I have a happy 7yo girl and a very small, 950sq ft house.I got married in June and the new stepdad-moving-in transition has been going well, but one issue we’re struggling with is how her volume level in the mornings before school almost always wakes him up. This has been since day one.Generally, no big deal. We share the morning routine as parents so this isn’t an issue of a lazy dad who wants to be able to sleep in all the time and hates the kid waking him up.It’s really just on those mornings where, for example, his alarm is set for 7:30am (for work at 8:30am) and she and I are up and moving about starting around 6:30.My daughter hasn’t really been raised to keep quiet if people are sleeping, mostly because in my own family, things weren’t really like that, so I’ve never thought twice about it. She’s never had to be quiet for sleeping siblings, grandparents, or friends, because no one’s ever really cared. Granted, she knows not to scream or bang pots and pans! Haha.Mostly, it’s just the volume of her voice. The house is tiny so when she speaks in her normal speaking volume, it’s loud enough that my husband says it sounds like she’s right next to him.Our morning routine is to get up and watch TV over breakfast before school. If the TV volume stays low it doesn’t bug my husband, and he says he can barely hear me speaking myself. It’s just when my daughter gets excited about something that happened on the show and will do a bit of a GASP or SQUEAL or DID YOU SEE THAT?He ends up texting me and then will ultimately get up and be vaguely grouchy. Kind, but you can still just tell he’s not super happy.I’m not sure how to fix this. He won’t wear earplugs to sleep. He doesn’t want a box fan or white noise machine in the room. He just wants her to be able to control the volume of her voice better in the mornings. He knows it’s hard for her though, so he tries his best to just stay patient and not make a big deal, but I know it really bothers him and on some level makes him feel disrespected.My perspective is that she’s a kid and she’s doing her best. She’s going to have to spend all day at school being quiet, so she should have the freedom to at least be a little louder at home. Plus I hate spending our morning before school just constantly shushing her or asking her to lower her voice because Stepdad is sleeping. Seems like a bummer way to start the morning.Any ideas? I think he’s really been working hard at just being cool about it and I’d really like to find a solution that works for everyone while we’re still here in this little house.TLDR: My 7yo daughter’s normal-but-loudish speaking voice wakes my husband up in the mornings, an hour or so before his alarm is supposed to go off, leaving him cranky. House is small so there’s not really anywhere else to go. He’s been doing his best to be cool about it. My perspective is that he should probably just get used to it, but I also really feel for him. How can I help my kid learn to be more whispery in the mornings? She’s a good kid, she doesn’t wanna wake him up, but she’s also just a kid and is gonna have a hard time modulating her voice sometimes... via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2xCjotJ
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