Downstairs neighbour complaining about my breastpump, AIBU not to change rooms at night?

[Cealee]

Just bought a new powerful pump as I'm exclusively expressing. We live in a flat that's split over 2 levels so our bedroom is on 1st floor, our lounge upstairs on 2nd floor. Our neighbour (on ground floor) caught me in hall to ask what the 'mechanical noise' is that wakes her up I explained its my breastpump and that I need to express at 11pm, 3am and 7am to maintain supply. She said it makes ceiling vibrate and is very loud (even though it's not on the floor it's on a cushion on my bedside table!) She asked me to do it upstairs. I explained this isn't practical as my DH wears earplugs so I need to be able to hear baby if he wakes. She suggested I take baby upstairs with me!! Why should I have to move my sleeping baby upstairs (and risk waking him) every time I express milk? He's just started sleeping through and got used to his cot. And there's no way I'm going to move cot upstairs and sleep on sofa for the next 8months

AIBU to think it's rude to tell someone not to express milk in their own bedroom? It's not like I'm playing loud music! I don't see why neighbour can't just get some earplugs!

The OP doesn't have to answer and has obviously decided way back on page 2 or maybe 3 or maybe it was 4 but certainly by page fucking 9 she doesn't want to

I think AIBU may be the wrong place for you

I think the OP's dh needs to take out his earplugs and learn that broken nights are part and parcel of being a parent - not just part and parcel of being a mother!

I was a SAHM with each of mine, and dh commuted to London for a demanding job - but he still woke up in the night when our children woke up. When I was breastfeeding, he woke up and changed the baby's nappy, and when that failed, he would get the formula and warm it, and sometimes he'd feed the baby too.

He didn't enjoy the broken nights - who does - but he DID enjoy spending that time with the baby. And he went on getting up in the night with them - when they cried, when they were ill, when they wet the bed - he was up, sometimes just him, sometimes both of us (and sometimes just me - it was fair). He spent as much time as possible with the boys, and was good at looking after them. He would take all three out for days out on his own - and as a result of putting in the effort, he developed a good, close relationship with them, which has stood them all in good stead, especially during the turbulent teenage years!

Cealee - if you are looking for something to help insulate the breast pump, can I suggest cork mats? I have a dyson fan in my bedroom, and I run it all night, in hot weather - but when we first got it, although the motor is really quiet, the vibrations from it were transmitted through the floor and the bedframe and into the mattress, and I found that really annoying - it kept me awake. Our bedroom is carpeted, with decent underlay, and that didn't help! So I put a cork table mat under the base of the fan, and the vibrations that were keeping me awake stopped altogether.

Oh - and as another poster has said - keeping your phone under your pillow can be dangerous, if it is on charge - it can catch fire (one of the many things that ds3 does, that I worry about, is having his phone in bed).

The husband is certainly king in this house. He has a 'long commute and stressful job' so isn't expected to help at night, or even be disturbed in his bed by baby making noises in his sleep?

OP

Many husbands (including mine) have a "long commute to a stressful job."
They still manage to get up in the night to do feeds etc.
You need to tell him to stop being selfish and to help out with his child.

Still waiting for you to explain why it is that your DH's sleep is more important than your neighbour's?
How do you know that she hasn't got a long commute to a stressful job?

I have only read the first few pages and the last page so forgive me if I am repeating things or missing information....

Can you use a manual pump at night? I have a Medela manual pump and it is quite efficient and totally silent. It might take a little longer but will mean you don't have to change rooms and can respect your neighbours wishes for a Bit of non disturbed sleep. 30 minutes pumping time at each session is quite a long break in your neighbours sleep.

Your husband should be helping you at night. My DH gets up at 6, has a long commute and stressful job and comes home from work and helps out with our older children but he also helps with baby, even during the night. Having a job doesn't change the fact that he is a parent and should share the responsibility.

Finally, whilst I understand about you being in the same room as baby I really don't think 30 mins of you being in another room whilst your husband stays with baby is going to do any harm. If you really don't want to change to a manual pump then you need to change to another room.

Hi OP (if you are still here or ever coming back). I've been following since quite early on but haven't posted til now.

You have had a hard time here, and I'm sorry for you as it's really hard having a new baby and this was undoubtedly not what you wanted to hear.

However, listen to what people are saying. It's not really fair on the neighbour to be woken by the pump. It must be true because they mentioned it to you. They didn't choose to have a baby as others have said.

You can choose to go upstairs alone and pump. Your DH's breathing will do just as well for the baby. Really, really he needs to take those ear plugs out and start pulling his weight. He does not need a full night's sleep more than your neighbour does. He chose to have a baby and the neighbour didn't.

