living in a unit

[Belle201]

I suggest making friends with your neighbours early. Go introduce yourself and have a chat with them. Once the baby is born, drop in on them again and let them coo over the baby.

We lived next door to a couple with a baby in our last unit. They knocked on our door when we first moved in, introduced themselves and apologised in advance for the baby noise. As our bedroom was against the wall of their baby's room, they would always take her into their living room when she cried so she didn't keep us up too much. Because we knew who they were and it was a baby, not a stereo system, we were willing to cut them some slack.

[michellead]

We live in a two bedroom flat in central London and DS is almost two. I love that we have 15 cafés, cute boutiques and three parks coming off the street so all within a five minute walk. There are trade offs but we have a rather large terrace and we take DS out every day, for most of the day! It's easy to keep clean and the location beats having more space for us

[HollyGolightly81]

We live in a two bedroom flat in central London and DS is almost two. I love that we have 15 cafés, cute boutiques and three parks coming off the street so all within a five minute walk. There are trade offs but we have a rather large terrace and we take DS out every day, for most of the day! It's easy to keep clean and the location beats having more space for us

We do as well! We're in a fairly large (for a London flat) two bed first floor flat in a converted Victorian terrace house. No outdoor area but I'm so much happier here than the basement flat with garden we were in before as we can't hear our neighbors! DS is 9 months and our space is fine at least until we have number 2 or number 2 is still an infant. Pram stays in hall downstairs and it's easy climbing our stairs with baby in arms. We try to go out between naps. The area is amazing with lots to do for children so I definitely wouldn't change it for a house further out.

We were in a flat in Melbourne that we loved and I definitely would have stayed with a baby in it. In general, most flats in Australia are 'new' (ie not converted old Victorian houses) so the soundproofing is miles better. Our flat in Melbourne was probably a 60's build and we never heard anyone, I HATE hearing neighbors, even before a baby so it's something I took note of.

[kw123]

We lived in a unit until baby was 20 months old and it was fine. Cramped but fine!

As for sound proofing, the ones for a couple of decades ago might be better but the ones flung up these days have crap insulation and sound proofing. The walls are paper thin! I did feel bad for our neighbours.