Playing your stereo loudly is something you can control. Whether or not your baby cries is something you can’t (assuming you’re not sticking straight pins into the little cherub 
). Apartment dwellers can’t expect their neighbors to put their lives on hold, just so they don’t have to hear a baby squalling.
Umm, no, not really. Because of aforementioned fair housing and discrimination laws, it is virtually impossible to exclude children from any type of housing. So if you find a place that is designed for people who don’t want to live around kids that isn’t specifically a complex for retired (55+) folks, I know of a lot of people who’d be interested.
First of all, I grew up in apartment buildings. It’s not some sort of hell-hole situation for kids to grow up in an apartment. If you can’t swing a house stop feeling guilty about that and get on with making your family. Love and kindness are far more important than the addres your child grows up at.
If you want kids DO IT NOW!!! Do NOT wait any longer if you can help it. The fertility of the female half of your couple is rapidly falling off. The odds of problems start to go up sharply past 35. Which is not meant to panic anyone, but these are basic, basic biological facts. If you wait until you can afford a house you may not be able to conceive naturally.
And putting off starting your family isn’t inconvenient to YOU??? This is an issue for YOU to decide, not your neighbors.
Let me state this again, so it’s perfectly clear - when it comes to childbearing “realtively young” means under thirty. If you are comfortable with your financial situation have kids now.
There’s nothing wrong with apartment living. We’re currently staying with my parents until MrWhatsit finds a job or early summer, whichever comes first, but we lived in an apartment until this point, and will almost certainly be living in one again when we move out of here. Whatsit Jr. is two years old and MiniWhatsit is due in about three weeks, so we’ll have not one, but (gasp) two small children in an apartment.
I don’t really see the big issue. A lot of our friends kept continually asking us, “So, when are you moving?” as though it were a given that we were having a baby, so obviously we must be moving into a house. Apparently it is baffling to some people that you can actually raise children without having four bedrooms, two baths, and a backyard.
Anyway, our apartment in Seattle was about a thousand square feet, had two bedrooms, and felt spacious enough for us. It did have spacious grounds that we could take Whatsit Jr. out to run around in, which helped. But even without the green space outside, I don’t think I would have felt terribly cramped. Also, either our place was well-insulated, or crying babies aren’t as bad as everyone makes them out to be, because I repeatedly asked our neighbors to either side and below us (we were on the top floor) to let us know if we were disturbing them at all, and they all swore they never heard a sound from our apartment.
So no, you do not have to have a house to raise children in. Apartment life does have its perks, and we personally saw no reason to take on massive amounts of debt just because it’s more socially acceptable to buy a house when you have kids.
I should also mention that my two siblings and I (we have a fourth sibling, but he came along much later than the rest of us, after Mom finally moved into a house) were raised in apartments, and it never even occurred to me as a kid that there was anything different, weird, or unacceptable about it. It was just where we lived. No big whoop. If you can’t (or don’t want to) afford a house right now, I wouldn’t sweat it at all.
You’ll probably not bother anyone terribly. There’s lots of good advice in this thread, like involving your neighbors so that you’re not just ‘those people with the noisy baby’.
If you’re really serious about being quiet, you could look into soundproofing the baby’s room. That’s pretty expensive, so you might try simple things like keeping the baby’s crib away from walls that adjoin the neighbor’s apartment, especially their bedroom. Writing as someone who’s spent way too many years living in apartments, it’s the noise in the middle of the night that creates problems.
And don’t worry if the munchkin has to spend a few years growing up in an apartment. They won’t remember much more than that you loved them. That said, look into buying a house, why pay rent when you can own for not much more? Tax benefits, equity, all sorts of lovely things happen when you own.
Although I am a confirmed highly uptight apartment dweller, I still have to go with the consensus here – have kids and don’t worry about it. I think people might be more courteous about hearing a loud baby in the middle of the night than about hearing a loud stereo. I’ve been woken up more in the middle of the night much, much more by loud adults/teenagers than by loud children.
Nutty Bunny, IMO apartment dwelling equals occasional disturbing noise.
Yes, I would get angry and annoyed about having to wake up to 3am crying each morning, just because someone else wanted kids. If I wanted to wake up at 3am, I’d have my own damn kids. That said, while it would make me annoyed, I would also understand that that is one of the drawbacks of apartment dwelling and something that was my problem. If I don’t want to hear my neighbours living their day-to-day life, then it’s up to me to sound-proof my dwelling, move to a dwelling that has better sound-proofing or not live in such close proximity to my neighbours. Consideration for your fellow neighbours is a wonderful thing and says much about you and (IMO) the kind of parent you will become. Not having kids because you’re in an apartment is going overboard on the whole consideration thing IMO, and this is from someone who hates being awoken and finds baby noises particularly nauseating.
Just as I know I have to put up with the hated baby crying and kids playing noises in my street, they have to put up with the sound of my motorbike when I go for a ride. I won’t put up with the kids having a screaming contest in front of my house, and I don’t expect my neighbours to put up with too-loud music, or my bike being revved loudly for long periods of time. It’s called a happy medium and mutual respect. And until we all have neighbours that cater to our every preference, a bit of mutual respect is our best bet, IMO.
Until I can afford my dream home, where you can’t even see your closest neighbour, let alone hear them, that is
Could you please elaborate on these places? I’ve never heard of them and thought they were illegal (unless you’re referring to retirement villages).
Oh. Well. Fair housing act… I didn’t know that. Or maybe I just forgot. When my parents separated, in the late 70’s, my dad moved into a place that didn’t allow children. I remember thinking - why would he do that??? (Turns out, he didn’t like children.)
I see that this passed in 1988. Of this at least I am ignorant no more.