I was mad - their baby wakes up early - fair enough, I know what it is, I am a mum, but their baby plays on the floor, dropping things etc. It's not the first time, and I fear that tomorrow morning, their baby won't care that it's Saturday, he will do it again like he did last week and the week before. It's a nightmare really.
Shall I go and tell them to do something about it or do I have to live with it?

I don't understand your point? ...... you've already said you're a mum, and you know how it is.

Babies do what babies do, immaterial of the adult concept of time.

..... and if it's any consolation, I'm woken up, every morning at 5.30 ........................... by an alarm clock.

They could put heavy carpet where the baby plays.

I don't think ther is much you can do, how can you tell a baby when to wake up and not to drop toys. I think the carpet idea is the only solution. Or ear plugs.

Or duct tape.

I agree with Phil. And Hannah - a rug sounds like a good solution...

In our town the church bells ring for 5 minutes or so everyday at 5:30...and with all the snow, the snow clearers for the apartments across the street start each morning at 5ish to clear with snow blowers...luckily, it is just for a short time, the winter.

Remember, good or bad, with babies everything is also just a phase - as soon as you get used to it, it will change. I remember with mine, there would be a phase where they would be wide awake at some ungodly hour of the morning and I finally had to give and get up with them for an hour or so.

How old is the baby?

Woken up at 05:50 whats the issue?

My alarm clock goes off at 05:25 each day and by that time I am finished breakfast and due out to the bus by 06:30

Its a perfectly normal time to be woken up.

why get mad? Just communicate with your neighbour and tell them that the only issue you have is that when things are dropped on the floor, it wakes you. They will appreciate it - after all, you can empathise with their lack of sleep and absolute focus on the baby.

what a wonderful thing to wake up early.

You can

- take your time for your breakfast
- sit and watch the dawn
- go out for a walk, when everything is almost quiet

enjoy it

To be fair, OP did mention that she doesn't want to be woken up that early on a Saturday. I'd also find it annoying. I think the rug suggestion is great.

But the Swiss thing to do would be to leave a nasty sticky-note on the neighbors' door.

speak to your neighbors about it, and see if some middle ground can be reached. I have never understood people with a fetish for being up before the sun, as if people who don't want to be up before 7:00 are lazy or otherwise abnormal. if somebody wouldn't run a vacuum cleaner / do a load of laundry / perform marching band music at 5:30, then it seems perfectly fine to me to politely request that they hold / feed or otherwise occupy the baby until a more decent hour.

on another note, how noisy is your apartment that you can hear a baby crying on another floor?

No, it's not. 7:15 is!

Though I did get woken up around 5:30 this morning by my daughter returning home from carnevale. Fortunately, only nine more days of that nonsense!

Tom

If you ask to see their baby, there's a switch in between the smallest and second toe on the left foot that you need to reset using a small pen or stylus. Just press until the baby's eyes are fixed in a horizontal stare and then tap it lightly on the right shoulder three times whilst gently holding the belly button and you should have then entered "silent mode".

You can always refer to "Homo Sapiens Instruction Manual - Quick User Guide" for further short cuts and handy tips.

I have a cat who thinks it is totally appropriate to jump on me in the middle of the night.

Is 'cat' a euphemism, for someone else?

If it doesn't work try the manufacture resetting and if no help, send it back to the manufacturer.

Buy a ton of soft stuffed animals with which the baby can replace the loud toys?

This is why we transferred to the 1st floor when i got pregnant. My high-needs baby could only sleep for 2 hrs at a time (after 15 minutes rocking which isnt always successful) until he was around 6 months. He´s almost 1 year now and can sleep all night but wakes up very early. On the average he awakes twice in the night and when he is sick or has a runny nose, i have to co-sleep or he would wake up so often and be very upset. He is the loudest baby i know. I feel bad for the neighbors and sometimes get scared that they will call the police on me on a really bad day.

Although i have to admit getting up early on weekends makes the weekend days seem much longer, which could be a good thing.

What are the police going to do? Arrest your baby? I think that, if for everything else, you have a good relationship with the neighbors, they will understand that, as others have said, babies will be babies.