Noise Reduction in Terraced House?

ruperts

To soundproof properly you have to build a room within a room to allow for a cavity. Expensive and takes up quite a bit of space, but if you've got the room and are willing/neighbour is willing to pay for it then that's the solution.

But surely if this terrace has more than one bedroom the easiest solution is to move the baby to another room, even if only temporarily for a few months until the baby sleeps through better.

In the meantime a response to the neighbour saying you understand their concerns and are looking at ways to address it. If the neighbour is reasonable I'd probably take the baby round and try and get them to bond. Somehow noise from people you know and like is much more bearable than noise from anonymous neighbours.

Catkei

Eh I would hate it if my neighbour brought their baby around to bond. I don't need to bond with a stranger's baby, thanks. What an odd thing to suggest.

We live in a flat and our downstairs neighbours have a young child. When he was a baby there was a lot of crying. What annoyed me wasn't the crying per se, I mean, that's what babies do. It was the fact that she would never, ever move the baby out of the bedroom (all the flats are the same, so the bedrooms are all on top of eachother). It literally sounded like the baby was in our room. I never understood why she couldn't take the baby into the living room while he was crying. Instead we had to endure 2-3 hours of incessant crying every night of the week, and having to get up at 5.30am to go to work, it was not fun. So needless to say I feel for your neighbour. Could you not move the baby while he/she is crying downstairs? Our neighbours baby is older now, and we only really hear the odd late evening tantrum which is no problem, but if it's every night it'll grate on anyone's patience. Good luck, I can't imagine the crying is much fun for you either!

Norman_Castle

Marvel1 wrote: »

Neighbour did have a choice, they choose a terraced house! !!!!ing stupid !!!!

Are you drunk?

[Deleted User]

Off the top of my head, the white noise suggestion is a good one. If bottle fed, changing milk types might help. I was advised by fairly useless midwife to try camomile tea but 1st son hated it lol.

I had two sons. First one hardly slept, second one did quite easily (not now he is 13 though). It was totally exhausting. You do find how little sleep a human being can get by on although I was a zombie for most of the first eight years. This was extreme though, most babies will settle down.

To stop you getting too exhausted, I hope you have relatives who perhaps could take the occasional night shift, or allow you a break during the day. I managed to get the second one in a nursery for a few hours, that made all the difference.

Albala

My younger brother cried a lot, not just at at night, when a baby, neither I not an older sibling had. When parents, driven to despair after trying everything they could think of, tried to think of what was different, they recalled that the formula feed they were using was different (we were all formula fed throughout). They changed to the formula the two elder had had, and that was the end of the problem. It was weird, but they concluded that maybe he just felt hungry with the other one, or it slightly upset his tum, or something.

There can be lots of reasons for crying babies, even something as odd as that, is there anyone you could ask for help and advice? It must be tiring for you, even leaving your neighbour out of it (with whom I sympathise, and I'm impressed that you care about him, as most parents these days seem to think that other people should suffer in silence when it comes to their offspring whatever the cause).
Best wishes, and I hope things quieten down for you soon.

Albala

deannatrois wrote: »

Off the top of my head, the white noise suggestion is a good one. If bottle fed, changing milk types might help. I was advised by fairly useless midwife to try camomile tea but 1st son hated it lol.

I had two sons. First one hardly slept, second one did quite easily (not now he is 13 though). It was totally exhausting. You do find how little sleep a human being can get by on although I was a zombie for most of the first eight years. This was extreme though, most babies will settle down.

To stop you getting too exhausted, I hope you have relatives who perhaps could take the occasional night shift, or allow you a break during the day. I managed to get the second one in a nursery for a few hours, that made all the difference.

Beat me to it!;)

ruperts

Catkei wrote: »

Eh I would hate it if my neighbour brought their baby around to bond. I don't need to bond with a stranger's baby, thanks. What an odd thing to suggest.

Obviously you wouldn't turn up and demand the neighbour bonded with the baby. It would just be an introduction, so the neighbour could put a face to the noise, instead of it just being noise.

I don't know, like I said, I've always found neighbour noise much easier to deal with if it's coming from people I know and like, rather than total strangers. Perhaps it's just me.

sheramber

My grandson cried for hours at night when a baby. Nothing consoled him.

GP diagnosed acid reflux and prescribed medicine to add to his bottle- bliss!

Fire_Fox

ruperts wrote: »

In the meantime a response to the neighbour saying you understand their concerns and are looking at ways to address it. If the neighbour is reasonable I'd probably take the baby round and try and get them to bond. Somehow noise from people you know and like is much more bearable than noise from anonymous neighbours.

ruperts wrote: »

Obviously you wouldn't turn up and demand the neighbour bonded with the baby. It would just be an introduction, so the neighbour could put a face to the noise, instead of it just being noise.

I don't know, like I said, I've always found neighbour noise much easier to deal with if it's coming from people I know and like, rather than total strangers. Perhaps it's me.

Introducing yourself to your neighbours, or dropping them a note is great.

But why would you inflict your baby on them? Should I introduce my cat to the neighbouring flats, so they can bond with her? Or would that be presumptuous?

It is a generic baby not a person. It becomes a person once it has a personality. Babies of the same ethnicity look similar and sound similar. Their screaming has evolved to be annoying. Hence I feel for the parents of any baby that cries a lot. But I do not want to have to fake coo over it.

A significant minority of people either don't like babies, or don't like most babies.

ruperts

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Introducing yourself to your neighbours, or dropping them a note is great.

But why would you inflict your baby on them? Should I introduce my cat to the neighbouring flats, so they can bond with her? Or would that be presumptuous?

It is a generic baby not a person. It becomes a person once it has a personality. Babies of the same ethnicity look similar and sound similar. Their screaming has evolved to be annoying. Hence I feel for the parents of any baby that cries a lot. But I do not want to have to fake coo over it.

A significant minority of people either don't like babies, or don't like most babies.

If you were keeping a wild animal such as a cat confined within a flat and it was consequently making so much noise that it was disturbing the neighbours I think your best bet would be to give the cat to some sort of animal charity who could re-house it to a more suitable environment.

Babies aren't cats though and comparing the two is weird.

On 2nd thoughts don't take the baby to see the neighbours, you never know how weird some people are, evidently.