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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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

733 replies

Cealee · 08/12/2015 17:11

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 Blush 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 Angry

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!

OP posts:
Bunbaker · 11/12/2015 10:11

Listen to BoffinMum she speaks with the voice of reason.

If your husband isn't pulling his weight he has no right to dictate to you how you feed your baby.

KaluzaKlein1 · 11/12/2015 10:12

Why isn't your husband helping at night? Mine has a demanding job (yesterday he left the house at 7am and was back at ten) but if baby is waking at night while I've gone for a pee or to grab a glass of water he will soothe him.
I've offered to do most of the night stuff but if I ask dh to change him or sort him out in the night he will. He's his baby too!

And what's this nonsense about not agreeing with ff? Until he can lactate, it's not his f-ing call, is it?
Look, you have bodily autonomy - it's YOU feeding the baby and YOUR sleep being wrecked because you're up pumping half the night while he lies there like a useless bloody lummox with earplugs in. By all means go and get latching help and bf help but if you decide to ff that's your call. He has absolutely no right to tell you he doesn't agree with ff- can't you see how warped that is? It's like you're a possession.

Your neighbour has the right to quiet enjoyment of her flat. And you, frankly, have a right to bodily autonomy. I'd be telling your dh to buck his ideas up.

00100001 · 11/12/2015 10:21

"Seems like only option is to take him upstairs with me? "

No - the option is to leave baby in bed asleep - and go upstairs yourself. With a baby monitor if you really feel the need.

PrimalLass · 11/12/2015 10:33

No he does sound useless, but I still don't agree that one parent should be expected to get up 'just because' when the other parent is at home all day.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 11/12/2015 10:51

I think BoffinMum speaks absolute sense too.

I struggled with breastfeeding, with all three of mine - for various reasons. Ds2 ended up in hospital, labelled 'Failure to Thrive' on my milk - despite feeding all the time - and we weren't discharged until I started topping him up with formula, and he started gaining weight - and that spelled the end to breastfeeding.

With ds3, I mixed-fed, almost from the word go - and as long as he was getting at least two formula feeds in each 24 hours, he would gain weight at a reasonable rate. If I dropped it to one, his weight gain stopped dead. So I breastfed during the day, and then the last feed of the evening, and the middle of the night feed were formula - and that enabled me to carry on breastfeeding for 12 weeks - substantially longer than I managed with either ds1 or ds2.

Once I started weaning the boys, I worked hard to make sure I was feeding them as healthily as possible. With ds1, I was making and freezing all sorts of purees, in cubes, so he could have meals containing four or five different things, including different vegetables, carbs and protein. With ds2 and ds3, I didn't do that - I didn't have the time or energy - but I was cooking home made food, and blitzing that up for them.

There is so much you can do to help your child grow up healthy - and breastfeeding is a part of that, but it is not the single biggest factor, nor is it a really big factor, imo. It might help brain development, but so does reading with your child, playing with them, letting them learn a musical instrument, doing crafts. You can give a child a wonderful, healthy, balanced diet once they are weaned (though, in my experience, as soon as the little blighters get their own money, the amount of energy drinks and junk food consumed rockets - they still love good, healthy, home cooked food, but love a filthy kebab or cheap nuggets too - sigh).

I put myself under huge pressure about the whole breastfeeding thing - for ages I said I had failed at breastfeeding, and beat myself up about it terribly - and I am sure it contributed to my developing PND each time (though I do have a long history of depression - undiagnosed at that point - anyway). The mother's mental, emotional and physical health matter too, and I hope that the OP's husband appreciates this - I am worried that he doesn't, and that the pressure he is putting on the OP to exclusively express, will damage her physical, mental and emotional health.

SouthWesterlyWinds · 11/12/2015 10:54

Late to the party.

I exclusively pumped for my eldest. I went to another bedroom at night so I didn't disturb others. Baby was fine in the basket with DH snoring in the room. Just saying.

And you can get shit hot breast pumps that don't sound like Bertha the milking machine at 3 in the morning.

glentherednosedbattleostrich · 11/12/2015 11:11

Can people please lay off the OP now. She has done lots to minimise the noise and is trying to please everyone but herself from the sounds of it. And I don't know anyone with a new baby who wasn't unreasonable about something when the baby was small!

OP, your husband sounds like an arse. he needs a kick in the arse to realise that what baby needs most is a functioning mother who is not stressed and what his wife needs is some support not his judgements. Alternatively you could point him in the directions of the 1950's.

As for the feeding, a woman I knew at breast feeding group expressed for the first 4 months then baby finally got feeding. She stopped expressing and continued feeding until baby was 2 and a half. It was a bloody hard journey but she felt it was totally worth it. She took fenugreek and found nipple shields helped baby learn to latch.

chocomochi · 11/12/2015 11:42

Thanks onemore. It was getting difficult to read all the post!

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yumyumpoppycat · 11/12/2015 12:53

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BoffinMum · 11/12/2015 12:54

Yumyum, with that post you are either mistaking this for NetHuns or suggesting OP puts lipstick on her long suffering nipples, presumably. Hmm

yumyumpoppycat · 11/12/2015 13:28

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ceebie · 11/12/2015 14:07

Wowzers.

So, OP was causing noise disturbance neighbour, has fixed this so that noise is barely audible, and many people still want her to inconvenience herself in order to be completely inaudible, because she is expected to take full responsibiliy for her neighbour's sensitivity to noise... have I really read that correctly???

And OP seems happy with her arrangements in terms of expressing and in terms of her DH, yet has been told to change these arrangements too?

I'm just..... umm.... well. I can't really believe this.

