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

How loud can a ten month old possibly be? It's a phase, she'll grow out of it.

Would someone bother writing a note if it wasn’t really bad though? Seems an over reaction if your baby is only making the occasional noise like you say.

If they think it's bad now, wait until she's a toddler and starts having tantrums! A few baby squeals will pale in comparison!

The person who wrote that note sounds at the end of their tether. I'd be knocking on doors until you find who wrote it and try to have a calm conversation about exactly what they are hearing, when and from which rooms. Maybe they are hearing someone else's noise or if not, maybe something quite simple can be done to make their life easier.

I wouldn't confront them as they are clearly NUTS. All babies go through a shrieking phase, there's really nothing you can do.

They should thank their lucky they don't live next to me. My baby screamed his head off for the first 3 months of his life.

I second this sort of approach, as the mother of a toddler who is slap bang into terrible twos. She is loud, she screams (and not in the cute adorable way that I am sure your 10 month old does), and frankly, there is little I can do about her occasional screaming paddies other than to try to distract her or ignore her until she calms down, as it is a normal part of development. Fortunately we have lovely neighbours, but yours sound as though this will not be the last time this comes up with the many child rearing years you have to come.

I understand my idea of bad shrieking might be totally different to the neighbours understanding of bad shrieking and therefore has driven them
to writing the letter. Personally, I feel the noise coming from my house isn’t too bad as she could be up screaming the house down all night as some poor babies do! I work remotely from 9pm until 1am (laptop in bed situation so I can nurse her back to sleep straight away should she stir) so I have to ensure she’s asleep by this time anyway in order to meet my work hours

If they can't put their name to the complaint, you shouldn't give it any credence.

It’s not unreasonable in general, it’s a normal response to you being excited with her. It becomes unreasonable when you live in a flat with such awful sound insulation that you can hear your neighbours chopping vegetables. It’s wild that you can hear something like that; I don’t understand how these places get away with crap like this. Of course people will have issues with one another if they can hear their neighbours’ every sneeze! But it also explains why they are so overwrought about hearing your daughter’s shrieks all day.

Sounds like it might be time to start planning a move/upgrade!

Ah yes I’ve been thinking also about how this neighbour will cope when we reach this stage! My dd is already pretty strong willed (has been shaking her head to say no since 7 months 😂) so I imagine we’ll get this quite early! We live in an extremely family friendly neighbourhood with multiple schools nearby and the neighbour has two teenagers so I hoped she’d be understanding

A detached bungalow is now definitely on my mind! 😂

The neighbour is nuts. I’d have no respect for a person who wrote an anonymous note even if they had got lovely handwriting.
Babies can be noisy as all humans can be noisy. If you live in a terraced house then you should expect and accept a certain level of noise. Perhaps the neighbour needs to buy a detached house.

I agree with pp saying to copy the note and post it with your own note.

If I was a neighbour who didn't write the note I'd be round to yours asap to make sure you knew it wasn't me!

But then my DH has just said if he did write the note he'd be round to pretend he didn't.

Sorry, not much help.

Except we are grandparent age and wouldn't say "wild" in that context.

You should print off some nice detached houses and post them to neighbours with a cope of the letter 😂

I’d be louder tomorrow.

True that. I'm early 50s and wouldn't use wild in that context either. There's also a clue that the note references 'we', so it's a household or more than one person.

The neighbour we suspect is in her late 40s/early 50s with two teenagers. The other side are a lovely retired couple that we feel would knock if there was a problem! I’m loving all of the sleuthing help!

Another early 50's here to say nope wouldn't use wild that way but my teen would! Could it be the teen kids getting thier sleep disturbed. They take that very seriously 🤣. If so ear plugs! Your little one sounds very normal. I still refuse to speak to.our neighbour who complained about my son screaming at 3 months old. Summer baby, windows open. It disturbef her garden use. He had horrible cholic and is now 22! So feel your pain. I'd go with the post it back and ask them.to come forward method. If it is the teen Mum will recognise the handwriting and hopefully deal with it.

That letter is completely unhinged, so sorry you have such a horrible neighbour who is clearly in a lot of mental pain. Enjoy your baby and those excited noises.

How is your hearing?

I mean this seriously. I have freakishly good hearing (also as blind as a bat). I can hear things that most people can’t, including quiet group conversations at some distance. That’s fine. I find loud music or shouting louder than most people would. I had an argument last year with my neighbours (who both have hearing aids) about their dog barking inside the house. We live in a semi-detached house and are not connected on that side. They truly thought I was bonkers, and I suspect they barely perceived the dog barking at all from upstairs in their own house. But my study is downstairs and it prevented me from being able to work.

It’s possible that your neighbour is mad.

Equally, it might be that you aren’t hearing how loud your baby really is.

I would say woman from the handwriting, and language, ignore, your child can’t make noise all day.
But they may work from home, so will here it all of the time.
I see you’ve guessed who it might be.

You sound a peach…😆🥺

It doesn't matter how loud your baby is, not that in my experience there is much of a range - they're all pretty loud. It's literally not something you can control. There is no comparison to a badly trained or unhappy dog that barks all day (!)

Noisy behaviour is completely normal and unavoidable in babies and toddlers. The only ones that aren't noisy, are those with particular forms of brain damage. You can't and shouldn't attempt to make your 10 month old baby play more quietly or vocalise less. It's important to her development that you enthusiastically play, talk and sing with your baby.

Your neighbour is bonkers frankly. I would advise you to completely ignore the nasty letter. They need to look at their abnormally low tolerance of normal human sounds given that they live in a terraced house. And consider ear buds. Or moving. Or hyperfixating on something else.

Should the begin to approach you more directly then I would practice "No, I won't be doing that" as a bland repetitive response to unreasonable requests.

I wouldn't jump to it's the parents of the teenagers. This is actually something a teenager could pull. Even if I found that annoying, it's a baby, what are you meant to do about it? It will pass and I know that as a parent. Teenagers can't be that quiet either.

I am able to hear the neighbours cooking as our kitchens are connected via one wall and often can hear them moving about, laughing and sometimes the odd adult noises, if you get my drift.

I mention in an earlier comment that I do my best to get out of the house most days and my baby has a very reasonable bed time routine and sleeps throughout the night.

I totally understand that everyone has different noise tolerances. Any tips on how to encourage quiet play with an excited 10 month old…?