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Am I the only one who doesn't agree with this?
I don't expect total silence when my kids are napping when I'm at someone else's house of course. But some common courtesy would be nice. Maybe not standing outside their room yelling to people across the other side of the house? Or having the radio on loud right outside their room?
People wouldn't do that when an adult was sleeping. No way. But children are just less important I guess :(
I get that as well.. Even in our own home people will shut doors loudly, tv on loud, and it peeves me off!
Thankfully mine sleep really soundly through noise, but it wouldn't hurt for some quieter time until they get to sleep..
It depends on the child, I used to have the radio on or vac around my girls while they slept in the basinette.
I didn't agree with people yelling and would ask DD1 to be quiet if DD2 was sleeping but otherwise I was ok with noise.
It certainly makes life easier for everyone if they do. I don't really expect that other people should be inconvenienced by my children's bedtime.
We're on holidays with my family at the moment. I can just put my boys to sleep in a spare bed/sofa wherever we are and they will go to sleep. Same with my cousin's children. My evenings are simpler than my SILS' who need quiet for bedtime.
Even if your family are all quiet for bedtime you will find that hotels, campsites etc can often be unexpectedly noisy.
When my boys were babies I vacuumed, talked on the phone, watched tv and other noisy stuff while they slept. I have never had cause to regret it. On the contrary, I'm quite glad my children are used to sleeping through noise.
I'm in between.
Being a light sleeper sucks. A lot. I hate it. I can't sleep anywhere. I can't sleep in a bright room etc. so when my kids were babies I never made a fuss. I took them to parties. They slept in their rooms during the day with ample light.
They both sleep now like their father. Anywhere. Anyhow. And I'm grateful. Because being me. Sucks.
So for me it was never about them inconveniencing me with their sleep. But me not setting them up to have sleeping difficulties like me.
DD likes to sleep in the dark and quiet.
DS sleeps with noise and I don't even shut his curtains during the day.
Each kid is different.
But yes, I think people should have some respect when it comes to sleeping kids.
In the rare occasions that I have had my kids asleep in shared accommodation I like to remind the yeller of my rule that if they wake the kid then they have to deal with that grumpy, tired kid for the rest of the day. It isn't like you are expecting total silence, just but a bit of courtesy.
When DS was born I was totally going to make all kinds of noise while he slept so he got used to sleeping around noise and wasn't a light sleeper like me. That lasted all of a couple of weeks when every sound woke him and I couldn't get him back to sleep. I pretty much didn't move while he was sleeping because he would wake up. No use trying to desensitise him to it if he was awake after 3 seconds every time. I remember trying to pack to move house and he would wake up every single time I tried to tape up a box with packing tape at the other end of the house!.
Yep agree with you all and my kids do sleep through noise. Luckily because otherwise they would have had no sleep these holidays. General background noise they will sleep through no problem but sudden loud noises near them can wake them up, like everyone I guess.
What annoys me though is just people's view of children (in my family anyway). That they're 'just' kids. Not as important as adults and don't deserve the same amount of respect. Totally opposite to how I feel.
I am with Rouge. I am a terrible sleeper. I am exactly the same. My kids are well used to noise, and sleep better now if they can hear us. I was recently away with a 9 month old. Her parents made us sit in silence every evening and sleep time. It was terrible and we won't go away with them again. We ended up sitting outside in the rain with our kids as they said they were too noisy.
I was told that and I did that I had vacuum and tv going and talking and ds would sleep anywhere but since 6 months he has needed a quiet place to sleep so for me it made no difference
I agree that common courtesy should be in play (i.e. no yelling). However I also used to vacuum and clean around them when they were younger as that was the only time I could do it.
My oldest is not a great sleeper. At 6, we still co-sleep as he needs someone to touch during the night. I will often get a hand on my arm or face during the night. If he doesn't feel me (or someone), then he wakes up. However, he will sleep through noise.
My youngest can sleep through anything including a fire engine using our driveway to turn around with lights and sirens blasting away.
Children deserve as much respect as everyone else and are never "just" anything.
I can see where you're coming from. I didn't expect total silence for my kids but just respectful not to scream and shout outside there room. Like u said who would do that if they knew an adult was in there.
I'm such a light sleeper I would slap someone screaming outside my door!
It's a difficult attitude to get past, yeah.
I think it is fair to expect people to not be deliberately noisy when your kids are sleeping, but it is unreasonable to expect them not to make normal noise because your kids have gone to bed. So no yelling outside the door to their room, but the telly on at normal volume is fine, as is having a conversation at normal volume. I would not expect any different if the person sleeping was an adult.
woooow! that's not cool. I wouldn't be going away with them again either!:
I think general lving noise is fine. But loud unexpected startling noise is different. No matter how sound a sleeper someone is, a sudden loud noise like yelling is likely to wake you up.
