Anonymous noise complaint about my baby playing

[StressedOutMama15]

Hello!

I’m a new mum to a gorgeous 10 month old, happy, baby. She has just started making excited squeal sounds when she plays or if she wants my attention if I’m cracking on with chores and she’s playing independently. I always respond to her and distract her with a different toy and when I’m out and about and she makes these screaming sounds I always apologise to everyone around.

This evening when my partner came home, he found a letter in the hallway (from an anonymously neighbour) complaining about the noise my baby makes when she’s playing and claiming they “cant take much more”. This is the first complaint from any neighbour we’ve had. Our neighbours are generally quite friendly so this shocked and upset me as you can imagine.

Our DD sleeps from around 8pm until 9am solid and we spend most days out with friends or at my mums. I’m very upset by this letter and I feel like I’m now walking on egg shells in my own home! I live in a small terraced house on a busy main road so there’s usually a lot of noise anyway, I didn’t realise her shrieks were that disruptive.

Am I being the a$$hole..? Any advice on how to limit a baby scream when she’s excited? I feel bad telling her to “shhh” when she’s just trying to talk and doesn’t know how else to!

MNHQ removed photograph of note at request of OP as it was potentially highly identifying

If your baby is asleep at 8pm how can she be making noise until 10pm? Something not adding up there. And a squeal and screeching are 2 different things. Suprised that playing sounds travel through the wall that easily

Anyone else in another house that could be noise making?

If you live in a terraced house it’s one of them that are either side of you. I would go and knock and ask them face to face and explain you are unsure what noise they are hearing as your baby is asleep/not awake at the times stated.

The person that wrote this seems nuts, ignore them. How would they know that you are deliberately encouraging your baby to shriek? It’s totally normal behaviour for a ten month old who is just finding their voice. They haven’t even got the guts to sign the letter or have an actual calm conversation with you about the problem. Your babie’s shrieking phase will pass soon but your neighbours will more than likely carry on being arseholes sadly

try not to worry, they’re being the asshole. I really don’t understand how someone can describe a baby’s happy squeals as unbearable. Unfortunately kids do make a lot of noise, they’d hate to live next door to my 3!

The thing is. It doesn’t sound like they are complaining about happy baby squeals. They are complaining about shrieking from 7.30am to 10pm. Times when your baby is either asleep or not in the house. So how can it be your child?
I would go round to both neighbours attached to you and try and find out what on earth is causing the noise

Oh I do wish you knew who this letter came from, I bet between the lot of us we could compile an awesome response to this 😆

Ignore it. Babies do this. They grow out of it when they learn to talk, and if they haven't stopped doing it by that point, that's when you start thinking about teaching them not to. Not now!

Sound does travel and can sound very different to neighbours. When I lived in a flat, I was convinced that upstairs were dropping bowling balls on the floor in the evenings.

Why would someone bother to write a letter, unless it was really driving them nuts??? Maybe they have sensory issues? Maybe they work from home and the noise IS really distracting. Are you absolutely sure your baby has never woken earlier or stayed up/woken up at 10:30 pm?

I don't think visiting the neighbours would be helpful. how will this change the noise? If I'd written an anonymous the letter, I would deny any knowledge!

They seem batshit. Ignore. If they had a legitimate issue they’d knock and mention what the problem is or send a sensible letter explaining the issue. Enjoy your lovely 10 month old who sleeps beautifully through the night.

Ahh thank you so much everyone for your quick responses! I already feel better! One of the neighbours on one side has a granddaughter the same sort of age and we often hear her playing but it warms my heart, definitely not the opposite! I’m a tad frightened of confrontation so I’m scared to go round and knock! 😬😩

This makes me so nervous because my newborn son shrieks like an absolute banshee every time I change his bum 😬 I'll buy my neighbours some earplugs and chocolate haha.
Yours however, seem a little on edge and I doubt your daughters happy squeals are the sole reason for that! Very disproportionate response for the situation at hand !

And?! It’s a baby! There isn’t anything OP can do!

