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 don't even bring guest gifts?!

My brother and his wife plus dog are free to use our house - we live in a lovely seaside town - whenever we're away. They ALWAYS leave a range of gifts (AND leave the house spotless - you cannot tell they've stayed, apart from the gifts).

It does come with age, not giving a shit about saying NO and not caring what other people think of you, but it sounds like your ex colleague is already there because she sees you for what you can do for her.
You are perfectly entitled to say no to a 4 day stay, because it just hasn’t worked for you or your family. Their accommodation issues are absolutely not your concern or problem. Plus if DH takes your child away for a weekend or however long, how lovely would it be for you to have an empty house and peace. Instead of hosting two freeloaders.
She is a user, and you are being used. Say no, let them find somewhere else.

Not saying this applies to the OP but People Pleasers are often more concerned about what people think of them than actually pleasing people. The OP is happy to piss off and inconvenience her husband and to disrupt her kid just so some ex colleague thinks she is kind and generous.

I was going to come along and say... its one night just ask the children to be quieter but carry on as normal as you can with some respect..

However.... then i read the story and no way would I tip toe around someone essentially using my house as a hotel... if they want quiet then then can pay for a hotel or private accommodation

This is often very true.

Came back to say I got it mixed up that the CFs had asked for a key when they hadn’t.

I have had a song going round in my head from the vintage Grange Hill days “Just Say No”.

What has angered me also is the entitled attitude that the CF BF had already booked tickets before the CF mentioned he would be coming along too. Is there no way they could get refunds for tickets they have booked so you can tell them to shove their visits?

OP is letting them stay … so they are guests…
OP needs to grow a backbone and set some boundaries

There is a difference between invited guests and self-invited guests - especially the latter who arrive with a plus one unknown to the "host".

It's your children's home.

DH is right, you are wrong.

DH is right.
You’d be doing them a favour to wake them up at 6am. 7am slightly more reasonable. They might get all the sightseeing done they want to and not need to come back multiple times!

Lots of posts say it, but your boundaries aren’t where they should be. If you’re not protecting and sticking up for your kids, who is?! For example no one comes into my house unless I love them or they are a health or other professional… and only my mum stays over. Certainly not a complete stranger whilst my child is in the house. I’d let someone stay when we are not there.

Good luck explaining to them that you won’t be pacifying your kid with cookies again so they can stay out to 3am (I’m assuming the reason they need to wake at 10am).

:-)

True to an extent I think.

I used to be a people pleaser as i mentioned upthread. But my motivations were different according to context. I used to be a kind, generous and totally taken advantage host for DH's friends. I was trying to please DH by being welcoming to his friends- many of whom were cheeky fuckers.

But I have a 5 decade history of people pleasing. This was very much embedded by a people-pleasing mother who taught me that our needs do not matter. It's rude to not do everything you can for others. I am just a person who is small, and who does not matter very much. My role and job is to smoothe the way for others- all others. The groove she has gotten into over 8 decades is pleasing her intractable, angry, violently abusive mother and oldest sister. That then rippled out to her need to 'prove herself worthy of love' by pleasing everyone around her. Her only way of 'mothering' was to tell me and my sister that we are only valuable when in service to others. Our emotions, our needs and our feelings matter not at all.

I left home at 20. I left my home country at 25. It was not until I was 50 that I have been able to say 'No. This is my line in the sand'. I thank menopause and also MN for that. Funnily enough, when I go to my home country to visit my parents my mother always tries to make me visit her older sister who is a nasty bitch. (She used to beat me up from the age of 8 - which my mother knew about). Last 2 times I have said 'No'. My mother's response is 'you have become so stubborn and uncaring as you get older'. That then feeds into my worries about being nasty, and selfish which was the greatest sin of all according to my mother.

So, in my-personal- experience I think people pleasers are people who tend to have low self esteem and not great boundaries. Where that comes from and originates from can be very deep.

They invited themself to stay in a family home, not a hotel. They are not even your friends. Personally I would allow my kids to make all the noise they want with this set up- if they don’t like it they can always book into a hotel (but honestly I would not have accommodated them in the first place).
If they were family or friends I would ensure my kid wasn’t going into their room in the morning, but I would go about my normal day and allow everyone to make the same amount of noise as they usually make.
Honestly op, they’re just using you.

I’ve read your follow up posts op. For gods sake woman! Why didn’t you say “actually I do really mind your bf staying, I don’t know him and I have kids, I don’t want strangers staying in my house”
”actually I did not agree to you staying every weekend. I thought you meant only this one weekend. I have a family and we value our time together at the weekend. I’m sorry, you really will have to arrange other accomodation if you want to stay any other weekends”.
etc etc etc
stop being a doormat.

Time to put to a stop to any other visits NOW! Just say, sorry Sallly, I’m sure you’ve noticed I have a family and we value our family time. Whilst it was nice having you here 1 weekend, I really think it is best if you arrange other accomodation for any other weekends you wish to be here for. We are not a hotel and I don’t appreciate being treated as one”.