Noise.

[rivka]

Several times in the last two months, we've gotten a call from the woman who rents the studio apartment beneath our house, asking us to keep Alex quieter because she is sleeping. It particularly bothers her when Alex runs back and forth along our main room, or when Alex has a friend over and they're running around together. Each time, we have taken Alex outside or blocked her in so that she can't run around.

All of these complaints have happened after 9:30am, and usually much later. Today, for example, she called at 10:30. I ran into her outside later, and finally asked what her work and sleep schedules are. She said that she works from 3:30pm to midnight, and "the earliest I'm ever awake is 11:30."

My question is this: when someone works a late shift, is it reasonable for them to expect their neighbors to keep nighttime-style quiet levels during the day? So far we have responded as though it is, and I do have sympathy for her need to sleep. But I am also starting to feel annoyed about it.

Morning is the biggest part of Alex's day - in the afternoon, there's often less than two hours between the post-nap snack and dinner preparation. Morning is when kids her age socialize. If we're supposed to be quiet until at least after 11:30, that means never being able to host playgroup. "Active play belongs outside" is a hard rule to enforce with a toddler - they tend to be active all day long, or to switch back and forth between quiet and active play in short bursts, and they need to be active even when the weather is too bad to play outside. We do go out a lot - the children's museum, the science center, the library, (if weather will ever permit it again) the park, and just for long get-out-of-the-house walks in the neighborhood. But we can't always go out all morning long.

The rest of our house is not really set up for playing. Alex's room is on the third floor, at the top of an extremely steep and dangerous flight of steps. It doesn't have much floor space, and we don't keep any of her toys up there - it's just for sleeping. The second floor has our bedroom and study, which are cluttered with furniture, cords and cables, and a million things she's not supposed to mess with. Our indoor play space is pretty much the living-dining room, period. (We have a back courtyard for outdoor play space, but I know from bitter experience that sound travels very well from the basement apartment to the courtyard, and presumably vice versa.)

So: should we require Alex to be sedentary whenever she's indoors before lunchtime? Or is our neighbor expecting too much? I'm looking for honest opinions here, and not just back patting, because I fully recognize that my prior experience with this neighbor is coloring my view of the situation. I just keep thinking, "She's got a lot of damn gall, to be complaining to us about noise."

Comments

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

IMO, it is unreasonable to ask one's neighbors to maintain nighttime levels of quiet all day. It's just not practical for most people to do, toddlers or no toddlers. I think your odds of successfully requiring Alex to be sedentary indoors before lunch are nil, and that attempts at it are likely to backfire and result in more noise.

Your neighbor needs some heavy-duty earplugs.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Given my experience with toddlers, Alex would be frustrated and therefore even noisier. If it's a choice between your daughter and your neighbor? Ha. Remind Wicked Neighbor that there are earplugs and white noise machines available at every corner drugstore.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

It's certainly OK of her to ASK. It is, however, unreasonable of her to expect it to be possible -- if there are people home during the day, they're likely to be moving and making reasonable amounts of noise. (When I'm home during the day, for example, I WILL have the stereo on)

The woman really needs to get herself a good pair of earplugs. Or move to a place where nobody is home during the day.

[selki.livejournal.com]

Or move to a top floor apartment somewhere.

[saoba.livejournal.com]

I've been a shift worker and I understand the myriad hassles of sleeping when others are awake. Although frankly in my case the most annoying part was that everything was closed when I was awake and not at work. Did you know it's hard to get your hair cut at two am?

That said, she's asking you to curtail the activities of your family to accomodate her schedule. Keeping noise to a minimum in the main room of your house for one half of your child's waking hours isn't reasonable.

Look, the fact is that most of the world runs on a daytime schedule. The city is going to do construction work- during daylight hours. People are going to walk along the sidewalk out front talking and laughing- during daylight hours. There's going to be traffic, noise and everyday activity. Such, my young onions, is the life of the shift worker. You learn to sleep through the noise or you shift your sleep schedule (if she was in bed by 2 am she'd be getting in 7 hours of rack time before 930) or you don't last on a shift work job.

Not letting hordes of toddlers run around doing the elephant dance at six am- reasonable. Not letting one child act like a child for over one half of the day in her own home- not so reasonable.

[elynne.livejournal.com]

Former graveyard shift worker agrees: damn tootin'. When I worked from eight at night to four or five in the morning, I was not infrequently woken from my daytime slumber by children playing next door, trucks driving up and down the street, construction work, or the sun. If you're gonna work that kind of shift, you have to learn to cope. Telling the rest of the world to STFU may be viscerally satisfying for a few minutes, but the only way to get good sleep is make your own adjustments in your own personal space.

