Some background. It happened once before, it was the night when Perle had a real bad cold and she woke up at midnight on the dot freaking out because she couldn't breathe. I picked her up and was doing my best to calm her down (she's usually not too loud of a screamer but when she's super tired the cranky goes up) while looking for the nose-spray to help her breathe. She wailed and hit stuff (typical tired freaking) and I soon found the nose-thingie and was about to give it too her when there was loud banging on the wall, which made Perle jump out of bed wide awake and now I had a fun hour and a half of calming her down in another room to look forward to. Thanks a lot, neighbour.

Last night I was not nursing her because I had surgery in the morning (no biggue, a wee hernia) and wasn't sure I had managed to pump out all the drugs. So we figured we'd try our best to get her in bed without nursing this time, it was all reading books, singing songs, snuggling and so on until about 10:45 pm when I was so tired I was crosseyed. At this point she really wanted to nurse, and I sang song and was still managed to distract her best I could but she started crying demanding to nurse, now in tired and angry mode. Of course the neighbour then banged on the walls. For a split second I thought I should just go over there with my bleeding patched up belly clearly showing and my crying baby on my arm and say "here YOU deal with it then, since you seem to think there's a volume button on these things!" but I simply caved and nursed Perle who fell asleep about twenty seconds into nursing.

Damn that neighbour. How am I ever going to stop nursing if he can't wait the ten minutes it takes for her to go from crying tired angry to fast asleep - because that is all it takes really. Those ten minutes break my heart, to him they're just wee noise pollution. argh!

ps - weaning tips appreciated, I'll be nursing until she's seven if she gets to decide.

Your neighbor isn't much of one. (Any chance of reasoning calmly w/ him/her?) I welcome the sound of an appropriately crying child.

(On the other hand, my "neighbors" are overgrown inconsiderate spoiled children in young adults' bodies, but that's a different story.)

I think maybe the best thing would be to go over and explain that having a baby crying isn't your ideal situation and that, when it happens, you're working to stop it. Having loud, random noises will not help, so could you please refrain from banging on the walls as it frightens the baby and causes MORE crying.

Something like that. Or just have them beat up.

oh, honey! I'm sorry you have to deal with this. Your neighbor should have to deal with a neighbor baby with colic (or my husband's sister, when she was a baby - they said she cried nonstop for two years straight!). He would count his lucky stars to live next to wee Perle!

I would just try talking to him straight, and telling him "Look, whenever you hear her cry, this is what you need to know: I'm always doing what I can at that point to solve her problem and make her comfortable, so don't ever imagine that there's a neglected baby crying next door - understand that someone is working on the situation, always... and if you bang on the wall, it will only scare her and really just make it go on longer - to the discomfort of all of us. I'm sorry if you're ever disturbed, but she is a baby, and she does sometimes cry, but we always are there to deal with her, even though it may not seem like anyone is responding from where you are, trust me, we are."

If I find the guy I'll explain it to him, but he's a young single guy who hides in his apartment with the blinds down a lot. It's such a shame because all the other neighbours are really cool, and we watch over each others kids and have coffee in the yard a lot and it's nice - then there's that guy. bah.

Thanks guys. And yeah exactly what you said Taz, I've never wished a colic baby on anyone but this guy. Lets see him dealing with crying that will not stop.

re: weaning tips, I don't know if this is helpful, but with my nephew (who seemed pretty well set up to continue breastfeeding 'til, you know, age 35 or 40 or something, he was so demanding and unwilling to negotiate), my SIL first organized an agreement with him (once he was old enough to eat solid food and to begin to communicate a bit), in which she introduced the idea that out-of-the-house "we don't breastfeed". He wasn't the least bit happy about it, and it took her some time and patience to get agreement here, but after that, the rest was a bit easier.

then there's that guy. bah.

I know a neighbor like that one, and horribly he's the divorced father (custody alternate weekends) of an eight-year-old girl who gravitated to me immediately just because I said "hello," smiled, and showed her some of my old photos I was sorting while she was out playing with the neighbor kids. Daddykins is permanently fifteen (in a thirtysomething body), wears an outlandish leather jacket and hat in all weathers, and apparently likes videogames and sci-fi movies better than actual life. Of course, since I was befriending his daughter -- being a dad myself, I like kids -- I'm now Chester Chester Child Molester. Sigh.

Tape a note to his door, with a link to this thread.

And assuming you do that?

Hey, guy?

STOP BANGING ON THE WALL AND SCARING THE BABY OR i WILL COME THRU THE INTERNETS AND STRAIGHTEN YOU OUT.
SIGNED-FIERCE GRANDMA TYPE

I can't help you with the neighbor but I managed to wean my kids at about 15 months or so in the bad old fashioned way: to a bottle. I know, I know, you're not supposed to do that but it worked and was easy and then when they were like 3 we got rid of the ba ba too. Water or apple juice - not milk. And neither one of them needed major orthodontia or has weak teeth or any other issues from having a bottle more or less permanently in their chubby little hands for a year and a half.

is permanently fifteen (in a thirtysomething body), wears an outlandish leather jacket and hat in all weathers, and apparently likes videogames and sci-fi movies better than actual life.

oh hells no! if this is wrong, I don't wanna be right!

Wait--is the hat also outlandish and leather?

Hat is both outlandish and leather. But hell, I wear a fedora in rainy wx myself, so who am I to criticize sartorial decisions? No, it's the permanently-fifteen part -- wearer is kind of a jerk who leaves cigarette butts and trash around, parks in the handicapped spot, petty stuff like that, & is kinda condescending -- you mean you didn't know who Bail Organa is? If only you played EverQuest like I and all my kewl friends do! That kind of thing. My next-door neighbor -- yet another divorced dad -- doesn't much like him either.

