Care and Feeding: A Neighbor Complained That My 4-Week-Old’s Crying Is Ruining the Neighborhood

[cereta]

Dear Care and Feeding,

We have a wonderful newborn baby boy in our house (we were asked to take guardianship of a family member’s son while she is in rehab), and he cries, like all babies. At night it is usually brief, as we’re up with him soon after it starts, but sometimes it will go on for a while because, well, he’s a baby.

It’s summertime, so our windows are open. We recently received an anonymous letter in the mailbox from a neighbor saying that the baby’s crying is “ruining the neighborhood” and “disturbing the peace.” It even insinuated that our 4-week-old may be violating a city noise ordinance!

My fiancé thinks we should just ignore it, but I can’t shake the feeling that maybe we are doing something wrong by leaving the windows open. I can try to keep a better handle on it during the day, but I worry about putting an air conditioner in his room at night, because I won’t hear him through the monitor over the A/C.

Although this arrangement is technically temporary, I have no idea what our end date is. Realistically it will be another few months before his mother is released from treatment and likely longer before she is given back custody.

What is your take? Can we leave the windows open so long as we’re quick about getting to him? Do I have to suck it up and install an A/C? I wonder if I’d be more accommodating if the note hadn’t been so outrageous.

—It’s a Baby

Dear IaB,

Your neighbors live in another house. We live in a society. They need to suck it up. I am quite confident they would be laughed out of the police station if they say their neighbor’s baby is crying and they wish you to be cited for it. If this really bothers you, you could move the baby to a different room whose windows don’t face your persnickety neighbors. But mostly, screw ‘em.

I do think you should install an A/C if you can afford one. I promise, if the crying is loud enough that the neighbors next door are perturbed by it, you will hear it over an A/C unit.

Comments

[lemonsharks]

The neighbors have a lot of options here: earplugs, a portable or window unit air-conditioner, getting the h*ck over themselves...

The LW might also consider moving baby into their room for the remainder of the summer so they can run the air-conditioner and hear the baby.

[cereta]

Whenever I read these things, I am tempted to invite the complainer to spend a week on my street.

So, let's break this down. LW's neighbors have the ability to:

1. Close their own windows.

2. Wear earplugs.

3. Use a fan or other white noise machine.

The LW has the ability to:

1. Bring the baby into their bedroom, although that's a temporary solution if they expect to have the baby for several more months.

2. Close the windows and use AC.

I agree with the columnist that an AC is unlikely to drown out the baby's cries, but if that's really a concern, option 1 will work until his lungs get a little stronger. I don't think they should feel obligated to do anything, given that the neighbors have three sensible solutions, but the LW is the one who's going to have to live there, not me.

[minoanmiss]

I hope the fleas of a thousand camels infest that neighbor's underpants.

[lemonsharks]

Nah, this neighbor deserves bedbugs. And to not figure out they have them until it's too late to do anything besides burn it all to the ground and move.

[tielan]

The baby has no ability to self-regulate at this stage of his life.

The neighbour does.

Well, golly gee, GUESS WHO I EXPECT TO BE THE FUCKING ADULT IN THIS SITUATION.

[cereta]

DINGDINGDING.

Look, I'm a parent, so I admit bias, but the bottom line is that there is a social contract involved in living in a society that depends on there being a next generation. Overpopulation aside, there's got to be somebody to grow the food and transport the food and make the transportation and the roads and the electricity and the medicines and everything when the current generation of adults is no longer able to do this. I do every damn thing I can not to unduly impose on people who have not agreed to be part of my child's life, but some things? People just have to put up with. I've been the migraine patient in an ER where a child is wailing loudly, but you know, I have coping mechanisms for pain, and a two-year-old doesn't.

[tielan]

Welp, I'm not a parent at all, and I still think that sometimes you have to make allowances for the kid with variance based on the kid, the situation, and also degrees of how the parents are dealing with the kid - if they are.

And yeah, sometimes it's inappropriate to have a noisy kid in public places: quiet carriages on trains, anything involving audience attention to a stage or screen, and expensive dining establishments, fr ex.

I once spent 15 hours of a flight listening to an infant screaming while the parents walked it up and down the aisle. Poor thing, poor parents, and yeah, the rest of us weren't happy either but...whatcha gonna do?

Sometimes you just have to mentally go "well, shit, kid's not going to stop screaming and crying and the carer is doing what they can, but...we're going to have to live with this." Also, it's temporary for me and long-term for them so...

[redbird]

Also, as a non-parent I have the easy part of the job: contribute to the financial part of that.

[resonant]

I mean, I would feel differently if the baby were crying in, like, a funeral or a lecture hall or an R-rated movie. But the baby is at home. Where else are babies supposed to cry?!

[sporky_rat]

It's summer, I don't know where they are, it's not gonna get cooler until probably late August, pick up a box fan or a window unit and stick it in the window.

Might even help the baby sleep better having a little white noise.

Screw the neighbor. (I am concerned about an overheating baby crying a lot.)