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.

Well I wouldn't be letting kids run and jump about at 6.30 am normally especially in a flat . Your poor neighbours

But if you stay somewhere knowing there's kids live there then you have to expect usually kid noise. When I visit one of mine that lives a few hundred miles away I stay in a hotel as prefer peace and she has 3 under5

Not a chance. They have invited themselves. They want lie ins and quiet, pay for a hotel.

A four day visit??? No gift to say thank you even though you saved them an absolute fortune?

If you can't be honest and tell them that the visit didn't really work for you and your family, surely you can make up some excuse to stop them from coming, e.g. family illness, plumbing emergency, faking your own death.

I don't understand why you aren't annoyed by their entitled behaviour, almost as though they were more important than your own child?

Absolutely bonkers! It’s your child’s home and they have imposed. They take you as they find you!

How does your husband feel about this new plan of yours? Does he get any say?

Once again, these are all YOUR choices.

Anyone telling me to keep my kid quiet or remove them while people were eating would be getting told to go find somewhere else to eat, if not stay. They didn't even SAY anything - they just 'gave you a look' and you scuttled off and removed your 'offending' offspring! WTF, OP?!

It really sounds like you are a habitual people pleaser, and ultimately you are happy to put your husband and child second in order to please others.

It's not normal, OP.

Why have you let an ex-colleague and her partner you haven't met before stay? Firstly how can you trust the partner? And secondly they should be staying in a hotel or B&B like everyone else does. You shouldn't have to tip toe round your own house

I’m child free and if I were staying with a friend, I wouldn’t expect them to change their routines or keep children quiet. If they don’t like the noise, they can always book accommodation,

this is your home, as well as your children’s. If they want free accommodation then that comes with being woken when the house is awake. Cancel further visits.

Absolutely not - you go about your normal daily routines and they fit in. They join in family life when they are there and are kind and considerate to you. I hope they brought a nice gift for you and your child.

You didn't make yourself a coffee or your child breakfast because you had guests? Guests that hadn't even come to see you but essentially just wanted a free hotel? YABVU

I would avoid excessive noise, v loud toys shouting etc. But play quietly and definitely make coffee/ breakfast when you would normally. I would letting him jump on their bed at 6am, this happened to us pre-kids when staying at close friends of my husband. We didn’t mind but if less child friendly then avoid that, or early morning drum practice but otherwise go about your day as normal!

DH was mostly annoyed with the keeping DC quiet bit of the visit. We discussed the plan forward and he had a say in it. He thinks it is unfair if I don’t let them come for the already planned visits, after I initially agreed. They have already booked tickets, etc. But he will not do anything for them anymore ( the last time, he sat with them for at least one hour to plan sight seeing tours). We will never host them again after the 4 day August visit. If they ask, we agreed on an”excuse” we will tell them (a relative that needs to stay at ours every Saturday starting from September for a continuing education course. This is even true, except that the relative will stay once a month max).

No way would I have a colleague did not consider a good friend, staying at my house. If, for some inexplicable reason, I did, I most certainly would not tiptoe around in case I woke them up. My routine would continue as before. If they did not like it and objected to my child making a noise, then they could damn well book a hotel and sod off. I would not have the cheek to invite myself to someone's house for a couple of weekends that I did not consider family or a really close friend. They are a couple of grifters blagging a number of free weekends away from people stupid enough to fall for it.

It’s incredibly rude to invite yourself to multiple visits to stay with someone who isn’t a close friend or relative.

I mean use an excuse if you want to so they don’t come again, but I couldn’t resist a bit of passive aggression with any future requests “Oh surely you and Nigel must have seen enough of our town on your three visits “.

Never read of something like his where people who you owe nothing to OP, have the run of your house. Madness. I would tell them accommodation has fallen through and you can’t offer future stays.

I would never open my home either to randoms I didn’t even know especially to allow a strange man I never met, to be in the same house as my young DC.

How awful for your DC to have to oppress herself in her own house.

Stop living your life with excuses (lies). If you can't tell someone you don't want to host them you need to do a lot of self improvement, for you and your children.

I think I’d have to say after they’ve gone home that as much as you enjoy seeing them it’s not really working for you as the flats too small for guests and you
Found it too stressful with a little one and can’t just again but happy to meet up with them in future if they stay local I. A hotel

@StressedHost If they ask, we agreed on an"excuse" we will tell them (a relative that needs to stay at ours every Saturday starting from September for a continuing education course. This is even true, except that the relative will stay once a month max).

It’s fine to use an excuse but it’s good to practice just saying no. It’s a useful skill. It’s not rude. You need to stop worrying about what people think of you.

There IS a happy medium tbh. I wouldn’t let my child disturb a guest at 6.30am, but neither would I expect them to be quiet until 10. Tbh, I wouldn’t have let my 6 yr old disturb ME at 6.30am on a weekend either 😂. 8-8.30 would be a decent compromise.
When I stayed with my sister, I would catch her kids before they woke her, to give her a break.

I'd be pissed with you, too.

Can’t quite believe what I’m reading here. OP you need to get yourself into some therapy to help you become more assertive and stop letting people you aren’t close to take over your home! This is absolutely mental, say no. Your home isn’t a hotel jfc

They are being utterly unreasonable by staying in your home on multiple occasions for free, and you are being overly kind in inhibiting your children’s behaviour in their own home for guests who are, at best, acquaintances.

This is wild.

I lived in a cool European city for a while so quite often had people come to stay. It was just friends and family who actually wanted to see us though, not colleagues or acquaintances looking to use our place as an Air BnB.

The disrespect of her effectively telling you that her fella would be staying with you as well though is outrageous.

If she's early 20s then she's probably used to behaving casually like that around her peers, but you're twice her age and she's a guest in a family home. She's either incredibly rude/cheeky, or completely empty-headed to assume that would be ok.

Cancel them, you have been too kind already. Cancel