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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
If you really want to irritate someone, buy their child a toy that makes a really exciting but irritating noise (or ‘catchy’ tune) when it is moved, but has no off button…
But best of the lot of Sarah and Duck. Utter genius
That was our favourite with our first child - just the right blend of surreality and quaintness.
Under no circumstances allow one of these [Bopit] into the house
We've got one of those somewhere. Anyone got Cougar's address ??
Sarah and duck.
Sarah and duck .
Sarah and duck.
Jeez Cougar, get a life.
If you don't like it or can't handle it, change your partner and/or her family and friends.
A *little* tolerance goes a very long way.
I'm a father to 3 and grandfather to 3 so maybe have some understanding/insight.
A life lesson for you - know how and when to tune out; it only takes a little practice.
We have 3 foot thick stone walls though the house. That and Planet Rock on a marshall speaker (turned to 11, naturally) close by works pretty well.
Sarah and duck
Quack.
Sarah and duck
Quack.
Sarah and duck
Quack.
God I used to so desperately want my mum to buy me one of those whistle lollies every time we went to the doctor and chemist afterwards, she never did for done strange reason.
I like young children but ...... I couldn't eat a whole one
funkmasterpFull Member
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 **** 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..
We were on the verge of calling an exorcist. A low, sinister mumbling sound which sounded like a person talking to us through the walls. The voice was quite sincere, although it was difficult to make out what they were saying. It had woken Mrs Scape in the darkest hours of the night, and of course she did that "grab and whisper intensely" thing they do when they think there's an intruder, which made it harder to listen carefully though the surging adrenaline. Blood pounding in my ears I stayed listening as well as I could and heard the voice again. She was right, there was definitely a voice telling us something. The phrasing made it sound factual, but the words were impossible to decipher, so I even started to wonder whether visitors with dire warnings from the spirit world spoke in languages other than English- some ancient Aramaic perhaps? The voice was male. I stepped cautiously across the room and pinpointed the source as being in or behind the wardrobe. I opened it and the voice finally became clear. ".......time for something sweet!" it said.
The bag of wrapped Christmas presents hidden in the bottom of the wardrobe were my biggest clue. Winnie The Pooh finally got his message across through the layers of Reindeer and Christmas Tree motif wrapping paper.
"I'm rumbly in my tumbly...time for something sweet!" he declared.
Way back when, I was working a whole week of night shifts. A perfect spell of weather coincided with the Easter holidays and our cul-de-sac was one of those idyllic places for kids to play out. My bedroom was at the front of the house and overlooked the widest stretch of green space. There were four or five families' worth of primary aged kids, all wonderfully well behaved and they were definitely making the most of the warm spell. I was always pretty tired so slept well considering, but young Mathew from two doors away had a bike with a bell. He rang it. A lot. What was worse, he rang it like a telephone (this was the 80's so phones sounded like phones..) and that was the one noise guaranteed to cut through my sleep. Ring-Ring. Ring-Ring.
By the Wednesday I'd had little or no sleep so desperate measures were called for. I blagged a couple of hours time off and left work at 4am. I rode a big noisy Guzzi in those days so parked up at the end of the cul-de-sac and crept along to Matthew's house on foot. They had a Grimston garage with a side door which to my relief was unlocked, so I got in and found Matthew's bike. With gloved hands I span off the metal dome of the bell and hid it right on top of a metal tool locker amongst a load of old gardening bits and pieces.
A blissful and peaceful few days ensued. On Sunday night I once again left work early and reversed the process.
Grand children are fantastic. Enjoy the time you get with them, it will never be long enough.
It’s your opportunity to shape a tiny person for the benefit of society.
But best of all is they don't actually live with you. You get to send them off home and can relax in peace and tranquility.
I used to always make sure my nephews had a can of cola each just prior to leaving.
We are deep into page 2 and i'm the first one to suggest going out on your bike???
Bike? Say what now?
This is just a chat forum for grumpy IT types.
Jeez Cougar, get a life.
If you don’t like it or can’t handle it, change your partner and/or her family and friends.
A *little* tolerance goes a very long way.
I’m a father to 3 and grandfather to 3 so maybe have some understanding/insight.
A life lesson for you – know how and when to tune out; it only takes a little practice.
Nope, Cougar is right, those toys are ****ing abominations. I could handle their irritating cheeriness if they weren't so ****ing loud. Like, actual occupational health inducing loud. Neither me nor my wife can tolerate them and thankfully my daughter quickly lost interest in them.
