New baby in a 1 bed flat!?!!!?

[Duemarch2021]

I am due my first baby in March 21 and am paniking about noise because we live in a 1 bed flat which is joined onto 3 other flats.. we live 'upstairs' above another lady and we can hear everything she does so im assuming she hears us too..

The property is mortgaged but it is leasehold so we have a contract to adhere to for noise/pets .... it's not rented or council so we can't just move and we cant sell it as we can't get a mortgage at the moment..

Just so worried that neighbours will moan about a crying baby in the night especially the woman downstairs and i suppose im just looking for reassurance that we cant get in trouble for a crying baby?? And any tips/advice would be good please xx

I imagine they will hear the baby and the crying will probably annoy them at some level if it wakes them up BUT

1. babies cry. It's rubbish if you don't have a baby and you are woken up by someone else's baby but none of us are encouraging babies to cry deliberately and I cannot imagine someone trying to uphold a noise complaint related to a crying baby
2. your baby may not be a night time cryer - DD went through a phase of crying no matter what in the early evening but it was because she had a milk allergy (it turned out). Other than that she wasn't ever an endless cryer - she cried for something and stopped when she got it.
3. lots of people accept the crying baby thing. My neighbours' little boy cried at nap times and bedtimes for about a year - I wouldn't have dreamt of complaining (semi detached house with thin walls!) DD did her high pitched baby cry as above and they too never mentioned it to me. Mostly we all just live with the baby crying until they grow out of it I think. If not, your neighbours aren't such nice people.

Mostly - I really can't imagine a crying baby being cited in a noise pollution complaint that is subsequently upheld.

I have no experience here though - just my personal view

I wouldn't be too concerned. I lived in a flat like that with our baby at the beginning. You could hear everything both upstairs and down stairs but weirdly I think that you hear your own baby far more than others do, and also, they don't cry as loudly as you'd think. I'd be surprised if your neighbours heard them, and if they did, there's nothing you or they can do, and they should understand that x

I tend to find most people are less aware of and subsequently annoyed by the noises other people make (unless it becomes relentless). You say you can hear everything your neighbour does but it doesn’t seem like your neighbour is annoying you. Sometimes when a baby cries you do feel like everyone can hear and everyone is tutting at you but I don’t believe that’s the case at all. No one else’s crying baby has never bothered me.

Don’t worry about it at all. If your baby is a crier (not guaranteed!) then you’ll probably be more focussed on settling them then whether your neighbours are pissed off anyway.

I think the reason that im so worried is because last year i had music on and she called me on the buzzer to shout at me! Lol it was about 11.30pm and loud enough but not very loud. It was also a one off .. but she was not happy at all.. think its created an anxiety x

She may have just been having a shit day tbh! If it was a one off. I once yelled at my neighbours for parking like idiots when they always parked like idiots and it had never bothered me before. That was about 8 years ago and I’m still mortified now that I did it.

I lived next to a flat who had a new born. I'm pretty sure they held it up to the paper thin walls most nights. But, I didn't complain it's a baby I chose a flat and noise is to be expected.

Neither of my babies cried much at all, if they don’t have colic it’s not inevitable. Feed on demand, keep them close in a sling and make sure they get all the naps they need. You need to avoid the ‚too tired to feed, too hungry to sleep stage‘.
At night they don’t necessarily wake up screaming immediately, if you have them close to the bed or cosleep you can get them feeding pretty quick. I‘m guessing bf is quicker, I‘ve never made a bottle but from what I understand you have to wait while you make it, it isn’t ready to go.

Oh and I had two babies in a one bedroom flat til the second was 3 months, it was fine.

I live in a one bedroom flat. It's fine. My neighbour whose bedroom backs on to ours has sometimes said he hears the baby or been woken up but he says he doesn't mind. I think it's just one of those things the neighbours have to live with.

Playing music is different because it's something you can control.

Also not all babies cry masses- luckily mine didn't. I coslept with him which meant any time he woke up I would quickly insert my breast so he didn't need to cry... He still had some days when he was upset, but it wasn't often and mostly not at night.

I love I bc a terrace both sides have babies. It's amazing how much you don't hear them when they're not yours! I occasionally get woken but go straight back to sleep.

I live in...

I'd be pretty annoyed if someone was keeping me up playing music at 11:30pm too. But a baby is a baby. It's annoying, but it's a fact of life. You aren't being anti-social. All buildings have babies at some point. The up all night crying phase is short ish lived (like the first year), so she can get ear plugs if it bothers her. Realistically though, it's the reality of living in a flat. It would annoy me, but that's why I don't live in a flat anymore.

It’s not the end of the world.

Our baby still shares our bedroom anyway even with a spare. They are supposed to until at least 6 months anyway, and some countries say 12 months. Our 6 month old is no where near ready to leave our room yet.

Babies don’t always scream. Ours would cry and scream if left sure, but as he’s in our bedroom, we get to him as soon as he begins to get annoyed and he can be soothed with back rub or taken out of cot and rocked or fed. So dh and I are woken for sure to comfort baby, but any neighbours would rarely hear him.

When we last lived in flat, neighbours both sides were child free, and still made a racket. I wouldn’t be bothered by a baby crying as long as they weren’t being left to just cry it out.

I'm not completely sure but I think that councils say that noise from children like crying is not treated as a nuisance that they deal with in the same way music would be. I wouldn't worry

Babies cry - your neighbours might be slightly annoyed but that's life. I wouldn't worry at all