Childless houseguests-AIBU to keep my child quiet and out of the way?

[StressedHost]

If you have houseguests without children, that like to have sleep-ins and a quiet house, long meals etc., do you minimize all disruption caused by you child (ren) and adapt your schedule to those of the guests? Or do you go on with your life as usual?
I don't know what is the right thing to do and had a fight with DH over it. Essentially, I think it is basic kindness towards the guests to not disturb their sleep and quiet, and I'm aware that children of other people can be quite annoying, especially if you are childless and not used to the noise levels etc. DH thinks we owe them nothing, since they invited themselves and were aware that they were going to stay in a household with a young child.

For context, the guests are neither friends nor family. It is a former colleague that I know quite well, but am not particularly friends with, and her boyfriend, whom we had never met before he came to stay at our house. They sort of invited themselves for a few long weekends over the summer, because we live in a quite touristy, but expensive city. They are here to do sightseeing/going to events in our city, not to spend time with us. They stay for free obviously, but buy some of their groceries (special things they need due to intolerances).

We have a spare room/office, but our flat is quite small. And unfortunately the spare room is right beside the kitchen/living area, so they could certainly hear us getting up at the crack of dawn with our DC. DC is a typical 6YO, not particularly badly behaved, but will talk loudly, jump or run. DC is also awake latest at 6:30 am.
We have the first weekend behind us, and it was stressful. Especially keeping DC quiet from 6 am until 10 am (when the guests finally decided to get up) was hard. I tried to play as quietly as possible with DC in their room while feeding them only cookies for breakfast, to avoid noise in the kitchen (had no coffee myself as well until 10 am, because of our noisy coffee maker).
The guests are otherwise quite nice people-clean, tidy and did not complain about DC or the noise so far.

YANBU=Yes, it is basic kindness to keep your DC quiet. You agreed to the visits, so you have to do your best to keep the guests comfortable.

YABU=They invited themselves and were aware of the DC before coming, go on with your life as normal.

We will not agree to further visits by this couple (beyond the ones that are already planned), and probably stick with inviting only close friends or family until DC is older. So it is a lesson learned.

“They sort of invited themselves for a few long weekends over the summer, because we live in a quite touristy, but expensive city”.

i don’t get this, you can’t “invite yourself” to stay in someone’s home, even more so if they have kids. Next time just say “it would be lovely to see you, but unfortunately our place won’t work - here’s a couple of good hotel suggestions”. And then maybe treat them to drinks/lunch.

Next time she asks to stay you say that you’re sorry but it really doesn’t work for you to have guests anymore. If she decides to still stay local in a hotel you’d love to meet up for a coffee!

It's like you're not hearing what people are saying.

This is ALL ridiculous, including your 'reasoning' above.

Come oooooon OP!

If you don't grow a spine now they'll keep coming again and again.

It's not fair on your loved ones at all. You are beiong so unreasonable it's actually shocking.

Your poor DH, honestly.

I honestly think op you would be doing these young people a favour if you stopped pandering to them immediately.

this is actually fairly extreme people pleasing. Read some books on assertiveness!

No they just looked at me expecting to take DC away when they were playing a bit too loudly. Due to very different dinnertimes (we like to eat early together with DC), they were still eating while DC was playing in the living area after dinner.
The second evening we just took DC to the playground after we had finished eating. DC was happy to go out in the evening and have slightly later bedtime (we normally don't do this), and they were able to enjoy their meal in peace

Your poor child! I would never expect my three year old to accommodate guests to that extent.

We had someone staying at ours a few months ago - a good friend, not a random acquaintance. She's child-free but when she came to stay she knew perfectly well that a young child lives here! Obviously I would never let her run riot and constantly annoy a guest but I certainly didn't keep her out of her own living room until 10 a.m.! The first few days she was at nursery anyway so we got up as usual and my friend went back to sleep after we left. At the weekend my daughter isn't allowed in the living room bed 7 anyway - if she wakes up earlier she can come in our bed but she has to lie back down until "morning" (before 7 I tell her it's still night time). While our guest was here I got my daughter her milk when she woke up and encouraged her to drink it in her bedroom. At 8 a.m. we went through to the living room where she could say hello to our guest then watch her weekend TV programmes (Bing and Hey Duggee) while the guest had a coffee and woke up a bit. She is of course expected to let guests have a drink, eat in peace, let them have a conversation with me, etc. And if they don't want to play with her/read her a story she doesn't get to whine or shout. But I absolutely would not be feeding her cookies for breakfast or keeping her trapped in her room for anyone's sake! Any "guest" that isn't okay with that level of compromise isn't welcome here!

Fuck that!

They have imposed themselves on you., so they need to fit in with your lifestyle with children.

Fuck that!

They have imposed themselves on you., so they need to fit in with your lifestyle with children.