Father of one.
@Cougar for non-irritating TV My Little Pony is surprisingly watchable. Dunno about the newer series but Friendship is Magic was on heavy rotation here.
My Little Pony has something of a cult adult following. "Bronies" are a thing.
Haha I'm well aware, I do not fall into that segment but do appreciate the work.
I fear you doth protest too much.
I came across this (careful now) at a convention one year. There was a Bronie track alongside the more usual sci-fi / fantasy tracks and they were... a curious subcommunity. I attended a roleplaying session (no, really, careful now) with one of them, they were really nice. It just felt so terribly... I dunno, random. But then I play with Lego so I've no room to judge.
S&D have pride of place on my ham shack/WFH desk 🙂
Noise cancelling ear/headphones. Set them to pass through and then turn the volume down.
I don't think toddlers have bad hearing. It's just for some insane reason toy manufacturers seem to think that kids toys need to be loud and annoying. Some at least do have volume control on them. Generally if a toy was just too annoying me and the missus just quietly removed it from the playroom. Or took the batteries out.
There's a special place in hell for people who knowingly buy loud toys for toddlers.
I avoid little kids as much as possible, the noise of them doing what little kids do just goes right through me. Thankfully I don't want kids of my own anyway so can usually just remove myself from the situation and retain my sanity.
A life lesson for you – know how and when to tune out; it only takes a little practice.
I can normally buy when my 4 year old niece (or any small child) has a screaming fit the sound makes my brain instantly cry in pain and all conscious thoughts are destroyed. Mt dad is the same, it was until his hearing went to crap and he can no longer hear the high pitches!
Under no circumstances allow one of these [Bopit] into the house
I had one given to me back in 1998 which never got opened and got put in the cupboard on the landing of my parent's house. A year ago I attempted to clean said cupboard as I'd put all my stuff in there when I moved out, found it still in it's plastic case and out of idle curiosity looked up it's value. Safe to say it sold to a collector on eBay for over £230 after fees! Guaranteed to never get used at that price so I'm happy that I did the world a favour by not only avoiding annoying people by using it but also reducing the amount of plastic crap that goes to landfill. Paid for a suspension service on one of the bikes too so win-win all round.
Sleeping tablets
Cougar
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.
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.
We are programmed to both find it so annoying we have to do something but also bond with our own...
You have a cat right? They exploit this... but have you noticed how you recognise YOUR cat's voice over another.
My cat used to be an expert at annoying... shaving in the morning I had to feed him first as he instinctively knew how painful flicking my achilles was and the exact force needed to cause pain without real damage. Cat's are just jumping in on our human programming.
Right. So I just need to take the batteries out of my girlfriend. Got it.
You have a cat right? They exploit this… but have you noticed how you recognise YOUR cat’s voice over another.
Yeah. This is something I don't get. I've seen tales online, "my cat went missing, I found it, then my actual cat came home and now I have two identical cats."
I have three. I can tell them apart by their voice; by feel; by their footsteps; by who's just had a poo; by which one's just landed on the bed at 2am.
S&D have pride of place on my ham shack/WFH desk 🙂
Yes! I was well into it, the girls seemed to enjoy it too. Strangely calming, I bet there are students up and down the land recouperating from last night aided by S&D...
I'll echo My Little pony being watchable but only the ones where they're actually ponies, the ones where they've travelled to an alternate dimension to shift surplus 'Bratz' dolls seriously grates...
Like all of these things they grow out of it within 12 months and your excuses to watch kids trash telly evaporate...
Cougar
Yeah. This is something I don’t get. I’ve seen tales online, “my cat went missing, I found it, then my actual cat came home and now I have two identical cats.”
I have three. I can tell them apart by their voice; by feel; by their footsteps; by who’s just had a poo; by which one’s just landed on the bed at 2am.
Yep, agree... the point I was making though to explain through your experience is cats piggyback on our inbuilt parent responses.
In the way you are "tuned" to your cats I found the same with kids... before I had one any kid screaming/crying was annoying/grating... but you tune into their noises so that I found other kids screaming/crying becomes less annoying/grating just as you hearing someone else's cat asking for food or something becomes less annoying/grating.
I don’t think our kids had a toy that didn’t have copious amounts of gaffer tape over the speaker holes. Works a treat 👌
sellotape over the speaker holes on electronic toys. If that is not quiet enough remove the batteries.