... feh.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

We had this issue with neighbors, once. It was somewhat reversed, they claimed that us walking above them was keeping their children awake. They called the cops on us once, because we had guests over, and we were all walking. The nerve of us.

You can't restrain Alex all morning long. It's unreasonable to expect you to do so, just as it was unreasonable of our neighbors to expect us to not walk at all. Earplugs and white noise machines are cheap and readily available.

As a good neighbor move, it might do good to make sure that there are rugs where Alex is playing, and that she's not wearing shoes. Then you can tell your neighbor that you've taken those steps. If Alex is running around practicing tap dance on your hardwood, then maybe your neighbor has a case. :-)

Either way, when somebody works odd hours, it's not the responsibility of the rest of the world to accommodate, especially when there are very simple solutions.

[brooksmoses]

The carpet suggestion is apparently a good one. Our downstairs neighbor once left a note on our door complaining about our walking -- apparently we walked substantially louder than any of the three people before us in the apartment, and he went to bed early and us fairly late. (He was rather peeved in the letter, mostly I think because this had been annoying him for six months and he hadn't said anything about it because he didn't want to be confrontational.)

So, at his suggestion, we tried to walk a bit more gently (though, honestly, there's only so much one can do), and put down rugs over the carpet where we walked in the bedroom. And a few weeks later he mentioned to us that it had made a world of difference and he was quite happy.

He also offered to pay part of the cost of the rugs (though they ended up being cheap enough that it wasn't an issue); I think that's a quite reasonable thing.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I agree with all the above.

The most you should be expected to do is to lay down carpet, or ask your landlord to.

possibly unpopular opinion, but ...

[kuangning]

No, it's not reasonable for her to demand it. By the same token, though, if just her being up and around during her awake time ever disturbs you, it would be just as unreasonable for you to demand night-time quiet. She got rid of the partner, so the fights aren't an issue anymore and weren't entirely her fault to begin with. This is a situation, in my opinion, for being as neighbourly as possible on both sides; it's not like you can expect your neighbour to take a daytime shift to make your schedules compatible. She may well do that out of sheer sleep deprivation if she never gets a full day's rest, though. :/ I guess you can hope she does that or that she moves, but that's about all.

[laurenhat.livejournal.com]

I'm on the other end of this; I'm a grad student on a somewhat late schedule (I get up between 8 and 11 depending on circumstances), and my upstairs neighbors have a toddler and a baby who get up earlier and make a whole lot of noise right over my head. I don't feel it's reasonable of me to complain, however, on the mornings when it wakes me; I'm the one on the weirder schedule, and I don't think there's probably much they can do anyway. I am lucky enough to usually be a heavy sleeper, but if I weren't, I would get earplugs and/or try to shift my sleep schedule a bit earlier.

Hmm... do you think you could politely explain to her that you are doing your best to be accommodating and take Alex outside when possible, but that mornings are her most active time and it's impossible to keep her completely quiet? Perhaps if you express enough sympathy and explain the steps you are taking, she'll stop complaining. Though your previous post doesn't lead me to expect that she's necessarily a reasonable person -- ugh. :(

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

My SO, bbwoof, worked the night shift for over 12 years. I asked him what he thought about your situation.

He shrugged and said that he learned to sleep through anything. If something like a child running around upstairs was going to wake him up, then obviously he had slept enough.

Sounds to me like your neighbor really needs earplugs.

[windypoint.livejournal.com]

He shrugged and said that he learned to sleep through anything. If something like a child running around upstairs was going to wake him up, then obviously he had slept enough.

Yes... I worked shift work in my youth, and have also lived in a few very noisy locations, and there is certainly a difference between the nuisance factor of noise occurring while trying to get to sleep, and that which occurs while already asleep. I'm wondering whether maybe the neighbour is just looking for something to blame her early waking on, so she automatically assigns the cause as being the first thing she hears upon waking, even though it is entirely possible that her early morning waking is due to mild depression or simply the changes in sleep behaviour that occur as we age, and even if conditions were ideal she would find herself awake a few hours before she feels is appropriate.

