Help! my neighbours keep calling social services on us

[Nokita]

hi everyone,
I'm a mum to a little girl who is almost two. She has been theeting (terrible pain) and been sick quite often from a couple of months. besides this we been asked by her dietitian to reduce night feeds what end up in tantrums in the middle of the night. We moved to a family neighbourhood 8 months ago and has been everything fine but we have new neighbours downstairs and since they moved in we have almost every two weeks a complain to social services and children protection services.
At first they led an investigation and closed it soon after as there was no worries (off course!). we spoke with dietitian and health visitor after the first complaint and agreed for the sake of no one complaining about the crying we would keep going with night feeds and reduce the crying.
still, we keep beeing reported and I start to live in fear, fear that my baby cries and we have another complain. this is affecting our family so much. She started to sleep in our bed, doesnt fall asleep if one of us is not there cuddling her. she understood that playing tantrums will get what she wants and we gave in just to stop her crying.
social services just told me to not worry as it's normal a baby cry specially with her conditions.
is there anything you would advise. how to find a balance between the crying, parenting and not disturbing the neighbours.

thank you so much

In that case, you need to do what you can to make your situation liveable. I'd suggest building a relationship with your neighbours and doing what you can to minimise the noise. If they can see that you are trying, they may back off.

I'd try the friendly route first. Doing this may provoke them into more.

You have the support of Social Services and Children's Health. Do what you need to do for your child - follow the advice of SS and Heath services. The best bet is to sort out your child - get her health needs under control or whatever is causing her pain. (I had the sick baby I get it - its hard without all this crap being added) This will eventually stop alot of the crying. However toddlers tantrum so your neighbours might just have to deal with that one long haul! Try and harden yourself to the complaints. SS have to tell you, they have to 'check in' but you do t have to worry about it - as hard as that seems.

Take care of yourself your partner and your baby.

It doesn't sound like disproportionate baby/toddler noise. Can you record a couple of 12 hour periods; two 6pm to 6am, and two 6am to 6pm for example. Therefore is you have to assert they are unreasonable you have the evidence to back it.

Might it also be possible next time they report you, if they aren't doing it anonymously to ask SS to wrote to them or cc them in the letter closing the case.

After that if they do it again I'd be inclined to ask a solicitor to wrote a cease and desist letter on the basis of harassment and wasting public services/funds.

Totally disagree with some of this. We lived in a flat below a family who said two of their children had special needs. My DH and I where up and out by 7. Am and not back til 8 - 8.30 at night . We where constantly kept awake at night and early in morning by crying , screaming etc. In the end we had to move I was on anti depression tablets and my partner on sleeping pills. We where both in our early 20,s. They ruined our lives and subsequently our relationship. You need to do everything possible to respect your neighbours sleep.

@Applebeee provoke them into what? From a legal perspective (and I am a qualified lawyer) repeated ungrounded reports to SS would qualify as harassment. I am all for keeping your neighbours onside but sometimes people need to understand that their bullying will not be tolerated.

SS can't not investigate.

A crying baby is a massive stresser for any parent/carer. A lot of violence against young children is "triggered by the child crying" by parent/carer wanting to do anything (violent abuse) to stop the child making the noise.

The fact that the OP is now stressing about the NDN's complaints could in other circumstance be the cause of harm as the parent is now also motivated to stop the trigger event (crying) for the SS investigation.

Which means that SS need to investigate each and every time there is a report.

OP you do what is best for you DD. SS will continue to do their job.

There was a (very) small possibility that the NDN is good faith reporting if they have a history of child abuse in their family and find crying very distressing. However if they are making fun of a 2 year old, I would class them as Asshole NDN.

As for a noise complaint, having a baby/toddler living in a family home is normal use of a family home.

OP has to live there for another year plus. Personally I'd be trying to smooth things over, not escalating the hostility levels. If smoothing things over doesn't work, then go down the police / harassment route.

Well sorry but if you but a flat or even a semii detached house you have to accept that there will be noise from neighbours. Of course they have a right to quiet enjoyment if their home so if op was playing loud music at all hours I'd be on board with the complaints but this is a child crying which is normal and expected noise.

Op ignore the neighbours and keep following advice and meeting the needs of your child. You have a difficult situation as it is having a child with health needs the last thing you need is to be trying to stop your child making noise.

