How do you cope with the relentless noise that small children make?

[Malaleche]

?

Badly

You don't lol. I heard from somewhere probably on here that pre school teachers are more at risk form hearing damage that someone who drills for a living and I can believe it!

gaffer tape

I scream "BE QUIET" a lot

after a while I beg "please... please just be quiet"

Then I lock myself in the bathroom & weep softly

I retreat to my safe place, inside my head, stay very still, and hope they don't see me.

Just get used to it really, some days it drives me mad the incessantness of it but I can usually cope. Getting out and about or doing activities or going in the garden all help (with the kids of course hehe).

Now this is the advantage of being a deaf mummy....I just switch my hearing aid off!!!

Firm rule: no shouting/screaming in any location that has a roof. Enforced through use of naughty step if necessary. Outside, they can make as much noise as they like!

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LOl Nikki that is a fab advantage! I sometimes wish the remote control worked on my children Oh to be able to turn the sound down occasionally!

Its also great when its hammering down with rain outside and DH is all bleary eyed oh the fecking rain kept me up and I'm all bright eyed and bushy tailed! Who needs pentapeptides when you are deaf!! lol

LOl it's fab you can laugh about it.

Everyone needs pentapeptides, at a non celebrity price tag.....

Yes, well it just so happens I'm deaf too, but not enough! And if I turn the aids off I can't hear the phone ringing...

My ds hums to himself all the time. It's just his 'busy' noise, and he is hardly aware that he's doing it, and mostly I love it but now and then, (warning, don't read on if you are easily upset by Evil Mothering) he'll hum the same bit of a song over and over and over and once I have tuned into it, it's all I can hear and I end up snapping and (gulp) telling him to please be quiet or sing another song or something PLEASE and then he looks at me with his huge eyes and says "But I can't help it, Mummy" and I feel absolutely shite!

Once, I told DD1 that I needed five minutes with no noise, otherwise my head would explode. Cue lots of graphic descriptions from her about how there will be blood everywhere ...

I reckon I'll just stop talking entirely once DD2 learns to talk, because there will just not be enough time for all three of us to have our say.

The only genuine discovery I have made is that I have to stay quiet myself in order to have any hope of persuading DD1 to be quieter. So I tell her, very calmly and quietly, that she doesn't need to shout when I'm sitting right next to her. And DD2 has learned what Sshhh! means and thinks it's a very funny game. I blank her when she's too noisy and give her lots of attention when she tries again quietly, in the vain hope that it might become a habit ...

And I always take a moment to enjoy the peace, just after I've shut the car doors with them inside and me outside!

I prefer the noise to the constant mess my 4 leave behind them!

oh god, the mess. Now that's 'visual noise'.

Someone once said to me that you spend you childrens babyhood and toddlerhood encouranging them to talk and improve their speech then you spend the rest of their childhood telling them to shup up and be quiet!

Teach them to play 'sleeping tigers', they have to be quiet and the last one to be silent wins a bottle of Smirnoff/or a lolly/biscuit whatever you fancy really

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Oh yes, we always sing the "Sleeping Bunnies" song at the end of our toddler group, just to enjoy the 30 seconds' peace before they all go home. Sooooooo tempting just to leave it at the bit where they all pretend to be asleep ...

My DS and DD1 (aged 6 and 4) are constantly squabbling, and DD2 (4mo) loves being carried around - she roars if I leave her down for a minute! I feel like crying, but I just go on auto-pilot and start thinking about my life before I had kids. Then I start remembering how boring it was, how shite work was (it's better now as it's a break from the kids), how 4 holidays a year became boring (every package holiday is the same), and going out to the pub 3 nights a week became a chore - that makes me realise there's more structure to your life if you have children.