Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

Flip

1 2 3 4

Original poster

naughty neighbours knock on wall when baby cries

76 replies

traceyn · 30/03/2007 22:36

my single young neighbour bangs on the wall when my baby cries, which is rarely
Happened again this morning laid dd on bed for 5 mins whilst having bath, 5.5 months, she decided to have a little grumble about being left. Had to get out of the bath to pick dd up to stop her crying because my neighbour tried to knock the wall down !, just imagine if dd had colic what would she do then ?. (I did'nt knock on the wall when she brought someone home the other night !)

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

FrannyandZooey · 01/04/2007 15:09

Aitch I wish you lived next door to me

morningpaper · 01/04/2007 15:11

Can you record the baby crying and leave it on constant play while you are out shopping?

AitchTwoOh · 01/04/2007 15:16

oh franny, we have no deafening in our building at all... you wouldn't like it, you'd hear DD A Lot. i've had her on a stealth campaign with the neighbours since she was born... she learned the word Cat so as to charm the upstairs naighbour and has just graduated to shouting Elvis (the cat's name) whenever she sees either cat or owner. charms the knickers off them, i must say. thankfully the woman below us is working on her final year at art college so she's a bit noisy as well so we all have to do a bit of give and take, you know, warn each other of parties etc. it's fine, but i believe that the best thing to do is be upfront. it's just another reason, of course, why there would never be any controlled crying techniques in this flat... that would be A Bridge Too Far i fear.

FrannyandZooey · 01/04/2007 15:18

Dd would never cry if she lived next door to Aunty Franny

AitchTwoOh · 01/04/2007 15:19

she'd bee too busy stuffing her face with banana cake and tree bark, i'm sure.

paulaplumpbottom · 01/04/2007 15:24

Some people can be so mean. When I was a student I had an apartment next door to a young family. They were lovely and when they brought a new baby home I prepared myself for the noise. There was a lot of it and sometimes it affected my studies which was rough, but I knew that babies grow out of crying all the time. I also knew that if it was annoying me it was probably annoying its mommy more. People can just be really intolerant. I would complian when ever she makes noise to.

AitchTwoOh · 01/04/2007 15:25

okay, why would you complain whenever she makes a noise, paula? what possible good would that do?

paulaplumpbottom · 01/04/2007 15:38

Tracey says that her daughter doesn't cry very often. Maybe if her neighbor could understand how irritating it is to have your neighbor knocking on the wall at every little noise she might stop.

AitchTwoOh · 01/04/2007 15:45

but what if she didn't? what if she got pissed off and started banging more?

why is everyone so averse to just going and asking the woman to stop, promising that the baby is not being left to cry unnattended a la SWMNBN and recognising that the woman has a right to live in her house without being disturbed. and if there isn't enough deafening in the walls then they must agree ot be considerate, but at the moment the woman doesn't even know that the problem cuts both ways and unless she's a chronic exhibitionist will probably be mortified to find out that it does.

seems to me that most of the advice on here will antagonise your neighbour further, tracey... good luck with it all.

yomellamoHelly · 01/04/2007 15:58

Would totally ignore your neighbour if I were you. The construction of your home isn't your fault. Carry on living your life and don't let her influence you and make sure you have a good rant down the pub to let off steam. I don't see how anyone should stop you living your life so long as you're being reasonable about how you're living it.
FWIW we used to have a lady in the flat below us who got really wound up by us padding around our flat at midnight, making drinks, using the bathroom etc. She started by banging, then wrote notes and then started cornering me (which really wound me up - what about dh eh?). She moved out a year later - which obviously I was gutted about!

paulaplumpbottom · 01/04/2007 15:58

I suppose Aitch's solution is the most sensible

powder28 · 01/04/2007 16:06

I agree with yomella. Just don't do anything and carry on beiong a nice pleasant person who doesnt bang on peoples walls. Rise above it, she might move out anyway.

clairemow · 01/04/2007 19:01

"don't have kids if you can't afford to buy a house where their noise won't disturb anyone."

Did I read that right Aitch? We live on a small island, in close proximity to eachother, and being neighbours is all about give and take. Living in a house which is attached to someone else's (which is the case for most of us) means that sometimes we hear noise from eachother. But at the moment, it doesn't sound to me like tracey's neighbour is doing much giving.

