We have a... 16-month old in the house, my partner's grandson.
How do you cope with the noise? It is so loud and it is absolutely relentless, it's like being carpet-bombed.
Not the kid, he's absolutely fine. It's every bugger else. I've had Twinkle Twinkle Little F***ing Star at 130dB for like the last half an hour. I'm at the other end of the building with the door closed and I can still hear it. You know how people think light shines out of their girlfriend's arse, well it's going to be factually correct in a minute if I get hold of that star. Her sister was round earlier, you probably heard them.
Do near-toddlers have under-developed hearing, is that it? Because if he's not deaf, he's going to be. **** my old boots, I'm going to get some earplugs.
Oh, we're onto Old MacDonald now.
There's going to be a rendition of "Old MacCougar Had Tourette's" in a minute.
One of the downsides of working from home, when you have inconsiderate relatives.
Get yourself into the office you work shy layabout 🙂
If you aren't able to give them back to someone else, the answer is that you basically just learn to filter it out. It changes through the years to keep you adjusting your filter, from baby's screaming to Kevin & Perry... Of course, I will miss them when they leave home.
Wait till they get bought a drum set, for it to live at grandad's house !
Y'all read the OP, right? Not just the first two lines?
Wait till they get bought a drum set, for it to live at grandad’s house !
His uncle is a drummer in a death metal band. So that's not a wildly outrageous eventuality.
Your only option is to escalate.
Buy the kid an airhorn, just slip it into the car with him when they're leaving. Great fun for the wee fella. He'll love it
It's just because it's noise you are not accustomed to – the pitch, tone and whatever, it's all designed around attracting young children, not grumpy old men (it's just the same as with TV programmes with screechy dialogue and lots of jumping/shouting etc, brightly coloured toys, tactile stuff – it's designed to stimulate their senses). Eventually, you'll either zone out or buy a shed and move out.
Under no circumstances allow one of these into the house
OP sounds like my dad when my siblings kids go round - he goes out to the pub. That's the solution !
And never encourage clarinet lessons
Wait till CBeebies is on TV, or when that new/politically correct version of Thomas the Tank Engine is on - it's an abomination ! Bring back Ringo and the explosions and Fat controller.
Wait till they get bought a drum set, for it to live at grandad’s house !
I taught my godless grandchildren how to make a drumkit out of the pots and pans in the kitchen. their mother was so pleased
On the upside, I now know What It's All About.
What kryton says. My filter is learning to cope with new sounds every day. A nearly 8 yo with a Kevin and Perry like grunt is trying though.
can I recommend Mumsnet?
Are you mad? My username gets misinterpreted enough on here as it is.
How do you cope with the noise?
🤣🤣
If you're WFH, find a good local pub with excellent WiFi. Not only will you get peace & quiet whilst working, you'll also have had enough to drink to make sleeping easy when you get home.
There's something about the sound of a baby screaming in our tiled bathroom that has driven me to madness over the last 2 years. Now I just leave the room immediately, I can't take it. It's physically painful.
I mostly makes sure the Mrs is there to take over before he drowns.
Be thankful the child isn't at the Wiggles stage yet - that's when the fun really begins!! 😬
Get yourself into the office you work shy layabout 🙂
...
If you’re WFH
I wasn't going to say anything, but as it's been mentioned twice now, I'm off work at the moment for mental health reasons. (You're all shocked right, I know.) So I actually could just go to the pub - uh, coffee shop across the road. But early afternoon, ahem, caffeine probably isn't a great precedent to be setting.
His uncle is a drummer in a death metal band. So that’s not a wildly outrageous eventuality.
My nephew's uncle (ahem 🙂 ) took great pleasure in buying him a drum kit for his third birthday. My sister was not especially pleased
I wasn’t going to say anything, but as it’s been mentioned twice now, I’m off work at the moment for mental health reasons.
e-hugs, you know where we all are, etc.
There’s something about the sound of a baby screaming in our tiled bathroom that has driven me to madness over the last 2 years. Now I just leave the room immediately, I can’t take it. It’s physically painful.
Again, the infant wasn't really what I was talking about. But I'm the same, there is a certain pitch or register which just goes through me like an ice pick. It's not nails-down-a-blackboard or squeaky polystyrene cringe, it actually really hurts. Babies hit it, and some songs hit it (I'm looking at you, Kate Bush).
