I (28f) and my husband (31m) have a gorgeous DS (17months).
He’s very clever and loving, but as with all toddlers, comes with difficulties.
He sleeps through the night for about 2-3 weeks and then will have the odd one or two nights where he’s very restless and wakes a lot. He’s teething, constantly catching illnesses from nursery and started going through a seperation anxiety stage where he only wants me and it can be very full on with days of wingeing, crying, tantrums, fighting naps.
Our joined next door neighbours are in their 50s and do not have children, however, the woman works from home and they have a HUGE issue with any noise.
They’ve been round before in the middle of the day to tell us to stop decorating (we’d taken a few days AL to decorate the nursery before ds arrived) because it was noisy during work hours and they had issues with the previous owners children who would have piano lessons at 6pm in the evening due to them being able to hear it. They’re also very creepy, the husband has pushed his way into the house very early in the morning when I was home alone(closing the front door behind him) to tell me DS (7 weeks old at the time) had woken them up in the night and then wanted to hug it out with me saying “give me a cuddle” and putting his arms around me, they’ve broken into our garden and searched our shed when their cat went missing despite being told not to come into the property without permission. We put a big lock on the gate to stop them being able to get in so he removed a fence panel. We both own our houses. (There’s a long string of issues where they have overstepped and never apologised).
Last week, DS was very unsettled with his teeth and my husband and I just couldn’t get him to nap despite him being very tired. We’d try everything and it lead to DS getting very upset. We got a knock at the door by the neighbour, telling us he could be heard on zoom calls, was affecting her business and “as a woman, it was her duty to call social services on us unless we keep him quiet”. I explained this was normal behaviour for a toddler, he wasn’t well and we were doing our best, but she told me he was the worst child she’d ever known, he screams too much and no other child is as bad as him.
I was devastated. I know I’m doing the best I can with my son. Nursery say what a wonderful, calm and happy child he is, family love seeing him and he’s so funny. But I’m having a total crisis of confidence. They’d literally threatened us to have him taken away (which I know won’t happen but it’s the worst thing you could hear as a parent).
I’m currently 4+ months pregnant with planned baby two but now I’m worried how we will cope with a toddler and crying baby if we’re getting threatened by noise during the day constantly?
Everytime my son cries I get panicked to keep him quiet as quickly as possible and it’s leading to bad habits of him having a bottle again overnight when he wakes or us getting up very early in the morning with him instead of letting him self settle.
Sorry about the long post, I just needed to let it out. My husband is so so supportive and furious at the neighbours but it doesn’t help my feelings when he’s at work and I’m home all day by myself trying to cope and terrified about another knock on the door or them forcing their way into the house.