‘My selfish neighbour punishes us for our baby’s crying - I’m at my wit’s end’

“Unfortunately, babies don’t tend to give you advance notice on when they’re going to scream.” 

It’s been a rough few weeks for David* and his wife, Rachel*. Their daughter, Madeleine* is starting to grow her first teeth and is in absolute agony. 

Before her teeth started growing, Madeleine was a fantastic sleeper. Now, not so much. 

Screaming in pain for hours on end and suffering from a fever, her teething is causing a lot of problems at home. 

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David and Rachel's newborn's tears at night has caused a stir with the upstairs neighbour. Source: iStock

Neighbour blasts loud music to “punish” baby’s tears

For a week, her front teeth started to grow, but after a few days, the pain started to subside. 

Then her back teeth started coming in - quick as a flash, the pain returned, as did the crying in the middle of the night. 

“She’s been waking up around 1am and then 3am daily, screaming with her little fingers in her mouth,” the Canadian dad wrote on Reddit. 

He and Rachel have “tried comforting” their daughter by bringing her into their bed at night and giving her pain medication to soothe her sore gums. While the medication helps numb little Madeleine’s distress for a while, it doesn’t last forever. 

“It’s shrill, and it sucks, but there’s not much we can do beyond what we are already doing,” he explained. 

Living on the ground floor of their apartment block, the new parents understand how their baby’s crying would affect their neighbours, and they try to keep the noise to a minimum. 

But no building is fully soundproof, meaning their upstairs neighbour, a woman in her 20s, gets disrupted by the baby’s screams at night. 

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Their neighbour clearly hates having her sleep schedule disrupted. She started keeping her “balcony door open all day and night that faces into our courtyard” and frequently plays music loudly in the communal area.

David has decided this isn’t an innocent love for music - it’s a “punishment” for their baby’s teething problems. 

“She has been ‘punishing’ us during the day by blasting loud music directly into our unit by putting a stereo next to her balcony,” he said. “We are on the ground floor and have a fully enclosed courtyard, so it vibrates around.” 

While he enjoys her music taste and thinks Madeleine will “dance to it all day long,” his wife Rachel disagrees and “hates her intentions.” 

It was in the early hours of the morning when Madeleine’s pain medication started wearing off, and the screams returned. “[Medication] works for about eight hours, so by 3am, we have to give her another dose and wait through the cries, cradling her for 15-20 minutes for it to kick in again,” David explained. 

Their upstairs neighbour wasn’t impressed, bragging downstairs, banging on their door and ringing their doorbell four times in anger. Rachel was furious at the loud noises and “wanted to go fight her then and there”, but David kept the peace. 

“I said let’s just concentrate on settling the baby and ignore her,” he wrote. “I also didn’t want to make the baby any more upset than she already was.” Instead, they left their neighbour “fume” outside and completely ignored her. 

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“Kids are noisy ... people are noisy.”

Those with kids are likely sympathetic to David and Rachel’s troubles with their teething daughter, but others on Reddit weren’t so kind. 

“[The parents] shouldn't wait until the kid is screaming to finally give her pain meds,” someone wrote. “They know she's teething. Why are they letting her reach that level of agony?” 

“You chose to have a baby. Your neighbour didn't,” another said. “Waking her up every night at 3am is a problem, and the solution can't be 'she can deal with it!'”

Many others believe David should wake up his daughter to give her an extra dose of pain medication.

But David wasn’t having it, and neither were other parents online. 

“You clearly don’t have a child,” he laughed. “Unfortunately, babies don’t tend to give you advance notice on when they’re going to scream,” another agreed. 

“Waking a baby to give them their meds usually ends up in a screaming fit, as well and will then mess up their sleep schedule,” a parent wrote. “On paper, great idea, but in real life, doesn't usually end in peace.”

“Noisy children aren't a problem anymore than rain or sunshine are a problem,” said another. “They're natural and unavoidable. Beyond moving house … what the f**k should [David] do? Kids are noisy. People are noisy.” 

One Redditor summed it up perfectly: “I just feel sorry for the rest of their neighbours.” 

*Names have been changed

Originally published as ‘My selfish neighbour punishes us for our baby’s crying - I’m at my wit’s end’