Noise complaints about my toddler

Me and my partner live in a mid-terrace house with our 20 month old. Our neighbour is a shift worker so is sometimes asleep during the day. He's told us on 2 previous occasions that he can hear our toddler running around during the day and it's kept him awake, he claims it's very loud (it isn't loud to us but understand the sound may be travelling through the walls and floors). Up until now he's been relatively friendly about it, and we've been apologetic and said we'll do what we can to reduce the noise within reason. But as I'm sure any toddler parent here will know, there is very little you can do to reason with or calm down a high energy 20 month old and we have communicated this to him! We hadn't heard anything about it for about 6 weeks, so we assumed he was hearing it less and wasn't so bothered anymore. That was until a few days ago our daughter was playing with her toys in the lounge, at 10am on a weekend and suddenly we hear several obvious angry thumps against the adjoining wall to my neighbours house. I confronted him about it and told him clearly, he needs to communicate with us if he's being kept awake (we have no clue when his night shifts are), and that we aren't going to keep our child quiet 24/7. He didn't directly apologise for the thumps on the wall but said he wanted to "clear the air", so he knows he's made himself look like a twat. Waffled on about how he supposedly "knows what kids are like" and tried to act all friendly. Did say the running sounds annoy him when he's just relaxing at home but honestly I don't give a fuck about that. We left it at an agreement that he would communicate as and when it's keeping him awake. Unfortunately, when you buy a terraced house you do have to accept some levels of noise travelling through the walls, our house is new build so we can't help the walls being paper thin. We do also believe this is regular daytime noise and it ultimately isn't our problem that he works nights. I don't particularly want to fall out with him but I have a feeling this isn't going to be the last time this turns nasty. Please can I have some advice on how you ladies would handle this? My family are saying we should tell him to go fuck himself and just deal with the noise but it's not reached that bad of a level yet that I can warrant being that much of a bitch 😂 obviously we don't want to end up with an official noise complaint going to the council either but I don't know if they'd even be interested if he did that 🤷‍♀️

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Absolutely no one wants to have an official complaint against their address as it’ll come up when anyone wants to sell. Bad for him as well as you, I doubt it would get to that. Honestly has he tried really good earplugs because they will drown out most noise if they are good enough. I know it sounds like it’s obvious but if he can hear it through really good earplugs then it’s probably too loud! (Which online it isn’t, I’m just making a point). Maybe suggest and research into some and offer to buy them (if you’re feeling nice!) There’s not much he can do when he’s awake and relaxing as your kids are just kids and no one is going to get far either an official complaint when it’s normal everyday noise!

He needs to get over himself! Me and my partner are both shift workers and do nights. We managed to sleep just fine in the day with our 20month old in the SAME HOUSE haha 🤣 We also live in a mid terrace and we've never had any complaints from either side about noise (our walls are also paper thin, you can literally hear when they switch a switch on a plug socket as it clicks sometimes!)

My step dad is night shift and deals with my son being over twice a week while I’m at work, the world cant stop because your shifts are unsociable! I have had bad experiences with neighbours in the past and the last one (moved thank god!) was hell to live next to, didn’t work so would be out in his hot tub (which was under our bedroom window) till all hours listening to music and drinking every other night…guess what worked for me, earplugs! If they can drown that out they can stop someone hearing a toddler running about. I hear the new neighbours kids all the time and like it, way better than an actual neighbour from hell so he should be thankful lol.

I think you are being totally reasonable, there's no way you can keep a 20 month quiet, and why should you really. Me and my husband work shifts so there are many days when Daddy is in bed during the day so we'll try to either go out or just shut the door to our room.and hope for the best. The only thing you could do is ask for the dates he is on nights so that you can be more mindful, tho you aren't in a relationship with him so don't owe him anything. If anything he should realise that he has chosen to live in a terrace. On the flip side, we used to live in an apartment which was a converted old school into apartments, the floor were wooden and furniture was minimal. So I guess you could add more soft furnishings to cancel out the noise, but when we lived there the guy above had his toddler every weekend. I used to be fuming but managed not to say anything 😅🙈 I used to think can't he just sit and colour with her, it just sounded like she was running around constantly all day. Especially when trying...

To sleep on nights, but quite frankly I had zero idea of knowing what it is like. As I now have that toddler that runs, climbs, bangs around all day, and yes I will try to colour with him, but it lasts.... about 4 mins max!! He'll learn over time if he has any children or nieces/nephews etc x

Tell him to grow up, pull his big boy pants up and stick some ear plugs in. He’s not the one that has to look after a child which is probably more demanding than whatever job he has. As least he can put his head down when he wants to rest. It’s not as easy for you guys.

To kill him with kindness buy him a white noise machine for Christmas

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