children in our immediate neighbourhood. The kids are older now, but when they were younger I didn't let them in the garden until 9. I think 8am is too early and I'd be pissed off if our neighbours mowed the lawn every day at 9, or did something else equally noisy.

There are alternatives to asking the neighbours kids to be quiet - which by the way, is impossible and rude.

You swap bedrooms.
He wears earbuds.
He plays white noise.
You move where you have No neighbours.
He finds a 9-5 job.

@ll09sm I can't stand parents letting their kids scream whether it's 8am or 1pm.

We used to live on a new build estate (have since moved to the middle of nowhere - I highly recommend). Our neighbours from every angle had younger children and in the summer holidays it was constant noise. Incessant noise in the street when I was trying to wfh in the living room, noise from both back gardens either side, my fence was eventually knocked down from constant footballs being hit off it, my car was wrecked from kids throwing stones at each other and hitting it... my own younger children (babies at the time) were woken up all the time from the screaming from 7/8am until gone dark during the summer. It was honestly hell on earth. Before I had my own children and had thr luxury of sleeping in, I never could in summer as the noise from the gardens and the street was just truly awful. That being said, I didn't ever complain about it (apart from the stones damaging my car) as the children aren't actually being unreasonable. I guess the parents are in a way by not being more respectful of others on a small estate... but you can't force them to be. As a previous poster said, people are very entitled these days. Yes 'kids will be kids' but not allowing your kids to do what they want all the time and to have an awareness of noise and other people is also important and helps them to become respectful adults - unfortunately most parents don't get that these days. We have since moved to the middle of nowhere where all I can hear is birds and a stream and sheep. It really is the only way to guarantee peace. Even though it takes me 45 min to get to a decent shop and 30 min to get my children to school, I don't regret it for a second purely because I don't have to deal with other people as neighbours!

Poor wee lamb. I work 45 hours a week with a 1 hour commute 5 days and then on my days off I care for my disabled DD to give her husband a wee break. I wouldn't dream of asking my neighbours to keep their kids indoors just so I could sleep past 8am. Kids need to be allowed to be kids without neighbours whinging at them

Or sleep in a room that doesn't overlook the garden.

I agree with that, some good ear plugs will dull the sound.

I am also amazed and in awe that the neighbours' children are up and dressed so early. Mine always loved his bed :-), it was difficult enough getting him up for school However, once up he was in the back garden with friends and they made their fair share of noise.

Don't say anything to your neighbours, it's not worth it. The school holidays won't last forever.

Ywbvvvvu. He needs to get earplugs. He is sleeping during daytime hours. Completely unreasonable to expect your neighbours to limit their lives during normal family living hours to accommodate that.

I get your annoyance, but unfortunately it's just part of fairly communal living. Especially on new build estates that are literally aimed at young families. It's the nature of the beast unfortunately.

I've lived in my current estate for 13 years, when I first moved in, it was populated by young working professionals. The estate was only about 5 years old. Now they've all had kids and the kids are all over the place! They often congregate in the fairly open cul-de-sac outside my back windows with balls and bikes.

In all honesty, kids being out in their own gardens at 8am in the summer holidays isn't that unreasonable. Your son needs to accept it's for 6-8 weeks of the year, and then it'll calm down again. Wear earplugs.

I’m surprised by the voting to be honest - showing my age! My kids now adults and teens had a 9 o’clock limit on outside play at the beginning and end of the day . I’m also of the generation though where you wouldn’t phone after 9pm - if you did it was an emergency .

As a former night shift worker I can sympathise with your son, but I invested in some good quality earplugs in the end as there is really nothing that can be done about kids playing outside in summer!

Depends on the level of noise @FooFightersFan. There's a big difference between happy chatter at 8am and a few squeals and screaming blue murder at the top of their lungs. If it's the latter, I'd be pissed off too, because the parents should be aware that screaming at 8am is not acceptable.

deffo earplugs!

Massively unreasonable.