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

Thank you! Development is definitely something I’ve been worried about regarding this as I was a late talker.

Baby noise is cute, but if it is constant shrieking that would drive anyone insane so it is worth considering if you can do something to reduce it. The person seems at the end of their rope so I have sympathy for them.

Any tips on how you reduced your child’s shrieking?

Well you don't have to encourage it for a start?

This shit is unhinged. How do they expect you to stop a 10mo squealing? Gag her? FFS. It's developmentally normal!

I'd look at how I could sound proof my own house, in what sounds like paper thin walls! Especially if you can hear them chopping vegetables!
More soft furnishings, acoustic panels, bookshelf on the common wall (if you knew which neighbour it was).

Tomorrow, set Baby Shark to repeat, turn it up and go out for the day. Who tf do they think they are! Do not change your parenting- sounds normal baby behaviour. Nobs

The problem is probably that the walls are too thin. I live in a terraced house and don't remember ever being disturbed when my neighbours had a baby. The baby must have made noise though. They're not unreasonable to struggle with it and you're not unreasonable either.

That sounds insane, how is it even legal to have walls that thin?

Just a heads up, the letter you posted will probably feature in a Daily Mail 'article ' tomorrow, they love stuff like this as they don't have decent journalists, just click bait shite.

To answer your question, a happy baby wouldn't annoy me but hearing a parent squeal/ooooohhhh/aaarrrgghgh all day long would drive me nuts.

(My neighbour barks at his dog to make it bark, I don't care about the dog barking but could quite happily superglue the bellend neighbours mouth shut).

Yes OP.. stop talking to, playing with or otherwise encouraging your baby...the wishes of the unknown crazed neighbour must be respected at all costs.

I'd pop some ear plugs (the foam ones you get free from the bar at gigs. If they are good enough for gigs...) through the letterbox of houses on either side.....and ignore.

You've already established that the times they are accusing you of noise making don't add up. If they want to have a discussion with you they can grow up and show their face. Until then, "as you were".

Your descriptions of your dear baby made me smile, they were so very loving and sweet.

If your walls are so thin, that you can hear cooking, then your neighbours might as well be in the room with you.
Why would you ever have 'encouraged' squeals and shrieks. Stop doing this.

People will ask why should you have to do this but you have to be realistic. When the walls are so paper thin that you can hear food being cooked, then a baby's exuberant shrieks are going to affect people's mental health.

Unfortunately your baby will have to learn from the beginning that she has to have a quiet indoor voice. Easier said than done.

Well it's not the odd excited squeal is it? It's round the clock shrieking, so loud it can be heard next door.

The OP has been a little economical with the truth in some parts.

Or... the neighbours are talking about someone else and got the wrong house? Sounds like it!

The letter reads very much to me like a mumsnet post. Maybe the neighbour will see this.

If if were round the clock shrieking though, there'd be nothing the OP could or should do to stop it. You have to play with and talk to babies, it's really important. The neighbour is the one who'll have to get over it.

I guess you'll know who it is when they move out.

That is some mad pointy handwriting though.

Too bad they didn't identify themselves, you could offer to hang a quilt or blanket on the adjoining wall to see if that helped dampen the noise.

Do you have a neighbour with hearing issues?

We had an elderly neighbour who came round distressed about our piano playing at midnight, could we please stop. Two problems. One we're in bed at tenish. Two we don't possess a piano.

My husband walked her home saying he'd try to find out who the piano player was. We've never in all the years we've lived here heard a pianow.

Hmm the neighbour has teenagers.
Teenagers are noisy, louder than a herd of elephants on acid - I have some (teenagers that is not elephants)

I wouldn't be at all surprised if it's the teenage kids causing the noise somehow, & your baby getting the blame.

If you can hear your neighbours chopping vegetables, the walls are not well insulated.

I doubt they are complaining for the sake of it... so try and be mindful of the noise. If it goes on for hours, it can be annoying.

You're probably just excited with her sounds and oblivious to the volume and your encouraging her. Is be surprised if it goes on for hours, as they say. Most likely an exaggeration by them, as I'm sure she takes a nap during the day.

Try recording and see how loud it is, so you can at least have some empathy even if you can't do anything. So you know it's not a baseless complaint.

Try putting music on to drown out the squealing maybe.

My money's on the retired couple

I think the note is a touch frightening to be honest! Especially the part how they said they can’t take much more.

My kid had a high-pitched squeal suddenly when she was similar age to yours. We would firmly tell her not to make that noise and find something else to distract her immediately. It took a few goes and she eventually learned that it wasn’t appropriate behaviour.

I feel living in close quarters with others would add that element of stress for everyone when there’s a jarring noise.

Good luck!

Shrieking all day though? That seems far fetched. I'd be concerned about a baby I heard shrieking all day. ALL DAY is not normal. It is surely just at occasional intervals?

Even if there were any justification for the complaint, sending this sort of anonymous letter is much worse than being unwittingly noisy.

Like some pp., I suspect that the letter may come from one of the teenagers. It sounds more like a teenage tantrum than an adult sending a first complaint; it's not as though they'd complained several times and there'd been no response. And some teenagers are very noise-sensitive and intolerant of anything that disturbs them.

The hand writing is “italic” and I would guess the author is a 50 ish public schoolgirl.

I don’t know if this is helpful but when my eldest went through the shrieking phase at the same kind of age every time he shrieked (for attention, rather than excited playing) I would say ‘mamma mamma mamma’ back to him and eventually instead of shrieking he said mamma.