5 ms·

Have a two year old who is wants constant attention. Typical day is I take the morning shift. Wife does the afternoon shift and I again do the evening shift.

by zebnyc 6y ago

Have a two year old who is wants constant attention. Typical day is I take the morning shift. Wife does the afternoon shift and I again do the evening shift. Once the toddler goes to bed at 8 pm, we both work (typically past midnight) What makes this very challenging is that a) Kid wants attention continually so there is no point in trying to do any work while it is my turn. b) We live in an apartment complex and folks who live downstairs have called cops on our kid multiple times for running around. This despite the fact that he never does during "queit hours (sleeps from 8 pm to 7 am)" and these noises are protected by SF tenant laws. Couple of weeks back a SF police officer knocked on our door and tried to arbitrate. Internally, I wanted to slam the door in the cop's face though I was respectful. c) Because of (b) kid knows that we are very sensitive about him running around. So anytime he feels he is not getting attention, he will run or stomp on the floor. Fun times

kchoudhu 6y ago
Man, what is wrong with the ghouls downstairs.
- dominotw 6y ago
  maybe trying to work?
  - pradn 6y ago
    It's absolutely not justified. Talking to neighbors is a lot better than calling the police, which has a small but real chance of ending in violence.
    - dominotw 6y ago
      > cops on our kid multiple times obviously 'talking' wouldn't have worked here. If they are just ignoring the cops, why would they listen to neighbor.
      - kchoudhu 6y ago
        I've had downstairs neighbors like this: we were quiet, responsive and tried our best not to make a racket. My wife and I were out of the house most of the day, but they kept on calling the cops on us. They were assholes, and talking to them didn't help. I can't say we were too broken up when he died of a coronary and she moved out of the building.
mcv 6y ago
My kids want a lot of attention too. Well, my oldest either wants attention or spend the entire day playing Minecraft and watching Youtube, so it's up to us whether we want to enforce screen time limits or not. The youngest is 5 and he's a handful, so we got our babysitter to help us three days of the week. She lost all her jobs and has no income otherwise, and for us it means we can work normally 3 days a week, so everybody wins. But he's also finally getting better at playing alone. (He used to be great at that when he was 3, less so more recently.) It's also a matter of managing the expectations of your kids, I guess.
pnutjam 6y ago
It sucks living in an upstairs apartment with kids. Bad enough getting them up to the apartment with whatever you're carrying, worse having bad neighbors below. Have you tried introducing yourself, or maybe leaving an apology/explanation note with contact information. Downstairs it probably feels like they are screaming into the void whenever there is noise, they might have a kid trying to take a nap or something that you can compromise about. There also might be certain noises that seem small to you but are more irritating to them. Honestly, the only good downstairs (or upstairs) neighbor I ever had was a mostly deaf older woman.

by zebnyc 6y ago

kchoudhu 6y ago

Man, what is wrong with the ghouls downstairs.

dominotw 6y ago
maybe trying to work?
- pradn 6y ago
  It's absolutely not justified. Talking to neighbors is a lot better than calling the police, which has a small but real chance of ending in violence.
  - dominotw 6y ago
    > cops on our kid multiple times obviously 'talking' wouldn't have worked here. If they are just ignoring the cops, why would they listen to neighbor.
    - kchoudhu 6y ago
      I've had downstairs neighbors like this: we were quiet, responsive and tried our best not to make a racket. My wife and I were out of the house most of the day, but they kept on calling the cops on us. They were assholes, and talking to them didn't help. I can't say we were too broken up when he died of a coronary and she moved out of the building.

mcv 6y ago

My kids want a lot of attention too. Well, my oldest either wants attention or spend the entire day playing Minecraft and watching Youtube, so it's up to us whether we want to enforce screen time limits or not. The youngest is 5 and he's a handful, so we got our babysitter to help us three days of the week. She lost all her jobs and has no income otherwise, and for us it means we can work normally 3 days a week, so everybody wins. But he's also finally getting better at playing alone. (He used to be great at that when he was 3, less so more recently.) It's also a matter of managing the expectations of your kids, I guess.

pnutjam 6y ago

It sucks living in an upstairs apartment with kids. Bad enough getting them up to the apartment with whatever you're carrying, worse having bad neighbors below. Have you tried introducing yourself, or maybe leaving an apology/explanation note with contact information. Downstairs it probably feels like they are screaming into the void whenever there is noise, they might have a kid trying to take a nap or something that you can compromise about. There also might be certain noises that seem small to you but are more irritating to them. Honestly, the only good downstairs (or upstairs) neighbor I ever had was a mostly deaf older woman.