Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Email careandfeeding@slate.com or post it in the Slate Parenting Facebook group.

Dear Care and Feeding,

My son, age 11, and daughter, 8, often play with brothers in our neighborhood, Max, 13, and Tom, 12. Tom plays with my daughter quite well despite the age difference and enjoys playing pretend and stuffed animals with her. There is no one else her age or other little girls around, so I’m happy she has a playmate. Over the last couple weekends when the boys have been over, my husband and I have found clothes of my daughter’s, dresses, leggings, and tights and leotards, hidden (not hidden well) in the bathrooms, as well as unwrapped feminine hygiene products that are not clean anymore hidden behind the toilet paper rolls. Tom is frequently in the bathroom for 15 minutes or longer or will be in and out multiple times. We are sure he is trying on her clothes and experimenting with other products. There is no chance this is another child, as they’ve all been outside or far away from the bathrooms while this is happening.

My husband and I are trying to just not give him the opportunity to be in the bathroom for long periods of time and stay out of my daughter’s room. But my brother advised me to let him have access to both the clothes and tampons, as clearly he has a need that’s not being met elsewhere. Maybe he needs a safe space to figure things out. This child’s parents are quite conservative and I don’t imagine that they’d have a good response. I truly feel like I don’t care if he likes dresses or stimulating himself, but I don’t like it happening in secret in my bathroom with my daughter’s clothes. What’s the best way to handle this without embarrassing Tom and turning into the bathroom police? Ignore it, encourage it, try to stop it? I don’t know what to do.

—I Didn’t Expect This to Come Up

Dear I Didn’t Expect This,

I hope he can continue to have safe access to your home.

Your brother has good intentions, but it is not actually your job to create a safe space for someone else’s child to try on tampons and wear your daughter’s clothing in your bathroom.

I agree that talking to the child’s parents is not the solution, but you are going to have to have a sit-down with Tom. Keep it light, don’t shame him, but be clear: You are glad that he and your daughter are friends, and he’s welcome in your house, but that you’ve found clothing and bathroom products in the bathroom and that taking things without permission and leaving them around is not appropriate behavior in someone else’s home. He should ask your permission before taking your family’s things.

I hope he can continue to have safe access to your home. If he shows an interest in discussing the larger issues at play here, please do convey to him that there’s nothing wrong with being interested in female clothing. You can order some books of his choosing and keep them at the house for him. (Heck, you can give him some clothes you no longer wear, if he wants to try them on in a private, nonbathroom space.) The main message needs to be that his interests are fine, but taking things without permission is not. I’m sorry if this is hard on him, but it’s a much better lesson to hear politely from a sympathetic adult than it is from either his parents or the parents at the next house he has play dates at, who may actually freak out.

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Dear Care and Feeding,

Since moving into our small four-unit building two years ago, our downstairs neighbor, now 3, has thrown daily tantrums, morning and evening. They begin with hysterical crying and heighten to what sounds like him kicking or pounding on their heavy front door, or opening and slamming the door repeatedly (which is incredibly loud in our apartment) and wailing for up to 45 minutes at a time.

Now that we have a baby, I’m totally fed up, as he’s woken her from sleep on several occasions. The parents are cordial to us, not overly friendly, and we’ve seen one of the parents make snarky comments about parenting on a neighborhood board, which makes us laugh given their situation.

We live in NYC, and neighbor noise comes with the territory, but I cannot wrap my head around the length of time that this behavior has transpired. Clearly, we have different parenting styles, but I’m really genuinely curious if your advice would be to address this or not. If a jackhammer were disrupting my life twice a day for two years, I would definitely attempt to end that noise.

—Neighbor to Meltdown Mania

Dear NtMM,

There’s a limit to what you can achieve here, knowing as you do that neighbor noise is just part of the deal of apartment living. I would pick your battle (the repetitive door slamming) and head on over at a time of day in which there isn’t any toddler noise. Explain that he’s been waking your baby night and day, and you would appreciate it if they could at least make it impossible for him to open and slam their front door. (A large number of devices exist for this purpose.)

If they respond badly, tell the landlord this is interfering with your “quiet enjoyment of the apartment” (which is a real tenant’s keyword for “I will make a fuss about this”) and ask that they step in.

• If you missed Friday’s Care and Feeding column, read it here.

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Dear Care and Feeding,

My colleague has been bringing her 3-year-old kid to work for two hours every day before going home (I think it’s when her day care closes), and it’s driving me crazy. She makes no attempt to keep him in her office, so he’s constantly underfoot, always seems to have a cold, and expects constant attention from me and the other employees. I don’t want to be the mean childless lady, but it’s seriously impacting my ability to get work done. Help!

—Am I Cruella?

Dear Am I Cruella?

This is a ridiculous situation. You’re going to need to start by speaking to your colleague, because if you take it to your boss, she will ask (reasonably) if you’ve tried to work this out on your own. It may also be that the co-worker has permission to bring her son to work during these hours, and your boss just doesn’t realize the impact this is having on everyone else’s productivity.

You don’t need to insult her kid in order to have this conversation. I would start with: “Karen, we all enjoy seeing Edgar, but he needs to stay in your office when he’s here. It’s really distracting to have a toddler running around for two hours, and he gets into our things, and it’s affecting productivity for everyone.”

If Karen responds well, great, be extra nice and polite to her and Edgar going forward. If Karen brushes you off, take it to your supervisor and focus on the productivity issues. There is nothing unreasonable about telling Karen that either Edgar needs to stay in her office or she needs to find more child care.

Stand firm!

Dear Care and Feeding,

Can you make a ruling on how many baby showers a person may have? It’s starting to get out of control! First, the normal baby shower for a first child, then a second baby shower for a second child … there’s a cousin of mine who has had six full baby showers without any hint of an apology.

—This Cannot Be Right

Dear This Cannot Be Right,

It’s not right. My ruling is as follows (barring losing a child, in which case you can have as many subsequent showers as you want):

You get one baby shower. Go ahead, register, it’s fine.

If you next have a baby of a different sex, and someone offers to throw you a “sprinkle,” you may accept but have the host tell everyone gifts are optional.

If you later have twins, you can have a second baby shower.

Thus ends my decree.

—Nicole

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