Although csc do have a duty to investigate they will most likely mark down the call as malicious and stop doing full assessments if its the same neighbours and circumstances etc
Malicious reports are not rare and it would be impossible to manage if every single one was investigated every single time.

By the way op I'm a social worker and have children who are extremely loud often in the night and very early. This morning one was crying and screaming at 6am next to our adjoining wall. Luckily my neighbours don't care and understand. I would care if they did to be honest.

This advice is good.
You are making normal family noise and they are harassing you about it.
If they are copying the mumbling noise your child makes when going to sleep then the issue is the walls/soundproofing.
You are able to make normal noise which includes a baby crying for 15 mins.
I'd ask social services for advice on what to do about the malicious complaints as well.
And move as soon as you can.

Wouldn't care even

Honestly, I'd look to move. This is not a solvable situation.

Same the first one was awful cos I wasn't expecting it.

However the first three were all lies!! All malicious.

The latest 2 have been more true because I've been having some behavioural issues with my child (*the reports were about her kicking off). But the reports weren't with any honest and genuine intentions, they just don't like the noise and they don't want us here.

I don't know how many more reports I'll have to put up with cos my neighbours actually make up lies so you have to wonder....

The police have told me that unless you can prove they're just reporting it because of the noise (not because they think they're crying too much so it's something to worry about) then you can't prove it's malicious
And in order for this to happen they would basically have to admit that they're just making the reports because they don't like the noise rather than genuine concern

Wow. I used to know someone who always complained about their neighbours special needs child, she went overboard and eventually got them evicted. Four years after, she now had a child with a disability and immensely regretted the way she treated the other family and saw it as Karma.

Be careful what you say and have some sympathy. 'Ruined lives' is a bit over the top.
Have some sympathy

Surely it depends on the crying. One child might fuss for a few minutes, one might scream for hours. If someone repeatedly hears the latter they might be worried and if you are worried about a child's safety then contacting SS is the right thing to do. Considering that children have died when SS have believed parents who were abusing a child it isn't necessarily unreasonable to keep reporting.

Accusing people who are concerned about a child of bullying is quite dangerous and will make vulnerable children even more at risk.

The OP needs to look at ways they can reduce the nuisance to other people, swapping rooms round, buying thick carpet or whatever. A few rugs isn't going to cut it.

@secular39

You can't see that the neighbours may be affected because of other people's children too? It isn't all about the parents. Parents choose to have children and are therefore responsible for those children - something a lot of posters on mumsnet don't seem to understand.

The OP has asked the landlord to soundproof (which he has declined to do), but that doesn’t stop OP doing it (at least under the room the toddler sleeps in).
The neighbours can’t soundproof their ceiling so they should do everything they can to reduce their impact on the neighbours.

Yes, which is why speaking to the neighbours and understanding where / when the noise disturbs them is important. Then working together to resolve it.

Your flat management company will have the time frames where noise is acceptable mine is 7am-7pm.

i have a DD she’s 2 and we swapped bedrooms because her and the baby above would wake each other. To a point it’s our job to make sure our neighbours aren’t disturbed by her crying/tantrums etc but there is only so much you can do.

I would record your family for a day and listen to it back when my DD goes for it she can be heard in the hall way she may be louder than you realise. Perhaps make a noise log of the neighbours your having issues with so if this escalates you can have it to hand if you hear talking tv etc

living in a flat with children is hard but so is living in a flat if you don’t have children but others do it’s lifestyle clashes and you have to try and get on best you can.

This is really interesting to hear that malicious calls are not rare.

If the neighbours didn't want to listen to normal family or household noise then they shouldn't have moved into flats. Their complaint needs to be directed at the landlord re soundproofing. As long as you are doing everything in your power to keep the noise to a reasonable level then you aren't doing anything wrong. I would be inclined to be complaining to the police about harassment.

They can log it but like said upthread they don't be able to do anything unless they can prove it's malicious ie the neighbours admitting they're just doing it because they don't like the noise

My neighbours called 999 on me when my has had a meltdown!
Malicious.
They can get away with malicious calls because they would have to prove it's malicious in order to get them and that would mean them admitting it

Maybe they thought they were doing the right thing and you were hurting your child?