Robin sent us an email: "I live in an apartment building, and I NEVER see my neighbors. I'm expecting my first child in a matter of weeks, and I'm wondering if it would be good to let people know somehow.
Honestly I haven't run into anyone in the entryway or stairs since I have been pregnant and I am wondering about neighborly etiquette when it comes to bringing a baby into the building.
Does anyone have any advice?"
Good question, Robin!
When we had our son, we lived in a small apartment building and while the neighbors saw that we were expecting, we really didn't talk about it. Our landlord was told, because he lived next door and it was going to be a homebirth.
It never occurred to us to tell the rest of the neighbors about our impending new family member.
What about the you? Did you tell? Not tell? Please share!
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I think telling others can open the door to complaints and/or unsolicited advice.
You're going to have a baby, if no one else has noticed that's not your problem.
view val299's profile
i'd say that if you have *very* thin walls that you might want to let those neighbours that are directly next to you know - just to prepare them for the possible increase in noise. other than that, i can't see that there's any reason to make an announcment.
view molly h's profile
We moved from a house to an apartment building when our daughter was 2 months old. It was an old building: thick walls, nearly no transfer of noise other than heavy footsteps. But when she was about 5-6 mos old, she went through a phase of squealing -- really no word for it, the sound made me very aware of my fillings -- and we were worried about disturbing our nearest neighbor. We bought a pair of movie tickets from the art house cinema down the street and left them for her with a note explaining that this was likely a short phase (less than a week, thank god) but in the mean time she could use the tickets if she needed to escape.
She swore she never heard a thing, but I'm still glad we did it. Two years later and we've never had any conflicts. No complaints about the stroller in the stairwell. The tickets weren't a huge deal, just an acknowledgement that, natural or not, bringing a baby into an apartment building touches the lives of everyone nearby... I think that helped us build a healthy relationship with her.
view shelby's profile