Scorned by thy neighbour

Readers I am feeling scorned. Truly. Madly. Deeply. Mostly madly to be honest. Let me set the scene. We’ve been having a pretty tumultuous time here at NABM HQ lately. No single event is responsible but a few factors, when taken in combination, mean it’s been kind of rough. The girls have both been sick (and consequently grumpy and miserable) on and off for weeks, Mr G’s been working like a demon, I’ve been scrambling to make arrangements for going back to work and the backdrop to all of this is that Mr G and I haven’t really slept properly in over eight months. One reason we’re both sleep deprived is because we live in an apartment. It means there is no spare room where one of us can retreat; for a daytime nap, for some quiet time or a solid night’s rest. We live on top of each other and we have neighbours who live on top of us.

Which brings me to feeling scorned. By thy neighbour. Yesterday afternoon, I was yo-yoing between the girls as they each resisted sleep at different times for different reasons. Miss L is a baby so clearly needs to sleep during the day and whilst Miss I is 3, she still appears to need her nap too. I like the girls having a nap for a few reasons. Obviously I like it because it means I have a quiet home for at least half an hour which recharges me for the afternoon ahead. But it also recharges them. And because they’ve been sick lately they both needed sleep yesterday even more than I needed peace.

After a pretty spectacular lunchtime tantrum Miss I hopped into bed without hassle but, murphy’s law, Miss L took more convincing. Once I finally put Miss L in her cot without major protest and sat down to eat something, Miss I howled. I managed to convince her to lie back down. This worked for about ten minutes before she cried out again. I brought her into our room on the proviso that she could at least rest and I had just lay her beside me when I heard a knock at the door. “Obviously it’s Mr G coming home super early as a surprise!!” I thought. Obviously I was wrong. It was our neighbour from upstairs. This went down.

Neighbour: “Look I have just had to leave uni early because I can’t concentrate. You guys seem like nice people but you really need to sort out your baby because we’re not sleeping and we’re thinking we may have to move out.”

Me: “I’m so sorry, both the girls are sick at the moment.” My eyes pleaded with her….please don’t do this. 

Neighbour: “It’s just we’ve tried sleeping in our spare room at the back but we can still hear the baby. Is there anything you can do?”

Miss I: Muuuuummmmmmmyyyy Mummmmmyyyy

Me: “I’ll just be a minute Miss I. I’m so sorry. I mean we are not enjoying this at all. We have just had 8 nights in a row without Miss L waking at all but she’s sick so the last two nights we’ve been up with her again.”

My eyes pleaded again…please don’t make me say that I’m on the verge of losing it. I haven’t slept in months and however much you hate being woken by a crying baby multiply it by a thousand and you’ll begin to understand how we’re feeling.

At this point Miss I’s cry had become a bit hysterical and, wouldn’t you know it, Miss L chimed in.

Me: Pointing in direction of the unmistakable noise of two upset children “As I said the girls are both sick and miserable at the moment so there’s not a lot we can do. Trust me when I say we’re not enjoying this and we’re trying our best.”

She stood there looking at me slightly expectantly like I might be able to instantly solve her problem, which, as you can probably see, is in fact our problem.

“Oh gosh sorry I didn’t realise you didn’t enjoy hearing our baby in the middle of the night! We’ve just been getting her up because Mr G and I feel, really strongly, that 7am til 7pm is just not enough time with her. You know? We get her up to enjoy the magic of our baby because even listening to her cry in the middle of the night is music to our ears. From now on would you like us to just leave her to sleep all night?”

She made her point again: “It’s just we’re finding it really difficult and yeah, just wanted to say that and just see if there’s something you can do?”

I managed to hold it together until I closed the door at which point I burst into tears. I felt ashamed and embarrassed and guilty. I wanted to just magically relocate our apartment to a field in the middle of nowhere. But then I really really thought about the exchange and I started to feel angry. And so very scorned. 

Not because I want to be keeping anybody up at night. Or because I think our neighbours need to generously accommodate my children at all hours. I don’t. Quite the opposite. I feel scorned because Mr G and I are considerate neighbours. Yes we live with our two small children, who occasionally make less than ideal noises at less than ideal times, but as far as we’re aware we are well within our rights to do so. When we’ve had a particularly bad patch with Miss L we have delivered cards and rocky road upstairs and apologised. When we bit the bullet and tried controlled crying with Miss L we talked to them in advance and explained what was happening and even bought them earplugs. We have made it clear we are working towards a sleep solution and have apologised profusely for any disturbance. We have offered them our compassion and understanding.

I feel scorned that instead of offering us the same I got grandstanded and made to feel like absolute rubbish in my own home. I don’t think you need to be a parent to understand that no one wants to be up in the middle of the night with an upset child. Least of all their parents. Particularly not parents who have gone out of their way to make it better.

There is some consolation though. As a newly engaged couple they have expressed their excitement about starting their own family and when that happens I know she will think back to that conversation one night when she is up with an inconsolable infant and she will regret her lack of understanding. One of my Twitter friends said, quite evilly, it best: “May they be blessed with triplets with colic who feed hourly on different schedules.” I’m not sure anyone deserves that but I’m happy to say karma has already kicked in. By a stroke of luck neither of our girls are early risers so our neighbours, small blessing, have never had to deal with noisy children before 7 am, which is pretty good going in the land of little kids. Until today. This morning Miss I woke at 5.30am with an almighty cry and then played noisily with abandon for hours. I wanted to high five her. Loudly.