OP, YANBU.

00100001 · 11/12/2015 14:14

Ceebie OP doesn't have to be silent, just move upstairs and be quieter as a result, so as not to disturb neighbours. It's irrelevant that's she's pumping, she could well be getting if from work at that time - or any other necessary task at 3am.

Pumping doesn't give you the right to be anti-social or inconsiderate.

If this OP had come on and said "I come in at 3am from work every day and my neighbour has said that she wakes up, because she hears doors slams and says I'm stomping about. AIBU not to do anything about it? and carry on as normal?" you would say "YABU, pipe down and be considerate"

GardeningWithDynamite · 11/12/2015 15:54

A YANBU from me too, now that you've made the adjustments to make it quieter. It's not like you'll be expressing forever. If you move upstairs with/without the baby you risk disturbing your other neighbours.

I suspect you'll be in for more trouble ahead as your baby becomes mobile if that's the threshold of silence your neighbour is expecting you to maintain.

00100001 · 11/12/2015 16:02

There are not other neighbours to disturb - she'll be moving to the top floor of the maisonette.

Being a mother doesn't excuse you from anti-social behaviour!

BoffinMum · 11/12/2015 16:19

FWIW I think the OP's neighbour is a fruitcake but I do know what it's like living in flats, and how people kick off. At the end of the day it's all very well arguing about your rights but if your neighbour is being a pain the whole time it's often not worth the hassle of routinely insisting on them.

GardeningWithDynamite · 11/12/2015 17:10

00100001 - neighbours to each side, who each have children

Dipankrispaneven · 11/12/2015 17:15

Gardening, they are neighbours who aren't complaining about the noise of the crying baby, which sounds as if they are better insulated from the noise than the downstairs neighbour is. Also the downstairs neighbour will be getting the vibration effect through the floor, which by definition the next door neighbours won't.

kali110 · 11/12/2015 18:17

op i will say this for the third time.
Maybe your neighbour has no choice where she lives!!!!
Not everybody does!
Not everybody can afford to just move homes!
How do you know she doesn't own the flat?
Maybe she was there before your neighbours?
Yes allowances should be made, your husband should be making them!
He should actually be getting up off his arse at night and taking care of his child.

Senpai · 11/12/2015 18:33

Primal Senpai - everyone is different. In my case, DP was 'pitching in' by going to work and paying the mortgage, doing overtime to keep us afloat, bathing and putting DS to bed, and giving him two (FF) bottles in the evening so I could go to bed early. The last thing I wanted was him getting up in the night too and risking his job. IMO night feeds should be as quiet and fast as possible, not a whole-family event.

Right, but it sounds like he was still pitching in which is more than we can say for OP's. I haven't heard one example of how he helps out (and a paycheck doesn't count). DH did overtime too (he took graveyard shifts because they paid a bit more per hour just so we could afford Christmas last year) and would come home exhausted. On those days, I took over all baby duties so he could sleep. But on his days off he would still help. We worked as a team to get through rough patches. We both made compromises and we both made sacrifices together. Now he has a better work situation and I've gotten my home business established enough to make a "real" contribution that can actually help with bills.

But he still tried his best. He didn't sit there telling me what to do with my own body, and he didn't sit there shirking everything off on me while giving me his oh so important opinion of how I should be doing things.

Doublebubblebubble · 11/12/2015 18:47

Yabu. What's a "reverse" I've been on MN a while but dont know that particular mumsnetism... X

Senpai · 11/12/2015 18:48

So, OP was causing noise disturbance neighbour, has fixed this so that noise is barely audible, and many people still want her to inconvenience herself in order to be completely inaudible, because she is expected to take full responsibiliy for her neighbour's sensitivity to noise... have I really read that correctly???

Unfortunately, yes.

Personally, I would have met half way and then told neighbor what I have done to make accommodations and it was a building issue from that point on and she needs to take her concerns to the landlord. If she can hear a soft vibration than she can hear the footsteps at night to move to somewhere else to pump. She'll be woken up either way if she's truly that sensitive to noise.

It doesn't matter if the neighbor has no choice where she lives. She lives there. That is the reality of the situation. The reality of flats is you will hear noise. She needs to find better coping techniques. Part of being an adult is dealing with the present situation without resorting to being a petulant toddler who insists everyone revolve everything around them.

I have sensory issues, and I can confidently say that it is not on the rest of the world to accommodate my needs. I lived in flats and it was hard, but I learned to live with it provided they were being reasonably quiet at night. I need to find ways to cope, so does the neighbor. The OP has made reasonable adjustments. Now it's time for the neighbor to make her own reasonable adjustments to cope with her disability, provided she's not just being precious and I would bet real money she is.

To the 3am door slamming example, the OP is not stomping and slamming doors. The equivalent would be OP is walking softly and doing what she can to minimize door noises and neighbor is still complaining. She's pumping with a now muffled pump. It's a pretty big difference. She is now making quite reasonable night time noises. No more needs to be done on her end, as much as everyone on this thread thinks you need to be a doormat and bend over backwards for every little inconvenience someone might experience.

That said, even though the neighbor is being a precious little princess, you might want to think about whether the resulting bickering or passive aggressive games will be worth it.

SuperFlyHigh · 11/12/2015 19:21

ceebie you have a vair similar username and vastly different PoV from most here.... Just saying Wink

KakiFruit · 11/12/2015 20:00

I don't believe the OP has reduced the noise so it's "barely audible". Firstly, she could hear it - you should not be able to hear a "quiet" piece of machinery from your neighbour's house. Second, she listened to it in the day whereas poor neighbour has to put up with it at 3am.

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