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

Aah, thanks! That bit about the photo wasn't there when I opened the post in a new tab, but neither was the photo 😂

To the point of mad noise complaints though - I got a letter from the council to say that my dog was barking very specifically between 11pm and 6am. I was at that time so anaemic that I was going to bed at 9pm and getting up at 7am, and my dog slept on my bed (on my face, mostly, tbh). I think I would have been the first to notice if he barked.

Meanwhile, the two households on either side of me were allowing their multiple dogs free access to their gardens around the clock, and the dogs were meeting at around 10:15pm every night for a 15-minute barkathon (on top of the daytime barking)

YANBU OP.

I lived in a victorian terrace and my neighbour to the back came round to introduce himself and asked me to lose weight because he could hear me walking up the stairs. At the time I was 50kg and I'm 4'11.

Some people just aren't suited to living in terraces and if they can't cope with the everyday noises people make then that is a them problem.

Your happy bubbly squeaky baby making age appropriate noises is not the problem. They will soon be a happy bubbly squeaky shreiky shouty thumpy toddler and that's also absolutely fine because it's age appropriate noise.

Don't yield to anonymous threats. If someone has a problem they should address it in person.

The most important thing to realise is that not everyone will find your gorgeous 10 month old as adorable as you do. I'm in a shared house with 2 toddlers above me who spend hours on end most days into the night chasing eachother around the parents flat and jumping off the furniture repeatedly. The bomping and thumping on my ceiling goes on until well after 10pm most nights. These are nursery age children who seem to have no bedtime. I had only been here a few weeks when I had to go upstairs knock on their door and ask them to please not let the kids keep jumping off the furniture because the noise was unbearable downstairs. They told me i need to tell their children myself to stop jumping off their furniture 😳 ???

Last night was one of the worst nights ever. To me it sounds like they are coming through the ceiling but I just don't think they realise how noisy they are for other people. I haven't made any formal complaints yet but I too feel like I can't take much more so I can empathise with the note writer. The noise might sound a lot louder to other people than it does to you, which certainly seems to be the case in my situation.

I have an 11 month old and am glad the screeching phase has stopped as it use to drive me mad. It really didn't last that long and is just a new skill they learn.

We live in a mid-terrace although 60's built so the only time we hear our neighbours is when their babies cry. It makes me feel less bad that they can probably hear our baby cry, although I do worry sometimes.

OP do you know which of your neighbours are home all day eg retired or working from home? That would be a clue as to who made the complaint. It's likely to be someone a couple of houses up, or more if the houses are very narrow.

When our first was born we lived in a flat with an elderly lady under us. She complained about the washing machine being on at night, in a polite way. I was confused as I never ran it at night, but she was adamant a noise kept waking her. I wondered if DS crying in the night sounded like machinery, but she insisted it was a mechanical bumping sound that made her ceiling shake. I always tiptoed barefoot and she insisted it wasn't footsteps either. In the end I invited her up to try and pinpoint the noise, worried it was the boiler or something automatic. She traced it to our bedroom, then we both looked at my electric breastpump on the floor. She pointed to it and asked what it was. I don't know who was more embarassed!! She'd never seen one, but when I switched it on, the noise and vibrations matched the one shaking her ceiling 😳
I hadn't realised how loud it was but I was expressing after each feed, so it must have been infuriating for her! I made her coffee and we had a laugh over it, then we tried putting it on a chair with a cushion underneath, and the problem was solved.
I'm glad we resolved it as we became quite friendly after that, helping each other out with things.

But I still laugh at how a breastpump got mistaken for a washing machine!

Absolutely this. I have the same with my neighbour with two small children. She is very loud herself with whooping and wheeeeeing and actively encourages these shreeking and screaming noises. I can't express how debilitating it is sometimes to not be able to get away from noise like this in your own home. If you are hearing this secondhand it can be really shocking and anxiety inducing. I have started waking up in a panic when this noise starts early. It's like my brain is trying to respond to this distressing noise but there's nothing I can do about it.

Please, even though it means you may need to make a few changes, consider how they may be impacted like this. It is not their fault. They're not trying to be horrible or intolerant, they are likely finding it upsetting. They are likely being really badly affected in this way to write a note.

Noone will expect you to mute your baby but it is reasonable to try and minimise this noise that can be distressing to others.

If you live in a terraced house you have a responsibility to consider how you impact your neighbours. It means we can't just do what we like when we like, and we should expect others to do the same.

Don’t live under someone then.

Oh of course, why didn't I think to just refuse an offer of suitable accommodation that had been adapted for me by the council at the cost of tens of thousands of pounds. Great idea. Wish I'd thought of that, thanks.

And winner of the most short sighted post of the year goes to......

Yourself?
'I want to live with this level of noise so everyone else must'?
So like ops lovely letter writer this family and dc never ever leave the house?

So it's ok for people to let their kids jump off sofas at 10pm?

Exactly. Everyone gets all sanctimonious on here but letting two kids repeatedly jump off the furniture at gone 10pm is not normal every day noise.

No. I just don't think it's terribly considerate letting your children repeatedly jump off the furniture crashing on the ceiling all evening until after 10pm. I've been up and spoken to them once and they told me that I needed to speak to their children for them. Does that sound normal to you?

So they've done this every night since they've moved in? All day and every day?

Can you show me where I said it was every single night since they moved in? All day and every day?

Well @OhCalmTheFuckDownMargaret I just don't think it's terribly considerate letting your children repeatedly jump off the furniture crashing on the ceiling all evening until after 10pm. I've been up and spoken to them for the use of 'repeatedly' and you to go up, complain and ask them to cease, had assumed it must be so?

Yeah, still not what I actually said though is it? Regardless how much you try to create your own narrative I did not say it was every night since they moved in or that it was all day every day. I said most evenings they chase eachother around the flat and repeatedly jump off the furniture. And they do.

No, it's not. But it's even MORE not-OK to write anonymous poison-pen letters.

Well either, they do it all the time so your going to their door and demanding acquiescence is understandable... or it's not and you want them to live as you demand?

Why are people so black and white about these things?

Its clearly a case of finding a balance of what is reasonable to tolerate.

I can see a squealy baby ( as opposed to a crying one) might fall somewhere in between if they felt the parents were oblivious. Even a crying baby is an issue of you can’t hear the parents doing their best to sort it.

The person with the sofa jumping kids didn't write an anonymous letter , she spoke to the parents so no idea what you are on about

Without wanting to be pedantic, strictly speaking, aren’t poison pen letters written about a third party?

I disagree.

If people get their knickers in a twist about babies crying or squealing, the problem is them, not the babies or the parents.

Nobody owes their neighbours a quiet baby.

We were quite careful when our oldest was young and we lived with neighbours that could hear. For instance, I would never have done the whole cry-it-out rigmarole with close neighbours. My friend did it with her eldest and he screamed for hours for weeks and weeks.

Luckily ours slept ok if we rocked them to sleep then popped them down, but I still would not have inflicted that on neighbours even if they hadn’t been as easy.

Sorry, was referring specifically to the OP's neighbours/

No need to guess who they are, just look for the childless retired couple that live nearby.

Babies make noises. They can’t be controlled. Ignore the note.

Or better, record the baby and play on a 24h loop while you are away.