I would vacuum, TV, etc with sleeping kids. But I would also tell my children to be quiet while the baby slept. Which simply meant don't go running & playing outside the bedrroom door.
I think it's common courtesy and respect to lower your volume level when anyone is sleeping, regardless of age. Most kids will sleep through background noise, but sudden loud noises will usually wake anyone. An adult could probably just fall back to sleep, but babies and kids don't rebound from startle quite so easily.
I was surprised that my youngest slept through the festivities at my parents house on Christmas day because their house is long and thin so there is no room "out of the way" for her to sleep in. All the rooms are right off the corridor that people go back and forth down. Even my other two kids were going up and down it with rolling toys (on a tile floor *sigh*). I didn't warn everyone she was sleeping though and I think my family would have made an effort to be quieter if I had asked :)
DD will sleep through most noise (having an older brother will do that for you), but doors slamming wake her everytime. Our Toilet is next to her room and on Christmas Day I stuck a sticky note on the toilet day that simply said "Please close this door softly while A is sleeping". FIL just let is slam while I was in her room resettling her, then MIL commented that she didn't sleep for long - Grrrrr
I don't expect total silence either, but a bit of courtesy not to deliberately be loud wouldn't go astray.....
I agree with the previous posters that say basic common courtesy of not making loud, sudden noises when kids are asleep is an acceptable thing to ask for. When I am at home and people are over when DD is settling off to sleep I will ask that they be a bit quiet (as I do) whilst they are settling, but once she is asleep she generally stays that way unless there is a very loud noise (or she's finished her sleep).
I think excessive and unnecessary noise isn't cool, but general noise/talking etc is fine IMO. If *your* child/ren can't sleep in that situation then that's not my or my kids' problem I'm afraid. Of course if I was in your house then that's different, I'd be courteous and make sure that the noise was kept down, but in a shared space or my own home, then get over yourself. Last Christmas SIL and her family (DH and 15mo son) were staying at the IL's place and we went over there for Christmas lunch as we always do, except because her DS *had* to have a sleep right on the time that we normally do presents, we all had to keep the noise to a whisper which was just bull**** IMO. He was asleep at the complete opposite end of a HUGE house and the noise doesn't carry in that house - I know because I've had my kids there as newborns/babies/toddlers and all 4 of them have been able to sleep through normal noise without a problem. So had we known that the sleep nazi was going to be there (ie her DH who is a effing tool) we would have gotten there 2 hours later. Can you even imagine how hard it was to keep 4 kids on CHristmas day absolutely silent for 2 hours? If her DH had of told them to keep quiet one more time I would have told him to **** off and wake up to himself. They weren't making excessive noise - they were excited, but not overly noisy or too loud and it was completely unfair to them to expect them to be silent. Mind you, SIL and her DH are nutjobs when it comes to their kids' sleep (they now have two kids). She spent Christmas with her IL's this year and she had to be home at 1pm so her two could have a sleep and because lunch wasn't ready she just packed up and went home without even having Christmas lunch. She is the type who freaks right out about sleep and if they don't go to sleep on the absolute dot of their sleep time then she has a meltdown to rival a 2 year old. So this has made it virtually impossible for her to go anywhere with them. THe kids are fine, it's just something that is entirely in her head. Me on the other hand, well when our first baby was only young we went to our local pub (in a tiny population of 100 village) because they had a band on and he slept through all of it out in the publican's residence that was next to the room where the band was and we didn't hear peep out of him.
So for me, what it comes down to is yes, I will respect that there is a child asleep and make sure the kids or I don't make too much noise, but on the other hand, the parents do have to be realistic that they do not have the right to be precious about it and make people feel like they have committed murder just because your child can't sleep through moderate noise.
ETA - I do understand what you mean about people not respecting kids in general and that they wouldn't do it to adults, but I don't think that's always the case. I think if you are in a party type situation where there are people there having a good time, then it is going to be near impossible to expect them to keep the noise to a dull roar all of the time. If they were deliberately being an ass about it and making really loud noise, then that's different, but normal noise of a party etc should be OK and I don't think that is disrespectful.
Oh yes. That annoys me to no end. And not just with regards to sleeping. Heaven help anyone who says that about my kids in my presence ;):
Kids are as important than adults! They certainly deserve respect given they are human beings ... albeit small, often noisy ones.
