Newborn baby in London - will we be neighbours from hell?

[SimplySoo]

I'm 13 weeks pregnant with first baby. My DP and I currently live in a 1-bed flat, but nearer the time once I've started maternity leave we're planning to move to a 2-bed flat (mainly so our respective families can stay over once in a whole once the baby comes).
as many of you may know, space is tight in London, so wherever we live we're bound to have close neighbours above, below, and to either side. a baby crying (especially at night) and us wandering around at all hours as a result will surely disturb others and this really worries me. unlike a loud TV or music or parties we can't really doanything about a loud baby, so I'm already wondering how other people do this!
Any experience? Please share!

It's very thoughtful of you to be worrying, but honestly I'm sure it will be fine. Lots of people have babies. Many of those people live in flats. And babies cry, reasonable people will understand that.

I should have said, we live in a 2-bed flat in London and nobody batted an eyelid when DD was a newborn.

Yep, it'll be fine. We lived in a flat in London when DD was a newborn.
We had mostly older neighbours and one, in particular, was convinced we were the source of loud banging noises and even wrote us a nasty note about the noise assuring us he KNEW it was us as our lights were the only lights on at that time (LOVED the look on his face when he came down one afternoon to complain about the banging/drilling noise and I answered the door, barefoot and very pregnant and just not lookng the part of a driller/banger!).

After this, I was a little worried about the baby making noise but was steeled to say "she's a baby, I am doing the best I can, sorry!" and leave it at that.
However, we had no complaints even the day she cried and cried pretty much all day.

They will have noticed a baby on the way so know what to expect! Keep friendly with them and don't worry! I am sure I make more noise farting than DS did as a baby!

I lived in a 1bed flat when I had dd1 you could hear her crying but obvs like you said there is not much you can do about that. My neighbours respected that as they had older children so knew how loud a newborn can be. So I wouldn't worry to much :)

Bless you, you sound Like you will be a lovely neighbour. I am a londoner too, and when dd was a baby we lived in what was essentially a tower block. I asked the same thing of my HEalth visitor, she said " babies cry and we were all babies once" ie not to worry.

Babies don't always cry lots.

DD2 never cried at night, just snuffled for 5 mins before she wanted feeding.

DD1 would take the bottle then straight back off to bed nice and quietly.

People understand, its a baby.

Thank you everyone! reassuring. Tbh I think we've been lucky with our lovely current flat so I'm worried about every aspect of moving...

we live in a flat and our baby (6mth) screams a fair amaount sometimes...nobody has ever complained, probably because there's worse things to worry about where we live..

drug dealing vietnamese neighbours with the dangerous dogs next door

crazy african dude downstairs that plays music on an insanely loud level at 3am

mental english people with all the kids, the ducks in the garden and the bloody trampoline that they jump on late at night for fun when drunk

arabic ice cream man with his horrible disney music every october when Im trying to put the kids to bed.

So dont worry about a newborn crying trust me, people have way more to worry about lol

babies are part of life. people don't tend to complain about crying, they know it's no-one's fault.

anyone who did complain would be unreasonable to do so, and i think your neighbours would go if they heard someone had complained tbh! you have to be a special sort of idiot to get annoyed with a couple for having a crying newborn.

don't worry about it, your baby has a right to be in the world and to assert her presence in it. she is allowed to cry and make a noise.

Ah, SimplySoo, you actually sound like a very considerate neighbour. We have had problems with noisy neighbours, but only due to their non-stop blaring of dance music / yelling all night long (and on one particular night, a neighbour who went on a rampage, ripping fire extinguishers off the walls, roaring, and throwing a fire extinguisher through a third floor window [luckily, he did it late at night so managed not to kill anyone]). We live somewhere much nicer now, btw .

I doubt any decent neighbour would complain about an infant crying. Don't worry about it at all. Congratulations on your impending little one!