[windypoint.livejournal.com]

Not sure how things work in America, but in Australia the night shifts are usually paid quite a bit more precisely because it is a nuisance to be on a different sleep schedule than everyone else, and the worker will need to do things such as soundproofing, heavier drapes, earplugs, white noise machine, moving to different housing etc to enable themselves to handle the different schedule. Shift work is usually the responsibility of the shift worker... in her case she has an easily predicted schedule, but what if she was on a rotating roster as is common in nursing, would you be expected to keep a copy of her roster and accommodate all the different shift changes?

[journeywoman.livejournal.com]

She said that she works from 3:30pm to midnight, and "the earliest I'm ever awake is 11:30."

She sleeps 11 hours a night? Maybe she should try going to sleep earlier, when she gets home from work. Not that I would suggest that to her face, but I think that if I were in her shoes, I'd try a solution like that before I asked my neighbor to stay quiet until 11:30 a.m., which I don't think is reasonable. 9:00 a.m. might be more reasonable.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Go to bed earlier? I don't think that's fair. I mean, when you get home from work, you need to wind down some. Especially when you're on the night shift, it's incredibly difficult to fall asleep, assuming your circadian rhythm is normal. (Mine isn't. Gods, I'd love a night job.) Her wind down time is about 3 hours, and that is ignoring the time spent commuting. And all of this is if she only needs 8 hours of sleep. Some people on the night shift need more sleep. Most of them, I think.

I learned all this living with someone on the night shift. I had to switch over to night shift on weekends if I wanted to see him. He didn't dare change his hours much because his body really, really wanted to go back to daylight hours. If he wasn't careful, he ended up falling asleep at work.

All that said, I don't think it's reasonable for her to demand that the upstairs toddler not toddle in the morning. City living, especially apartment living, means accomodating some to the people around you. Sounds like Rivka's done a reasonable amount of accomodating, and it's the neighbor's turn.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I think it's normal for a shift worker to need some time to unwind between getting off work and bedtime. But yeah, I also find myself thinking, "*I* go to bed at midnight and get up at 7 - why can't she do that?" even though I know it's not a reasonable suggestion.

[lerryn.livejournal.com]

My opinion is that in the real world, people do things in normal daytime hours that make noise. It is not unreasonable for someone to run a vacuum cleaner at 10:30 AM, and I have heard my apartment complex run a carpet scrubber at 9:00 AM before on weekdays. I believe that your neighbor's best option would be to rent a small house, in which case there would be no issue with people living upstairs, below, or otherwise sharing a wall/ceiling/floor.

[fourgates.livejournal.com]

What better legitimate lever to get them out of there could one ask for? I'd be playing "the silent monster is coming to get you" with Alex every morning. Also a great opportunity to take advantage of the lesson that every parent learns -- that emotional responses are sometimes way more potent reinforcers than mere words. "Oh no, Alex, don't jump off the couch and onto the stuffed monster again. Not again. Oh, no." Then you can tell your neighbor that 2-year olds are just like that, and that you should know.

[dafna]

Another former night-shifter here, and I agree with the sentiment that it's not unreasonable for her to *ask* but you certainly don't have to comply. She's lived there awhile, right? So either she's new to the night shift, or the kid is now suddenly a lot noisier than before.

If the former, she needs to learn to deal -- blackout curtains, earplugs, white noise generators (doesn't have to be fancy, a fan would do), etc. Don't you live downtown? I had a lot bigger problems w/ street noise than people living overhead.

If the latter, then there's not much you can do except politely say that you think your kid is just going to get noisier as she gets older (true), but that you'll look into getting a carpet, but if that's important to her you may ask her to split the cost -- or ask her to approach the landlord about seeing if he'd spring for it.

All the things people have said above about "if you're on the night shift, you learn to deal -- you don't expect the world to shift" are very true. If you can't deal, you change shifts or jobs. And if you can't do either, than you think about moving apartments.

My funniest thing about working the night shift was going out w/ friends for drinks at what for me was the breakfast hour.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

If someone moved in above me with habits that created large amounts of morning noise, I'd be pretty peeved, and unable to avail myself of your "solutions." I own my condo. Our housing market is softer than lard so moving isn't an option. And I work for myself, in a field that requires me to work mostly evenings, so changing jobs or shifts isn't an option either.

We are not a 9-5 society any more, and really we never have been. We are a pluralistic society in this way as well as in many others.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm someone who, unless I have to get up for my Boulder job, also sleeps until 1030 or 1130am thanks to my work schedule.

If I had my magic wand, this is how things would work.