That being said, I do actually think it's good for a baby to get used to some level of noise. In our house there's not much choice as I have two older, boisterous, loud boys. who quite honestly don't care much about being quiet if DS3 is asleep (despite their mother pulling her hair out that they won't quieten down!). Poor DS3 wouldn't get to sleep much beyond 20 mins if he couldn't sleep through noise. But, as others have said - courtesy doesn't go astray, particularly from adults. No point in loud talking, banging doors etc unnecessarily near a sleeping bub/child.
Well i reckon your house your kids your sanity YOUR RULES.... if you want you baby/toddler/child to sleep and you know they can only do that with limited noise well so be it and that is what the child will get .... I have been known to be very anal when it comes to my childrens sleep so i have locked the front door and opened the back gate for people to come thru that that thru the house which is small so any new noise would be heard. ... after saying that normal noise is left on like the radio/music and me doing the dishes washing dryer etc etc
The only thing I want to add to this discussion is to point out that there's a percentage of people out there walking around with undiagnosed sleep disorders - either with difficulty getting to or staying asleep. Often for these people, the quality of sleep when they are asleep is very poor as well. This kind of ongoing sleep deprivation is a nightmare. So, while I've always expected my kids to cope with the low hum of general living noise, when I've been around other people with sleep difficulties I have been very, very careful to respect their need for quiet, even when it's meant limiting my own night-owl activities.
ETA - On the other hand, those who supposedly need "silence" to the point that it's impacting whole groups of people in the shared space should, IMO, be using some white noise techniques, by way of compromise. That way everyone's needs can be accommodated.
I have one very good sleeper who could sleep through an earthquake and another very bad sleeper. I'll tell my bad sleeper stories as they're more entertaining. DD2 has always been a bad sleeper. I knew this from when she was a few weeks old and I wandered soundlessly past her cot. My shadow woke her up. I gave up trying to give her a day sleep at a few months old. When she was about a year old, she could be asleep for 10 minutes and wake up if my tummy rumbled next to her cot. At 18 months, again, looked like she was sound asleep for a good length of time, would hear a dog barking a few blocks awake, sit bolt upright and say "wuff".
If I tried to accommodate her when she was a baby, I would have to stop my tummy rumbling and debark every dog in the neighbourhood.
I also have DP who is a shiftworker who often needs to sleep during the day. No loading the dishwasher, no vacuuming, no tantruming children. Nightmare scenario.
I think some children just can't sleep through noise and can't 'learn' to but I also think that if that's the case, you can't expect everyone else to change their behaviour around them. Life goes on.
If any of my kids needed quiet to sleep.........well they wouldn't sleep lol my babies can sleep through any noise and I have never tippy toed and forced others, even in my own house, to subscribe to an impossible version of quiet. It just can't be done unless your alone. I think even in restless or light sleepers that's just compounding the problem.
I think my dh is a good case of sleep training working. He wasn't the deepest sleeper before he joined the military but after 12 years of learning to sleep through noise (from general noise to being rocketed) the man sleeps like the dead! Almost to the point of ridiculousness, the kids can be squealing right next to his head and he is still snoring away. One of our kids inherited that outright, one is a deep sleeper when he is asleep and one is a light sleeper but he has learnt to manage.
But I'd agree that people do pay off kids as not important for consideration in a lot of things sure. And that's not cool.
This is the issue I had with my ILs over christmas. My SIL & BILs kids were running up and down the passage blowing those party blower things that unroll the paper when you blow on them right outside the room where DD2 was just drifting off. Then when I said - hey she is trying to go to sleep maybe keep it down I was looked at like being unreasonable. Of course BIL and SIL don't tell their kids to maybe keep it down a bit or maybe go to another part of the very large house, so I go cool, I'll just move DD2 and her cot to the other end of the house so the kids can keep blowing their irritating blowers AND she can get to sleep. Then when she is asleep I get the condescending 'she's a bit sensitive to sound is she?' questions. Umm running and squealing and blowing blowers 3 feet from her constitutes 'sensitive to sound' does it....right! Then the rest of her sleep BIL, SIL, MIL and FIL are like 'oh no we can't go anywhere near that end of the house DD2 is sleeping' laying THAT tone on really thick. DH and I are like nah it's fine, get stuff out of the next room, get stuff out of the room she is in - we do often, but just don't yell while doing it. But still with THAT tone and still with the condescending comments.
So like most other posters I don't require silence and wouldn't expect others to create silence when ever my girls are sleeping, but I expect the squealing and blowing to be toned down or moved away.
Yeah, that's not cool at all! I would have been ****ed with the passive aggressive comments about it too.:
Yikes, Sagres. Lol My reply to that would have been something like " no, not sensitive to normal sounds, just really loud startling noises!"
Gees I hate the sound of party whistles when I'm awake, let alone when trying to sleep. My kids are only aloud them outside!