I agree Tracey should try the non-confrontational approach, after all who wants to live next door to someone you are arguing with. I don't see how acknowledging that Tracey's neighbour is annoyed by giving her a solution to the 'problem' could piss her off, but Tracey doesn't want her to think she's a pushover. Maybe Tracey and her might even laugh about it one day.

AitchTwoOh · 01/04/2007 19:30

no, you didn't read that right at all. go back and check again, paying particular attention to the bit beginning 'failing that...'.

clairemow · 01/04/2007 19:35

Good! I was quite ed by that sentence. Of course though we can't all have perfect children and neighbours do need to understand that children do make noise. Adults can control themselves much more. Children have to learn this skill. After all, this is a society...

Tinkerdumpsandruns · 01/04/2007 19:37

Oh, sympathies. We had this. Neighbour used to shout "Shut your effin' baby up". He had kids, his partner was a childminder [hmm} Really not the kind of man you'd go round to with daffodils to have a reasonable chat about the situation with. We ignored them (and then she started to call me a stuck-up bitch - ) and, finally, moved. Can you move?

sunnyjim · 01/04/2007 19:50

wow I'm glad I don't have any of you as neighbours (except A)

What is wrong with a quick apology? no you can't stop the baby crying but maybe just letting your neighbour know that you do appreciate how disturbing it must be for her would go a long way?

I always apologise if DS has been screaming at night, thankfully our neighbours have kids too but if he's loud enough to wake DH in the attic I assume he's loud enough to wake next door. So when I see them I always say - sorry about the other night, we're having a rough patch on the whole staying asleep/teething etc thing right now.

Yes banging on the wlal is irritating but 'do as you would be done by' if you would like her to talk to you reasonably and be friendly then maybe you need to talk to her?

nightowl · 01/04/2007 19:51

Traceyn, why dont you go around to your neighbour and ask to have a chat, play it down. have you ever introduced yourselves properly btw? no matter. tell her that you understand noise is an issue but explain there is little you can do about a crying baby and you hope she understands. be as nice as possible and say if she has any problem to just maybe pop round.

its all bollocks i know, but then she cant say you've not made an effort.

at least if you have tried to talk about it it puts you in a better light. i do think she's being unreasonable.

my neighbour moved out about a year ago. i had always made an effort to be friendly to her but i have a very tantrum prone dd. i had always said, right from day one, any problems please do pop round. she started wall banging and shouting over the fence to me. then after she moved she bumped into one of my other neighbours and told them i was hell, that some of us in the street who are friendly had given her filthy looks and argued with her! nothing like that ever happened! not one person here had ever said a bad word about the woman. add to that, her brother who she bought the house from never had a bad word with anyone here and never had any problem with me.

lostinfrance · 01/04/2007 19:59

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

Nightynight · 01/04/2007 22:10

boy you dont know nothing aitch, till youve had problems with german neighbours...can assure you that my colleague has a degree in neighbour relations, as he has the misfortune to own, and play, a piano.

doesnt mean you cant be nice to them. you just shouldnt let on that you paid 5K to have your flat soundproofed, or they smell blood.

knowing your neighbours makes unfortunately little difference, I speak from experience.

Judy1234 · 01/04/2007 22:41

My sister had this problem. In the end she had a mediation brokered by her local council and then eventually she just moved. Local council said children's normal noises are never a breach of the law. My sister then found out the neigbour was desperate to get pregnant and couldn't but even so it was an awful situation for a year or so. You feel like going over there with the baby and saying - thanks for your offer to babysit. Here's the baby. I'll be back in an hour. Take it to the park as I need another hour's sleep it's only 6am.

AitchTwoOh · 01/04/2007 22:46

'the misfortune to own and play a piano'? [baffled] what are you talking about?

ja9 · 01/04/2007 22:49

at op.

my dd has colic and i was just wondering tonight as she cried and cried (and cried and cried and cried), if the neighbours could hear, and how they'd be coping...

chancery · 01/04/2007 22:54

techno babe

techno at 8 am - speaker to the neighbours wall only.

then go out for a nice stroll to the coffee shop.

powder28 · 02/04/2007 08:39

My sister used to live next to a woman who was pregnant at the time, and she already had a little girl. My sister used to hear her throwing up in teh bathroom and her little girl saying 'are you ok mummy?' constantly!

Flip

1 2 3 4