My neighbour allows kids to play at her house

[Eolhc1990]

OK so I feel like a bit of an @ssh0le here but this is driving me crazy. Last year I moved into a new house with my husband and DC (now 6 and 3) we live on a small quiet road with only a few houses. There are kids under 8 in 5 of those houses. We have front gardens but the kids that are 7/8 years old play on the street riding bikes/scooters etc and they can be loud which is a bit annoying but its kids what can you do. Anyway one of the other families is a lady with a 5 year old child and a baby. Because her child is too young to play on the road she will let the older neighbour kids play in her front garden, she will set up a table with play doh or paint or today a splash pad! and the kids will play there for a few hours while she sits and watches.... my problem is now everytime I try to bring my kids in from creche I'm getting pestered by them to go over there.
She always invites them and is a very sweet lady but by the time my kids are home it's 6pm and I just want to get them in and into the bath etc.
With the recent warm weather this is EVERY evening im dreading this evening because il have to face a meltdown if i say no to them playing on the splashpad with the other kids and I just think its a lot. Im sure the other parents think this is great they can just leave their kids over there but for me it's a nightmare we are not really playdate house at the best of times. I prob need to get over it but just needed to vent. I feel like asking her can she get the kids to hide when I come home from work

Rigid with your children and rigid on this thread. Just relax a bit, you'll feel better.

I do love threads where the OP asks if they are being unreasonable and then gets in a huff when people say they are. 😅 Once more with feeling: yes, you are being unreasonable in many ways. But you’ve decided to dig your heels in and refuse to contemplate a different perspective. I’m sure that approach will serve you well. 🙄

Great you do you. I imagine your neighbour is a stay home mum caring for her baby so is recreating the crèche experience at home for her children, why should they miss out? Let her do her.

OP sounds like such a ray of sunshine...poor kids. no playdates, no fun, no mess, bed at 6pm. And no one else's kids are allowed anything different

The problem is @Eolhc1990 that you think that kids need routine and you want evenings with your husband and are not really prepared to accept that other people do things completely differently . We had literally no routine in our house when my kids were little , no nap times , no set bed times as long as they ate regularly and went to bed eventually all was well . We’ve managed to raise bright , polite people and are still happily married after 36 yrs so living proof that no routine can also work perfectly well .

I think your routine is perfectly normal. I don’t think that you’re an arsehole at all.

It may be that this undoubtedly kind lady doesn’t understand that her friendliness is potentially causing bath and bedtime ructions on school nights for some of the families on your road.
I would invite her in for a cup of tea and explain, in the nicest way that you can.

Yes to all of this!! I'm in the process of moving from a busy road with few children and zero playing out to a village where there are lots of children the same age as mine. I'm used to being the host in my current set up, playdates, BBQs, games nights etc, and fully intending to make our garden accessible should anyone care to come and hang out there. I love the energy ♥️

That's fair. Two things can be true.

There have been a few comments here OP where people have agreed it is annoying to have to hold a boundary against a temptation, especially when it happens multiple times. Of course you're allowed to moan about that, and also allowed to recognise it's just part of parenting and there's no escaping it.

We've had success with the ice cream van (as an example from the thread I can relate to) by setting expectations out. So in our house, the first time the van comes to the street each month, if it's a sunny day and we've not already had ice cream that day then we get one. My two are 6 and just turned 4 and they get SO excited when they hear the chimes, but then we chat through the criteria and either we skip outside or we don't.

Couldn't something like that work here? Set some rules for a yes which work for you and for them. We also have it over stuff like screen time which I'll be honest if it was up to me I wouldn't even have a tele. But that doesn't work for the whole household so we set some ground rules which means they're not always pestering me as they know when they're allowed it. It's good to grant the little ones some autonomy, and has made us more of a team rather than 'mum sets the rules and you follow them'. I didn't want to always be the bad guy saying no, so this works better for me.

At this time of year, you have to find that extra hour in the evening time, early bedtimes don't work on bright nights.
Can you slow cook something or have DH cook while you watch them play for an hour? It would be beneficial for all of you, children love parents to watch them play, as parents we have to bend with the seasons.
2/3 evenings a week. Set expectations for whatever days suit.

And if she’s normal she can have a good laugh at your expense . What a ridiculous idea .

But why should the "undoubtedly kind lady" make any changes to her routine? If I were in her shoes and the OP invited me for a cup of tea and explained her POV as she has on this thread, I'd say that her children would always be welcome to join the fun but I understand if the OP prefers an early night for them. And then I would very politely say that I have no intention of changing a thing that I'm doing for my own children and the neighbours who choose to participate. It's up to the OP to work out how to cope with the situation, how to say no to her children if it's something she doesn't want them to do. IMO it would absolutely not be appropriate for the OP to suggest that the other woman limit her own perfectly ordinary (not to mention warm and welcoming) activities.

Bloody hell. We used to play out in the evenings in the summer, we used to do crafts like papier maché (round a blown up balloon), making perfume from petals, going out on our bikes haring around the streets. Although to be fair our mothers did go back into the house and do stuff and we didn't do after school clubs or sports.

I'm so glad I was lucky enough to have that and didn't grow up in a family that refused to have play dates.

YOUR children need. Not ‘children’.

Routine is great, flexibility is better for me.

Another day another AIBU post, where if you say the OP is unreasonable, she will argue with you, claim victimhood, and slag off the group

Which explains precisely why the OP is clearly so unhappy, bitter and angry in life. Sadly though, it seems that it seeps in to family life and her kids sound quite keen to spend as much time away from the family home as possible.

I imagine with this run of beautiful weather, and this lovely sounding neighbour having water play in the garden, the Op must be positively seething with fury

7.30 good grief someone call the fun police! 🙄

When i were a lass we played out until it got dark during the holidays.

Seriously, I get that it's tough staying in routine when it's summer because you are working and it works for your kids, but let your kids live a little, it will do them so much good.

Just seen your latest post.

Why should the entire street have to order their lives around your work routine?

And parents are always 'the bad guy' to their own kids, and 'really cool' to other people's kids.

You sound like youre desperate for approval from your own children. That's not gonna happen (until they grow up and appreciate you a bit more) .

I live in rural Spain, in our village in Summer, the kids all go out around 10pm until about 12/1 am, you would have a conniption at the racket on the streets!

Ask her if she'll move round by ours. Mine would love her! Tbh sounds like a great idea, mine don't go on the streets and this sounds fun for the kids, gives them a chance to play together.
Yeh you are allowed to moan 🤣 but yes YABU soz

This is all very much a you problem. That woman is doing nothing wrong and it's your own responsibility to deal with your kids meltdowns

I agree with you. I liked to keep my 2 in a routine. Confusing to let them stay up one night and not an other. Much easier to keep to a routine and keep my sanity. If they stayed out playing late they still waken up at 5am as it's light and be a nightmare the rest of the day due to lack of sleep!