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.

More succinct than my post, but this, 100%

I think maybe I’d attempt to make adjustments but not to the extent that it affected my child. So maybe reminders to use an indoor voice and close doors to the room they are in, but not constant shushing or changes to their schedule that aren’t of benefit to them.

Never had more pals inviting themselves to stay than when I lived in central Edinburgh. Never saw most of them again when I moved elsewhere. Couldn’t imagine tolerating this now.

I might be courteous if the child was up exceptionally early as i would be gor anyone else. I would NOT be keeping them quite during the day or meal times (other than what we'd normally do).

Hopefully they will moan because at that point I think I'd recind all future offers as 'obviously not working for you and your family, and them'. !

Seriously? You need to look for an assertiveness workshop and practice saying either 'We can't have you to stay, our flat is too small', or 'You can stay if you like but be warned things get noisy before 7am so no chance of a lie - in.' Delaying your normal breakfast for hours was ridiculous.
FWIW, we recently had a request from an old acquaintance to stay for a weekend while she was 'in the area' and I said it wasn't possible because putting up guests is too difficult these days for a number of reasons. It was hard to say, but a huge relief. I recommend it.

I think there’s a happy medium. Keep the DC out of their room and keep noise to a minimum before say 7:30. But thereafter is a perfectly normal time to be up and going about your usual morning routine. TV, coffee maker, shower, hairdryer etc. are all perfectly acceptable noises (and might encourage your guests to get up earlier and not treat your home as their private doss-house!).

No it’s your child’s home. I would maybe try to keep them quiet-ish until about 07:30/8 but definitely not until 10am. If they don’t like it they can get a hotel.

Next time someone "invites themselves" to your home, party, holiday, etc, use the approved Mumsnet response.
Repeat after me "No, that doesn't work for us" (friendly smile or tinkly laugh optional).

I think I'd try to keep the DC a little quieter when they get up, perhaps an activity with headphones. But I wouldn't go to town on it - they have chosen to come to you, knowing you have young children, and it's a really useful base for them by the sounds of it. If the kids are noisy and wake them up when they have a hangover, them's the breaks, I'm afraid.

I don’t have kids and if I stayed at someone’s house and they had kids I wouldn’t expect you to rein them in at all! Tell them the offer no longer stands and they can Airbnb it! CFs!

Have to say though that the problem is not that they are 'childless' but that they are cheeky and you have no boundaries! Parents might have been more like to expect an early start to the day, but that really isn't the main problem.

I’m actually not sure what they have done that is wrong? Most of it seems to stem for your interpretation of their actions. You said she 'implied' you would be inflexible if they couldn’t stay. Are you sure you didn't just infer that? They’ve asked and you agreed. Sometimes I think there is a weird gulf between those who are happy to ask and those who think it’s rude to do so.

They haven’t actually asked you to keep DC quiet while they are in bed and they 'looked' at you like they expected you to keep DC quiet while you were talking but I’m always a bit 🤨 at people who can read so much into a look. Perhaps they were pausing the conversation to allow you chance to respond to your DC.

They could have looked at me as expectantly as they liked. I would have done nothing about it except possibly remind them that they had chosen to impose themselves onto a home with a child so this is what they could expect. It is the child's home too.

Yes, I would tell them that they had "imposed themselves" to ensure that they realised just what an imposition it actually was and that they wouldn't do it again. If that meant that they got the hump with me and decided to up sticks and leave at that point then so much the better. Win, win!!

They are CF's. Def start living normally and ignore their pointed looks (WTF) and with any luck they'll find an alternative for their next stay. The entitlement is deeply annoying just reading this, so I'm not surprised your DH is cross.

I can't figure out if this is a troll post. Who would feed dc cookies and tip toe around their own house for ppl they hardly know. Who would also let random people sleep in the same house with their child , not enough stories of SA out there for you OP.? Honestly and it's not even 1 Weekend it's several ! You've put your dc at risk and for a really shitty reason

Is this some sort of reverse? I can’t really understand why you’re hosting the cheeky freeloaders at all but I certainly wouldn’t be making any concessions for them. Why on earth would you? You sound way too people pleasing.

Checking I habe this right - someone you know, but are not particularly friends with and their previously unknown boyfriend invited themselves for several summer weekends, but are sightseeing not there to see you?

Heck, I would just be carrying on as normal which includes making noise.

You need to tell them having them stay didn’t work for you and your family. Be honest that it wasn’t relaxing for you having to keep your child quiet, the different mealtimes etc, so they need to make alternative arrangements for their planned stays.
4 nights is so cheeky, my Sister and her family don’t stay with me for that length of time.

This is on you. You are behaving like a doormat and they are treating you as such. I can’t understand why this is something you would even consider doing? I would be very angry with you if I was your dh.

Absolutely the fuck not.

Before I retired, I was in a role where I managed many staff, often much younger than me, and was responsible for their training. The likelihood of any of them inviting themselves to stay with me, and then turning up with their boyfriend was zero.

They are in their twenties, but they aren't children. They should be aware of their obligations as (uninvited) guests. Their sense of entitlement is off the scale. I'm sure you were a lovely and supportive manager when you worked together but you are just letting them walk all over you if you don't cancel the future visits. Put your child and husband first.

Are you mad? This is your home, not a hotel. They take you as they find you.

They are incredibly rude and I hope they have shouted you a meal and brought a gift.

Buy your dc a drum kit, they may cancel the planned weekends.
Win, win.

She wouldn't have got the chance to look at me twice to keep my child quiet while they had a leisurely dinner. That's what adult only restaurants are for. Cheeky mare wouldn't be coming back. Either tell her somethings come up and they can't stay next time or tell her the truth that it's unfair on your child.