Yard work (lawnmowers and leafblowers) would be banned before 10am, because they cause so much disruptive noise to many many people over a wide are all at once (well, leafblowers would just implode, because they are Evil and Filthy, but nevermind that). The same for road construction and external home repair/construction. We are not a 9-5 society any more (and really, never have been... it's just that the swing and third shifts were mostly Unwashed Masses until the past few decades).

Inside a building, neighbors would take care to keep noise down in shared spaces all the time. I no more appreciate someone stopping in the hall, in front of my door (I own a condo) to yak loudly with their friend at noon than I do at midnight, or 6am or pm. Noisy work on shared spaces would be after 10am, with notice.

Inside an individual unit... now here is where it is tricky. About 6 months ago, the owner of the unit next to mine, that adjoins my bedroom wall, decided to renovate it. How did I learn this? Someone pounding things into the wall three inches from the top of my sleeping head, at 815am, when I'd gone to bed at 3am as per usual.

I complained to my building manager and was told "the law allows them to start work at 8am." Well, there is what the law compels, and what the law allows. One is not obligated to pound on shared walls at 8am just because one can. And, what is so difficult about sending one's neighbors a note the week prior saying "we are planning to renovate the unit adjoining yours. We expect it will take X number of days and work will take place from Xtime to Xtime. If you have any concerns, please contact us at XXX-XXXX and we will be glad to try to work out a compromise between your needs and ours."

Is that absurd, to think that should happen? This is the basic courtesy toward neighbors I try and instill in my alcoholic, partying college students, and yet full-grown adults seemed meanly convinced that if something is legal, they may do it with no care for others even if it is discourteous.

As far as personal noise... well, my downstairs neighbor gets up early. I have gotten the impression that she would like it if I would not tread on my floor after 9pm. As I sometimes don't even get HOME until 9pm, she is DENIED. I do not do things like vaccuum or move furniture or do jumping jacks on her head after 9pm, but we have old, creaky floors. That's just too bad. I never wear shoes in the house.

The guy upstairs from *me* is in his 60s or 70s and, I infer, has insomnia. I have heard him creaking the floor over my head at 3am, 7am, 3pm, all hours of the day and night. I have learned the fine art of clamping an extra pillow over my top ear with my upper arm to give myself quiet. He is allowed to move around his home. He is not allowed to play his TV, which sits on the floor, so loudly that I can tell he is watching the CBS Nightly News even if it is on at 6pm. My neighbor to my left is allowed to watch the Super Bowl, but is not allowed to roar his approval so loudly that it echoes through our fireplaces (which back up on one another) and scare my cats (yes, I did go speak to him).

Now, I realize children are, among other things, both noisy and precious.

If I were your downstairs neighbor... I would *wish* that Alex would not play extended running or screaming games before 10am, but I would *expect* that sometimes there would be noise I could hear. I would not be too chuffed about a playgroup over my head at 8am (though I admit I have no idea how many kids might attend such a thing or what time it might happen). I would be somewhat mollified by a week's notice with a phone number attached for use if things got unbearable.

I would expect that I would need to take some noise-abating measures for myself. I would also expect that if, for example, the family upstairs had hardwood floors, it would not be unreasonable to ask them to buy or rent a rug to muffle sound.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I would not be too chuffed about a playgroup over my head at 8am

Yeesh! I couldn't handle playgroup at 8 myself, even as one of the supervising parents. Our playgroup is nominally at 9:30, more usually at 10.

She used to work a different schedule, I know, because 6am used to be a prime time for us to hear them screaming profanities at each other. So it seems that she took an evening-shift job (in addition to renewing her lease) after she already knew that she was living downstairs from a toddler.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

Are you assuming she chose that shift? I feel a little obvious saying it, but often people are just Told What Will Happen by their employer (or, if between jobs, are forced to settle for something not to their liking).

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Ethically, I think your neighbor can ask. And ethically, I think you can refuse. There are some local laws about noise, and my guess is that after 8:00 AM is the switch-over time.

B

[perceval.livejournal.com]

I would go with the suggestion to purchase thick rugs. We actually soundproofed the floors where our daughter runs (we own our flat) with extra thick laminate plus thick insulation underneath for that very reason.

You can also give prior warning of playgroup - if it's only once a month, and doesn't start until 10, I don't think it would be too much hassle.

[iamjw.livejournal.com]

While I sympathise with with your neighbour's problems, I don't think it's reasonable to expect the rest of the world to function on her schedule. And neighbour noise is part and parcel of living in shared space. I'm not sure what to suggest that would help fix the problem - do you have carpeting down to help muffle the noise?