I think Daddykins is mellowing somewhat, though -- I've noticed him dating a single mom, so maybe he's getting some useful perspective? Shrug.

The bottle thing -- you can transition them to a pacifier, too, right?

She refuses pacifiers but does like chamomille tea (!) and water in her bottle (never juice, she does that in cups) so I'll try the bottle-thing at night - though I've tried every type of milk and formula and wheat-milk and all those other things babies drink since she was born now. She's very good at no nursing out of home these days, that was fairly easy she was OK with it even though she didn't really agree, only time we broke that rule was on a five hour trainride. No nursing out of home allowed me to teach her to nap outside (weather is great) so no nursing at all in the daytime - she now climbs into her pram and makes motor-noises to tell me that she's ready to nap. One walk around the block and she sleeps... like a baby. Heh. It's the nightime nursing she wants to hang on to...And it's really snuggly so I can see why!

This is a funny thread -- I wish you were all my neighbors!

Speaking of -- I live in a building and neighborhood with virtually no kids at all and zero teenagers ('cept mine!). Most of the residents haven't been around teenagers ever, or since they were teenagers themselves.

The neighbor who came and spoke to me calmly about a (typical teenage) issue is forever my favorite standup guy. The neighbor who came and swore at my kid while I wasn't home and said that she would call social services to complain (he's a foster kid), and reportedly called my kid "a little faggot," according to said kid, is pretty much dead to me.

Oh and PaxDigita, that sucks. Just because you're a nice dad. Damn.

she now climbs into her pram and makes motor-noises to tell me that she's ready to nap.

Oh, so adorable! My insides just melted.

Ya know, the worst part is that she is a clever girl. Yesterday she was babysat by her paternal grandmother for the first time and took it all in stride. First, no mommy, that was OK. Then daddy hands her to grandma and explains that he has to go to work and she agrees and everything was fine, she even waved bye-bye daddy, no fuss. When she came home however she had managed to sneak a nostril-sized and shaped rock into her nose before grandma could stop her so I asked her to sit on a chair, very still and let me pull that out with a tweezer. She didn't even flinch! I pointed to the wee pebble and her nose and explained that under no circumstances should we put any objects or finger in nose and she pointed to her nose and then the pebble and said "nononono". Dang she's a clever lass (yeah all moms say that), so when she says "nurse!" at night and won't listen to reason about it I feel extra bad.

She's not forgotten it either, today everyone but me is more fun to hang out with.

Hehe, Elsa, it is cute. Especially when you don't even have to roll out of the yard before she's asleep.

dabitch,
Night weaning can be hard. We just went through it with our son, and you can find some bleary-eyed posts from me on here talking about the difficulty of living life with no sleep.

Is she still sleeping in the same room and/or do you co-sleep? We were what you call "reluctant co-sleepers." Our son was in a crib in our bedroom, and he would wake up 3-4 times a night wanting attention. The first couple times we would try to get him to get him to go back to sleep on his own, but eventually everyone would give up, and by the end of the night he would be in our bed and nursing constantly through the morning.

Eventually we decided this had to stop. No night nursing, no co-sleeping. We would each take turns comforting him in other ways to try to get him back to sleep. Despite these attempts, one Sunday night he threw a fit for two solid hours between 2-4 in the morning and would not be comforted. The situation obviously wasn't working out for anybody, so we decided to move him into his own room to try and physically remove the temptation of nursing and co-sleeping. A friend had had success with a method (can't remember the book offhand, but it wasn't a Ferber-type method) where you gradually move out of the baby's room over a succession of nights until they eventually get used to you not being there. To my complete surprise, this worked like a charm. It turns out he just never really learned to fall asleep on his own. We are ALL so much happier. He sleeps through the night most nights now, and if he wakes up, he often tries to put himself back to sleep with his Fisher Price crib aquarium.

Not sure if any of this is useful to you, but I wish you the best of luck. Dealing with a crappy neighbor cannot make this any easier. I can find out the title of the book if you are interested.

My neighbors pounded our common wall once when my baby was screaming and I was at my wit's end. It took every ounce of restraint to not punch my way through into their house and dismember him.

People who get annoyed about crying babies (note, annoyed, not totally unravelled as parents sometimes do) need to be quiet and let the parents work it out because the parents want peace and quiet a thousand times more than someone removed from the situation.

Good luck!

Also, second the Fisher Price crib aquarium, lights, bubbles, soft music and a big, easy to smack "Go" button!

Found the book: Good Night, Sleep Tight: The Sleep Lady's Gentle Guide to Helping Your Child Go to Sleep , Stay Asleep, And Wake Up Happy

Aw dabitch, that sucks. I know exactly how rough trying to get one of those little buggers to sleep is. (Last night I finally gave up and let my 7 -week-old sleep pretty much the whole night in his swing. Whatever it takes.) At least our kid-hating neighbor is a couple acres away. She just blares horrendous 70s rock to drown out the sound of our daughter playing. How rude of us to allow our child to go outside when she wants to rock out to Don Henley!!

Oh..and I do hope you're feeling better after your surgery.

Thanks for the book tip Otis, good advice. I wish I had taken a friends advice when she was a newborn and let her sleep on her belly without being able to see me "Then when she wakes up" my pal said "you can gently rock the crib and the baby feels like she went back to sleep by herself, all alone". I was just taking the "Don't let baby sleep on belly" advice too seriously. ARGH, contradicting advice!

Heh, jrossi4r, sleeping in a swing - so kyoot! :)) I feel much better thanks, no biggie at all.

to a bottle. I know, I know, you're not supposed to do that

Aww, really? We're not supposed to? But, but, but it works.