But I also think the expressing at night is what is getting you down, making you tired and unreasonable and could be deemed unnecessary. The baby is sleeping through. Great. Take advantage of that and get some sleep. Cut out the 3 am pumping. Carry on pumping at 11 and 7, which gives you a good 8 hours (minus getting ready for bed or whatever). If that means you have to top up the expressed milk with some formula (I don't know, I haven't exclusively expressed, and hear what everyone is saying about it being less efficient) then so be it. They will still get the breastmilk benefits and formula really isn't poison.

I think the posts you had from DisappointedOne earlier on the thread were really unhelpful, putting extra pressure on you to keep up the night expressing as paramount. There may have been others too, but I noticed she was very argumentative about it. Sorry DO but that is my view.

I can understand if you don't want to get out of your warm bed at night. So don't do it. Don't express at 3 am. Job done.

But there seems to me to be something deeper going on here with DH. His needs do not come before everyone else's. The fact you are so argumentative about his needs suggests to me (and I could be completely wrong) that he is quite intransigent about them himself. Step up DH!

OP, you are making it harder than it has to be.

You continue to use your medical-grade pump at 11pm, 3am and 7am. However you need to use the pump at 11pm and 3am in your upstairs living room. 7am I'm sure your neighbour can cope with (but move the pump onto the bed not the bedside cabinet).

Perhaps it is a slight pain in the arse to you to get out of warm bed to do so, but you have to wash the pump bits and refrigerate the milk anyway, don't you? So presumably you have to head upstairs to the kitchen to do this?

There is no danger to your baby in you spending 20-30 minutes in another room. If you are really anxious about this you need to examine why. The baby will be in the room with a parent to regulate breathing (but it's not a problem for 20-30 minutes anyway, honestly). You can use a monitor if you think you won't hear them when you are upstairs.

Or you can stay in bed and use a hand-pump at those times, which will take longer but will not disturb your neighbour.

Don't continue to pump downstairs with your medical-grade pump above your neighbours bedroom at antisocial hours.

Don't move your sleeping baby when you go upstairs.

You feeding choices are your choices. Don't make them your neighbour's problem.

As others have said, whether you think she's a moany unreasonable cowbag anyway is neither here nor there - you need to try to minimise any disruption your life is having on hers. Or your neighbourly relations will get worse not better, and if you plan on living there a while you need to keep things pleasant.

If you live in the top floor apartment, the onus is on you to reduce noise. It can be hard to imagine if you have never lived underneath someone else.

OP
*The spectra is not a frequent use pump! It's not hospital grade by any means. It is loud and poor quality. You need to get a frequent use pump made to withstand frequent pumping like the medela freestyle or symphony.
*
I wore out two spectras and only realised how far the noise travelled with it when I finally switched to a proper pump. If you consider this pump the top of the range you are mistaken, just as you are about your neighbours legitimate moaning.

Yet another entitled breastfeeder.

This has got nothing to do with breastfeeding/expressing/formula feeding the OP is waking her neighbour at night when they can do something about it, she needs to show a bit of consideration (sure she will be the first to moan if her baby is woken by a similarly inconsiderate neighbour!)

Sleep:
Baby sleeps through and needs two adults breathing in same room for every moment of the night.

Father needs to sleep undisturbed even by baby's occasional grunting

Mother chooses to wake self up, but catches up with sleep during day.

Neighbour can fuck off

These are the facts. Now, what was it you wanted to know?

NoSquirrels spot on. The least OP could do (if they really have to be looking at the baby to help milk coming in) is to use a manual pump at 3 in the morning.
Then the neighbour gets no noise between 11 and 7.

The other thing is I presume the baby cries at night occasionally? Which means the neighbour gets mechanical noise through the night every 4 hours with the odd dose of baby crying thrown in as well.

Poor neighbour.

Erm, Goblin of course breast feeders are entitled to feed their child. Same as formula feeders, it's kind of necessary. This has nothing to do with people's personal decisions on how they feed their children, it's about living with close neighbours.

You sound like a right pair of selfish knobs. I'd hate to be your neighbour.

(Apologies if you've come back and done the decent thing and admitted YABU. I haven't read all 19 pages).

I don't know, I haven't exclusively expressed, and hear what everyone is saying about it being less efficient) then so be it. They will still get the breastmilk benefits and formula really isn't poison.

I was an exclusive expresser. Maybe, just maybe, I know a bit more about it than you do.
I think the posts you had from DisappointedOne earlier on the thread were really unhelpful, putting extra pressure on you to keep up the night expressing as paramount. There may have been others too, but I noticed she was very argumentative about it. Sorry DO but that is my view.

No pressure at all. I was argumentative with people who have no idea about how EEing works and what can really cause problems. I had blocked ducts and mastitis 3 times after "helpful" people advised I needn't be getting up at night to pump. It was fucking agony and I was on my own dealing with it. So I won't apologise for correcting others who clearly don't have a clue. If the OP is serious about EEing, and her posts suggest she is, then those night waking may be absolutely necessary. Nobody does it for fun.