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

I'm a poor sleeper, and quite sound sensitive. In particular, though, I am *vibration* sensitive. For example, the thump of the bass in music will keep me awake, even if I'm incapable of hearing the actual music. If she's like me, white noise generators and ear plugs won't help. Rugs might.

Other than that, I'll agree with what most others have said - reasonable of her to ask, reasonable of you to not be able to fully comply.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Our upstairs neighbours have toddlers and middling-sized kids, which we refer to collectively as the elephant children or the mastodons because they are incredibly noisy, especially from when they get up (6am) to noon. We deal with it by mostly sleeping somewhere that's not so much under where they're leaping -- does she have other rooms she could sleep in? It helps that I tend to wake up early anyway, though rysmiel totally doesn't. However, they also have a new baby and it's started to be loud enough to hear when it cries, and that wakes me instantly, every time.

But I haven't said a word to them, because I think it's easier for adults to change what they do than for children, and having children is such a lot of work without starting to worry about that stuff. Also, they'll grow. (They're charging around above my head right this minute -- it's 7.50. But lo, I am awake, though rysmiel is still trying to sleep.)

You could consider carpet. You could tell her you'll try to be quieter before 10, but that 11.30 is too much. You could warn her when you have playgroup.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I think it's unreasonable to let your children leap around at 6am. I recognize that in some cases it might be awfully hard to stop them, but in those cases I think the parent needs to make major efforts to propitiate the neighbors.

I have generally done my best to keep quiet hours until 8:30 or 9. I am willing to extend that somewhat for a shift worker - say, until 10. 11:30 just seems too hard. That's nearly half of Alex's waking hours gone, and even more of her available playing-with-friends time - we can't have a friend over at 11:30, she goes down for her nap at 1.

New baby cries are a big problem. It would wake me just as it wakes you. All the parents can really do is try to respond quickly, but even then, sometimes you can't turn the crying off.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

At least your neighbor is still in the rational stage, and isn't yet leaving subliminal "Supernanny" messages about or suggesting that your child be active on alternate days: http://laidoffdad.typepad.com/lod/2007/02/the_neighbors_a.html

It seems like a classic problem for the apartment-dwelling (whether children are involved or not). I think your job is to do the best you can, especially before 10am, consider carpeting if that's not already done and if it's an option, and apologize for the rest. I hope the dialogue can stay reasonable.

[(Anonymous)]

When my children were tiny, I had similar complaints from the neighbor below us. I felt annoyed and could not imagine what the big issue was. Hoping to catch my neighbor in at least some form of nagging exaggeration, I went down to her apartment to "calmly discuss the issue" whilst my kiddos played above -engaged in what seemed to me to be reasonable volume play- with my husband.

I wanted to hear it for myself. A test.

Good God. It was horrid- the pounding thump!thump!thump! The deafening vibrations, from ceiling and walls. The poor woman had a real problem on her hands and I hadn't realized that the old house acoustics had made her downstairs apartment terribly uncomfortable to live in, whether she was sleeping or entertaining.

Oops. We bought thick rugs, and everyone's shoes came off in the house. No Running In the House is actually a reasonable safety rule, and my children understood that. They still played actively and things got better with the neighbor when my kids were more reasonably noisy. Of course, your home may be nothing like mine was, soundwise, and your neighbor may be unreasonable. One other thought: switch your bedroom or study area with baby's sleep space way up top? That would expand babyproof play space on floor two and that staircase sounds like it might be a toddler accident ready to happen. -G.S.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

That's a good point - it might be much, much louder downstairs than we realize from our vantage point.

Our living room area has a thick rug, but the dining area has hardwood floors. I've started shopping for a heavy rug to put down in the main "runway."

switch your bedroom or study area with baby's sleep space way up top? That would expand babyproof play space on floor two and that staircase sounds like it might be a toddler accident ready to happen.

Our bed would never fit up the twisty steps to the attic. And the study isn't really a "room" - there's a big open well (with just a railing) around the stairs to the first floor, and you have to walk through it to reach the bedroom, bathroom, third floor, etc. It's like a room-sized hallway.

There is a guest room on the third floor that could be used for playing sometimes, although right now it has a big furniture-painting project spread all across the floor. But the radiators in that room don't work, so we have to run an electric space heater in the winter - not so safe for a running toddler!

I agree that the steps are scary. Right now she is mostly carried up, always carried down, and never unsupervised near the steps. By the time she's out of the crib and into a toddler bed, I'm hoping that we'll live somewhere else.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Sarah's heater is a space heater that looks like a little radiator. It's still possible to bump your head on it, but it's not going to burst into flame.