Good grief! Carry on with your life and they might piss off sooner 😬

dont make your own Ds uncomfortable in his own home to please these cfs

I would be cancelling the planned future visits and just say it's too small a space for that many people.

F**k that 😂 not a hope. They sound like CF to be honest

Personally I would be encouraging the kids to play as noisily as possible so next time they book an Airbnb!

I don’t have children and when I stay with friends who do I expect to be woken up! Same if they stay in my house. My 4yo godson wakes up very early and is a very full-on little boy but I want to spend time with him so I go with his schedule. If that means sitting bleary-eyed with my cup of tea while he repeatedly puts out the ‘fire’ in my mug with his paw patrol fire engine then so be it!

"A parental figure"?? Don't be daft OP, you are a work colleague who provided her with some training in a professional capacity. In no way whatsoever are you a parental figure. Stop trying to rationalise this completely ridiculous scenario that you have inflicted upon your family.

You are letting them impose on you, change your schedule and tiptoe around them. Why would you do that? You don't owe her anything at all. It's your child's home and he has the right to enjoy living in it.

oh come on, i know we like to blame husbands/dads for everything her, but the OP has got herself (and her family) in this situation.

And if he had said "no" it would be seen as controlling wouldnt it?

Did you drop a little curtsey as you relegated the child to the far corner of the flat? For heavens sake, let them ‘look’ all they want and simply ignore them. This has to be one of the silliest situations. If you think of yourself as her mentor, you should have some confidence. It’s your home and your family home. They don’t like it, there’s plenty of hotels.

Childfree here.

Since they aren't good friends, I'd continue as normal if I was you.
If you were my close mate, I'd love you if you let me have a bit of lie in, but otherwise would expect your family life to continue as normal, not a quiet house just for me.

Just had a memory of when my niece and nephew were small. We used to sleep on a sofa bed downstairs. They would come down at some ungodly hour while their parents were still asleep, crawl under it and pummel us from the bottom laughing hysterically 😂 They’re grown up now but it’s a great memory that they still talk about.

WTA??? What's the upside for you for having them stay? They invited themselves!?! Again....WTAF?

@StressedHost Next visits?
Tell them it didn't work for you. Your DC didn't sleep/settle well.
You are not friends with these people. Stop it - your DC, OH and you are more important than their visit.
They can book a hotel if they want, or stay at home.

DH and I don't have kids, and wouldn't dream of imposing on someone else - with or without DC.
We'd book a hotel.

I really understand you OP.

I live in a very popular tourist town that has a number of popular festivals over the summer. We have had people use us as a base (under the guise of 'wanting to catch up') for nigh on 20 years. Just short- 18 years because in 2023 I finally put my foot down. I got so bloody sick of freeloaders and chancers and people who we never heard from until about April when they rang up to say 'hi' and happened to mention before ringing off they'd be down our way.

i put up with it for years- because they were DH's 'friends' and because i moved into his house. I would give up precious annual leave for these festivals that I wanted to attend and found myself playing hostess.

Last year was the worst year. We had 16 visitors over the course of 4 weeks. Only one set took us out for a meal. Only one other set gave us a hostess gift of a bottle of wine and then drank it themselves. I said enough.

This is what I have said to the requests this year.... ;

'Oh how lovely you will be down our way. Let us know a day you have free and we will meet you in town for lunch'.

'Oh, so sorry, pity you can't stay as you have just asked me - but i CAN point you in the direction of a couple of decent B &Bs but you better book quickly!'

'Sorry, we are not hosting guests this year'.

And my favourite for one who was particularly reluctant to take a polite 'no' as an answer; 'Frankly. we got sick of people taking the piss so we don't have ANYONE to stay anymore at all as a blanket policy'.

It's joyful. I have so far employed each of the above. I have a particularly hard case that keep 'suggesting' and putting feelers out and who has been told NO but I expect she think she will wear me down. She won't. She's a selfish freeloading guest anyway and we learned the hard way the last time.

For you, you could say ; 'Sorry, the flat is too small for guests but if you look on tripadvisor you can probably find something'.

I know you have 'agreed' to 4 days at the end of the month and you might need DH's acquiescence to get through that, but if you are able to please consider saying 'No, it was too disruptive last time and i know you found it difficult because ... [insert reason]... '.

But nip it in the bud. Otherwise you will have your colleague's parents asking to stay sometime while they see the sights. (We have actually had this...)

Why would you feel like a parental figure to an adult ex colleague, while not giving enough importance to your own DH and small child living at home?

You seem too focussed on pleasing how your colleague is going to feel instead how your DH and child are going affected by trying to keep them quiet. They invited themselves to your home, you don't even know the boyfriend ...but somehow you feel like a parental figure. Seriously?

You seem more invested how you are perceived by other people than the needs of your family. Your personal boundaries are off.