There have definitely been the odd time that she fights going to sleep in the evening but we usually nip any screeching in the bud as fast as we can! We cosleep and breastfeed so a bit of boob usually knocks her out haha

Our neighbour's baby did this when she was around 12 months. They aren't attached to us but it was summer and so open windows. She came out with some very loud excited screams and she sounded like an air raid warning. To me it sounded like she'd just discovered how to make the sound and was enjoying practising!
I wouldn't have dreamed of complaining though- it's not like you can help it. Even if you wanted your baby to scream, she's not old enough to understand you telling her to scream! Or telling her to stop!
Maybe this neighbour is hearing some other noise you can't hear, or has misophonia which is triggered by seemingly minor things.

I had a bit of this with a neighbour once. Lots of weeeeee and wooooooooo from the mum followed by the shrieking of the toddler, then more weeeee and wooo, encouraging her to join in. It didn't bother me at first but when it was several hours a day, every day in the summer it really started to grate. Another neighbour actually brought it up with me to ask if it got on my nerves too. I was quite pleased when they moved out 😳

It doesn’t sound like it’s you she can hear though. It is difficult. I had a very odd neighbour who told everyone else in the building that he could hear me having sex and that my headboard was banging so much it was making his room shake. I would get irate text messages from him saying it has to stop, that I should have respect for my neighbours and that he was going to escalate it with the managing agents if it continued. But I didn’t even have a boyfriend, not even a gentleman visitor

Photocopy the letter and post it back to both your neighbours saying you're disappointed they couldn't talk to you face to face rather than send an unsigned letter and that you're not clear what the issue is.

They're insane. How do they think you can stop a baby shrieking? Do any 10 month olds have the understanding of 'please be quiet, Dave at no 42 is sick of hearing you'...and how on earth would they know if you were 'encouraging' it? Unless they can clearly hear you tell your baby 'louder' or hear you play peekaboo or something

We had a husband of our old neighbour come to complain at 6pm about our kids making a noise. I asked him if his hadn’t just been wailing in the bath. He was quite embarrassed actually. People oddly don’t realise that noise works both ways.

Thank you for your responses! There are of course times where she’s playing and I tell her well done for pulling herself to stand or where she’s beginning to attempt animal noises. She’ll sometimes squeal with excitement when I congratulate her but is that unreasonable? 🥲 We often leave the house around midday latest or we both go stir crazy anyway!

The person has lovely handwriting <misses the point>

In your shoes I would write a polite but firm letter acknowledging the anonymous one and saying you have no idea who sent it and am sorry that someone is unhappy with the noise of your baby but would like to clarify that your baby is asleep from x time to x time and there is no excessive noise other than what is expected for a baby to make therefore you are unclear of the problem. Then state that if anyone wishes to discuss further please can they come in person to clarify what the issue actually is. Then post it to all your immediate neighbours.

My guess is no one will come forward!

Thank you for the advice! This does seem like a good way to tackle the problem without ending up arguing at a neighbours front door!

I'm guessing if they can hear you 'encouraging' the shrieks, then they can hear what you describe as playing with her. Unfortunately this is probably due to poor insulation/inferior building. Can you hear the neighbours as well? I'd be worried your neighbours would 'retaliate' by playing loud music when your baby is asleep so you can hear how noise travels.

I'd be annoyed that the note is anonymous more than anything.

My DC went through a phase of shrieking at around that age and grew out of it fairly quickly. Hopefully yours will too.

I can imagine that me playing with her is what they can hear. We live in little Victorian terraces where we often hear neighbours moving about, chopping food in the kitchen, laughing etc but we understand that this is just normal terraced living. Before having our DD they probably didn’t hear a sound from us as we live a quiet life, rarely having friends over so it’s probably a bit of a shock for them!

I’m pleased to hear your DC grew out of the shrieking quickly - fingers crossed!

It also means you can show you're not intimidated by the letter and want to deal with it in a mature and direct way. Unlike them!

Anyone too scared to sign their name is unlikely to want to speak in person. Possible, but unlikely.

Similar to others but slightly different sentiment.

Copy the letter and send it with a new letter to neighbours that states living in such close proximity and presence of neighbourly noise can be understandably frustrating, but you will not stop encouraging your child to engage in the world even if that means her response is noisy - around the hours where she is normally asleep or out. Everyone has choices and if they don't want to live next door to noisy children THEN THEY CAN MOVE.

Nip it in the bud or they'll be in you for the next ten years.