I attribute it to tonsillitis when I was a kid, I was really ill with it (like, 'it nearly killed me' ill, when they operated my mum stayed in the next bed overnight - different times hey - because as I only found out years later they weren't sure whether I was going to wake up again). One of the symptoms was that I went deaf, after the operation I was hypersensitive to noise for some time.
The grandchild though, very very rarely does it. He has the occasional tantrum but he's just shouty rather than making me want to dig out my eardrums with a mustard spoon. Maybe it's more of a little girl scream than a little boy's which hits that particular note?
On the upside, I now know What It’s All About.
Tell me the little fella is called Alfie
As an owner of a small person, I'm fortunate that all his "noisy" toys thus far have come from my sister, who was driven so insane by their volume when she had to listen to them all day that she opened them up and wrapped the speakers in insulating tape.
Anyway, they've both now This Little Piggied off back to his mother's house and silence has fallen, aside from learner motorcyclists who can't keep their right wrist still* and Subaru's with dump valves.
(* - interpretation left as an exercise for the reader)
We had "one battery toys" and the nice toys. The former were rapidly disposed of/hidden in a box/fast-to-charity-or-nursery. The latter were handed down to the next generation. There are very few of the latter!
Speaking of adults being loud at small children,
I was on holiday in Rhodes a few weeks ago, just before it burnt down (it wasn't us). Ahead of what the hotel referred to with no trace of irony as the evening's "entertainment" they had a mini-disco for the mini-guests. It was the same few songs every evening, I assume because familiarity is good for the kids.
Included in this repertoire of floor fillers was "Head, Shoulders, Knee and Toe" (yes, singular), a variation on the Hokey Kokey as above, and some sort of um-pah-pah song which I've never heard before. But let me tell you my friends, you haven't lived until you've experienced The Birdie Song in the original Greek.
As an owner of a small person, I’m fortunate that all his “noisy” toys thus far have come from my sister, who was driven so insane by their volume when she had to listen to them all day that she opened them up and wrapped the speakers in insulating tape.
My father in law spent the first two years of my nieces life as her 9-5 daycare, then 6 months later, kicked off doing almost the same for my nephew.
He's got the art of inserting sound deadening wadding into the speaker grill of *every* squeaky/noisy toy they owned down to a fine art.
He refused point blank to take either of my kids.
I like it when you end up in your own Blumhouse movie. Three am and you’re awoken by the sound of a demon calling out. Mrs F is freaking out and asking you to investigate. You creep downstairs to the sound of eerie laughter, clutching the giant novelty pencil you found on the landing as a makeshift club. The voice from beyond mocking you as you wipe sleep from your eyes. Then it dawns on you. It’s that ****ing Buzz Lightyear phone that some utter bastard bought for your kids. The batteries are going and it sounds like something from the pits of hell.
Did it fall with style, down the stairs, repeatedly?
Removed the battery and gave it to a friend as a gift when he had kids. Share the pain!
Under no circumstances allow one of these into the house
And whoever came up with these was a sadist, and likely childless.
His uncle is a drummer in a death metal band
Find it hard not to read that to the tune of a Human League song
It's a dim distant memory now but lying in the bath next to my sons bedroom & the water dancing to the drum & base toons he was mixing on his decks is a memory I treasure now, time is a great healer 🤣
You kind of just get used to it as others have said. It's rarely bothered me except the one car journey from hell. Over 10 hours from Devon to Sheffield.
The boy was ok as we'd had the foresight to invest in a cheap in car dvd player.
Me on the other hand. Let's see now. Each episode of postman pat is say 5 minutes long. Each episode has the theme tune at the beginning and the end.
10 hours / 5mins x 2 =... Several million run throughs of Pat and his sodding monotone cat. I was close to a Falling Down moment...
We've just had a 3 hour drive from the central belt to Forres. Our 2 year old asked for the 'diddledi die song' (Katie Bairdie) on repeat. Quite a jolly tune the first 20 times.
The first animated Thomas and friends was ok. Better than Ringo et Al. I've not seen the new cartoon version.
Postman pat. He should be sacked for gross incompetence.
In the night garden and tellytubbies are crimes against humanity.
Hey duggee, messy goes to okido and bluey are good.
In the night garden and tellytubbies are crimes against humanity.
Hey duggee, messy goes to okido and bluey are good.
But best of the lot of Sarah and Duck. Utter genius.
read the title only
yes it's shit