I am really really sympathetic to the expressing issue, because if you could choose not to do it then you would - I absolutely couldn't be arsed with my second DC, so they never got a bottle and I chose not to leave them for longer than a feed interval, and that was a choice I was happy to make because I could feed from the breast and therefore had no need to express. But if the OP wants to feed breastmilk she needs to express, that is her choice, and so the middle of the night sessions are there to stay for a while. I would probably choose formula at this stage, because I wouldn't feel I could exclusively express long-term. But I am not the OP and her choice is totally valid.

What is not totally valid is using the noisy pump at antisocial hours if her neighbour is disturbed by it, when there are plenty of other REALLY EASY options to mitigate that noise.

DO I'm not saying that you don't know more about how it works that me - I came from the premise of saying I accepted you must be right about how it works (i.e. less efficient, less demand etc). However, I just felt that when you kept coming in saying "no she must get up in the night to express" etc it wasn't really helping the OP.

I think that the goal of ebfing the baby (or exclusively expressing would be better way to say it) is not worth all of this aggro.

That's not something that I need to have experience of expressing to do.

I did express alot with DD though because she was in hospital having heart surgery, was on tubes etc. so I do know what it is like. So for a few days I was exclusively expressing I guess. Not the same as the OPs situation, I know.

I chose to sleep at night during that time if anyone is wondering.

not wanting to add more fuel against the OP - but i'm not sure why she cant leave the baby with DH (even though he is asleep with plugs in) **if the baby wakes up, then the baby wakes up - surely you will hear the cries if you are in the same house?

Neighbour's bedroom is directly below ours, she has 2 bedrooms like us. Our 2nd bedroom is upstairs, tiny (can't move our bedroom up there as no space for cot next to bed).

Couldn't you swop your lounge and bedroom so that your bedroom is upstairs near to the other one (which will be useful once the baby can go into his own room)? I think you said that that is the arrangement in other flats.

Breast pumps can be very loud

Hence manual pump for the 3 o'clock shift.

Update: went to see neighbour this afternoon after using pump on bed last night. She said it's quiter but can still hear it. I said I would try putting it on a stack of cork mats as well, went up to do this, switched it on then came to her flat to listen. From her bedroom I could hear a VERY faint noise from the pump. Had to strain to hear it. Flat was silent, no noise outside. Neighbour said she can 'still hear' it and explained she is sensitive to any noise!! Then she went on a rant about my baby crying in evenings and how annoying it is! I explained he gets colic in evenings and we have tried everything (Coleif, Infancol, gripe water, Dentinox) only thing that soothes him is walking around with him in sling, I walk him round and round flat so we're not downstairs all the time. He usually cries from 5pm onwards. She asked would I please keep him upstairs when he screams and cries! I pointed out we have neighbours on both sides upstairs, and both these families use their upstairs bedroom for children so it's not fair on them. He usually settles by 11pm but sometimes a bit later around 1am. Occasionally he cries in night but I'm not going to whisk him upstairs every time (where he'll disturb other neighbours anyway!) It's his bedroom too. He usually sleeps through until 7am though sometimes wakes for an early feed. When I'm in the room with him I can usually hear him getting restless and attend to him before he cries, so it makes sense I stay in the room.

Using the pump on the bed with cork mats has reduced noise to barely-audible, so I'm not moving the pump upstairs. Neighbour seems to want complete silence which is unrealistic when you live in a flat. I was fully prepared to accept I was U if pump was still noisy, but I had to strain to hear it at all (and I have very good hearing!)

To clarify, i have a Medela hand-pump that I can't get much milk off with. I also find it painful to use and it doesn't trigger the letdown well. So not an option to use a manual.

FF will be a last resort for me. I won't be forced into it by a fussy neighbour. I'm still hopeful I might get baby back on breast eventually so I need to maintain supply. I'd drop the 3am feed if I could but my supply reduces. It's also the feed I get the most milk from.

Re moving bedroom upstairs and lounge downstairs, I'm not going to swap rooms around just because my neighbour is ultra sensitive to noise. The pump is now barely audible in her flat. I can't stop baby crying when he has colic. I explained all this and apologised but she just got more annoyed!

Neighbour's noise-sensitivity is unfortunate but she needs to take steps to deal with it (eg earplugs) not try to eliminate all noise! She chose to live in a flat in a building that allows children, so some noise/crying at night is to be expected. I feel I've taken very reasonable steps to reduce noise to minimum. If the pump had been loud when I listened in her flat I would have moved it upstairs... but it was barely audible!

OP she's being U about your baby crying, but she's sleep deprived. It doesn't matter if YOU can't hear the pump, she can.

Stop being a twat and do it upstairs.

OP I have a health condition exacerbated by not being able to sleep. How would you feel if you were making someone ill just because you're being precious and not moving your pump?

Funny that your neighbour never 'had a rant about baby crying previously'.....