Noisy neighbors

Every morning our little girl wakes up at 5AM. Coincidentally 5AM is also the time that our upstairs neighbor wakes up to start his day. The problem is, is that he's very noisy. He stomps around the apartment, back and forth, back and forth. He has a very heavy step and then slams the door when he leaves. Whenever we sleep someplace else, or he's not home she sleeps until about 7AM. I know she's not hungry because she always refuses her first bottle until 9:30, and she's never wet when I check her diaper at that time. I have to put her in the swing to get her to go back to sleep. By now, her crying has woken her brother and he decided he wants his bottle. After his bottle he goes back to sleep but by that time it's 6:30 and I'm up for the day.

I really don't know how to approach him about trying to be more quiet in the early mornings. It's not as though he's doing anything outrageous, he's just walking around his apartment. His WAY of walking though is really loud and he's not really mindful of the fact that we have 3.5 month old twins. I know that these are the concessions you sometimes have to make when you live in close quarters with others, but on the other hand, just because THEY get up at 5AM to go to work doesn't mean that my entire household should have to get up at that time too because they can't be a little quieter... I'm not really sure how to approach the subject without looking like one of those people who thinks the world has to stop because I have babies. I'm really not like that. I'd just love that extra 2 hours of sleep I could be getting.

PS - they also have a VERY large dog with a skin condition and when he scratches he POUNDS on the floor with his foot. It sounds like someone is hammering. We've asked them to keep him out of the bedrooms and they have, but this pounding goes on ALL day while they're out. They could put the dog on prednisone but they don't want to because it will 'shorten his life'. He's also overweight (ever seen a boxer built like a rottweiler?) and has cancer, how can the prednisone really hurt at this point??

 

Every morning our little girl wakes up at 5AM. Coincidentally 5AM is also the time that our upstairs neighbor wakes up to start his day. The problem is, is that he's very noisy. He stomps around the apartment, back and forth, back and forth. He has a very heavy step and then slams the door when he leaves. Whenever we sleep someplace else, or he's not home she sleeps until about 7AM. I know she's not hungry because she always refuses her first bottle until 9:30, and she's never wet when I check her diaper at that time. I have to put her in the swing to get her to go back to sleep. By now, her crying has woken her brother and he decided he wants his bottle. After his bottle he goes back to sleep but by that time it's 6:30 and I'm up for the day.

I really don't know how to approach him about trying to be more quiet in the early mornings. It's not as though he's doing anything outrageous, he's just walking around his apartment. His WAY of walking though is really loud and he's not really mindful of the fact that we have 3.5 month old twins. I know that these are the concessions you sometimes have to make when you live in close quarters with others, but on the other hand, just because THEY get up at 5AM to go to work doesn't mean that my entire household should have to get up at that time too because they can't be a little quieter... I'm not really sure how to approach the subject without looking like one of those people who thinks the world has to stop because I have babies. I'm really not like that. I'd just love that extra 2 hours of sleep I could be getting.

PS - they also have a VERY large dog with a skin condition and when he scratches he POUNDS on the floor with his foot. It sounds like someone is hammering. We've asked them to keep him out of the bedrooms and they have, but this pounding goes on ALL day while they're out. They could put the dog on prednisone but they don't want to because it will 'shorten his life'. He's also overweight (ever seen a boxer built like a rottweiler?) and has cancer, how can the prednisone really hurt at this point??

 

I know your pain, we had a loud upstairs neighbour as well once years ago(no kids at the time). He drove me insane.
Sadly theres porb not much you can do unless you know him. Ask him to please (in a sweet women voice, use what you can lol) keept it down in the am. If he is someone you don't know, ask the landlord. This is one of those things that could end of worse.

 

I do sort of know him, so I can ask. I don't really know why I feel weird about it. Maybe because if it were me I'd think I was being unreasonable, you know? I feel like it's one of those situations that he won't understand because he's not sleep deprived from 2 infants and he has no CLUE how loud he is, and it's not as if I can even show him, KWIM?

There is no landlord, it's a co-op building and we both own our apartments (so it's not so easy to move)

 

Maybe you can put a sound machine in the babies room, I bought a cheap one from walmart...I think its conair...it was around 15 or so. There are about 10 different sounds, from white noise to a heartbeat and the volumn is adjustable. It also came with a cord to plug in the wall or you can just use batteries if traveling. I had to get one because my girls are light sleepers and everything woke them up.
Having upstairs neighbors is definatly not something Im looking forward to again

 

So DH spoke to the guy last night. He went outside for a cigarette (yuk!) and the guy was coming home. Of course he totally didn't get it but told Dh that he was starting vacation today so he wouldn't be getting up early for a few days. Guess what!!

BOTH babies SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT. For the first time since they were born!! They went to bed at 8 and didn't get up until 6. Then I gave them bottles and put them back to bed. DS got up at 7:30 and DD is STILL SLEEPING!!

So at least we have a little break while noisy is on vacation. When he goes back it's going to be back to how it was
I'm going to try the noise machine.

 

Perhaps now you could approach him and say thank you for caring so much (reverse pshychology) and how excited you were cause they slept through the whole night for the first time. Perhaps that will make him feel like he was responsible for such a great thing happening and make an effort to keep things a little more quiet. Could work.