It is noisier downstairs from someone. All the years we were in downstairs apartments, it sounded like the people above us got around by flinging themselves to the floor, getting up, and doing it again until they got where they were going.

[minnaleigh.livejournal.com]

I actually think wanting to extend "Quiet Time" to 11:30 is a bit unreasonable, even if a small child is not involved, and I am someone who hates ever hearing noise from any of my neighbours. I grit my teeth and bear it, if the hours are normal living hours.

There are a lot of good suggestions here. Picking a compromise time for ending quiet time of something more reasonable like 9 or 9:30 and stating it explicitly. Assurances that some days of the week you'll be out of the house for the morning. And advance notice of anything happening at your house that might cause problems like the playgroup. I mean, how often would it be at your house anyway? I'd say to her, "On Wednesday mornings, 3 mornings a month we'll be gone and one morning there'll be a group of kids over here. We'll drop you a note in advance so you can take whatever precautions you need to."

With most reasonable people, any sign that you understand the issue and are doing what you can makes a world of difference.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Sorry. She does not get to complain about normal activities during the daytime. It just doesn't work that way.

My rule of thumb is that if it's before 10PM and after 8AM, no matter how much the noise annoys me, the next-door neighbors have a right to have lives.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I'm willing to extend things further for someone who works a late shift, because I am sympathetic to the problem. I don't want to be an asshole just because the law allows me to be.

And yet, 11:30 really does seem like too much to ask.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Your neighbour is asking too much. Reasonable accommodations on your part would include things like promoting quiet play until after breakfast or after Mama goes to work, experimenting with carpet runner going the length of the house, and experimenting with footwear (Maybe there is no such thing as footwear that is both safe for climbing stairs and quiet on the floors? Is your house warm enough for bare feet?) With a reasonable neighbour, one can also give warning of party noise (playgroup) and try to schedule it around information about the neighbour's schedule.

Could your turn to host playgroup convene at the park, and walk to your house afterwards?

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Herm. I don't know how loud Alex is, but when you say "running around" and I'm thinking "toddler", I can't imagine she's really all that loud.

I do sympathize, really, truly, and honestly, with the neighbor. If there was some way to help (a particular room Alex could run around in), I'd call that perfectly reasonable. But I think the problem is that her lightest sleep is coming just as the greatest amount of noise is showing up. If that noise isn't unreasonable, then I don't think she has grounds to complain. I think it's her problem to deal with. It's worth you helping in reasonable ways, just to be neighborly, but not out of obligation.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

It's a really difficult situation. There aren't any really good hard-and-fast rules. This is a situation which requires good will and accomodation on all sides -- and there's only so much accomodation a toddler is able to do.

If it's possible for her to move her bed to an area of the house which is underneath an area that kids don't use, that might help. Carpets might help. Earplugs would help.

I think what I'd want to do is to invite her up for tea during a time when you're both awake and not at work, and just talk about what you both can do to make things better. Work out what parts of the house are most noisy to her, work out what things can be done.

It's not, strictly speaking, your responsibility to make any changes, but it would be a neighborly and kind thing to have the conversation, and if anything that you can do to help is reasonably simple, it would be neighborly and kind to do it.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

When are her days off?

K.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I used to work some nights (I don't _have_ a circadian rythm, so that wasn't a problem) and what got me was my neighbour who _knew_ I was working nights and turned her stereo on every sunday at 12am on LOUD. (The house was a semi; I'd rarely hear anything else from next door, never heard their TV etc) - but that woke me up. And if I'd gotten in at eight, I was correspondingly cranky.

Mozart makes a good secret weapon, I find. If I have to listen to Very Loud Music, make it mine.

I think she's allowed to speak to you and ask that Alex isn't noisy early; but a 2am bedtime isn't particularly late, and I'd expect her not to need to sleep until 10.30 am; if she needs more 'winddown time' then _her_ habits are at least partly to blame as well.

The rug thing is reasonable; but Alex has a right to ordinary toddler activities in her own home, too, so I don't think you should even attempt to shush her at all times; it woulnd't be fair on her or you. Ditto playgroup visits - once a week is reasonable; every day would not be, but you're not planning that.

[ailbhe]

Yikes. Doesn't she realise that suggesting to a parent that one is entitled to 10 hours uninterrupted sleep on a regular basis is taunting offensively?

More seriously, she's allowed to ask and you're allowed to say "not really practical for us, sorry, have you considered earplugs?"