Neighbours letting their baby cry for hours at night

I’d flag it to social services, let them check.
Some babies cry no matter what the parents do.
But all the abused children that died at the hands of their parents after months of abuse, the ones left with fractures, bruising. The ones being sexually abused, starved, beaten. Those babies cried and people ignored it and left the parents to it.
Just think about that.
Children are killed because people think it is none of their business. We are all responsible for safeguarding. There’s no harm in an erroneous report.

Unfortunate but babies do have these awful sleepless night but one of the parents should take the crying baby downstairs to minimise the disturbance for her family and the neighbours. Its just common curtesy

Well there you go then. Report the family so she can get some support. Children suffer with shouty parents. Do something.

You're judging without even knowing the facts. When my toddler had his leg amputated he would cry all night, even in his sleep. I would lie in his bed with him comforting him and stroking his hair but there was nothing I could do (apart from top up on the morphine etc) that would help. You don't know the situation, this baby could be sick, be having night terrors, she could be sat there holding and rocking that baby and you can't hear that over the crying etc. I understand your frustration but I can guarantee the mother feels even more stressed out.

Maybe they are weaning off breastfeeding. How long has this been going on? If you do speak to them just be gentle and have empathy as it’s most likely they are also distressed seeing their baby crying for so long (unless they are heartless monsters).
We are preparing to start night weaning and we have a very strong willed toddler and we are bracing ourselves for a week of sleepless nights. Planning to give the neighboroughs the heads up so they don’t call Social Services….

I do sympathise OP. Constant noise when you're desperate for sleep can be torturous.

But imagine if your baby was the one causing the noise and there was NOTHING YOU COULD DO TO MAKE IT STOP.

I had that baby. Thank goodness I live on a suburban block with some space between houses, but I was still worried about the neighbours.

Unless you know them fairly well, approach at your own risk. What with the sleep deprivation and high anxiety over "why won't he stop crying" I would've taken your freaking head off.

My DS had glue ear. He barely slept, I was like a waking zombie. He use to scream on and off most the night

I had this a few years back .
We are also in a terrace and the baby cried every night from 250 till 440, for weeks.
I was absolutely exhausted.
The neighbours actually knocked on to apologise after 3 nights of crying.
She looked absolutely exhausted and very emotional and embarrassed.
I told her we were all deep sleepers and hadn't really heard anything and not to worry.
Figured she didn't need the added pressure of pissed off neighbours on top of what she was dealing with.
It was a tough time but it didn't last forever.

DS went through a sleep regression around a year and it was absolute hell. It didn't matter what we did he would scream and cry for hours every night. What made it worse was we were in a flat so we had neighbours everywhere. It took him a good 3 months to get past it and I spent 3 months on edge waiting for one of the neighbours to complain about the noise. Luckily noone did because I'm sure people realise babies cry.

We're in a different flat now with baby DD and I'm already starting to worry about if she'll hit the same sleep regression and pray that she's not as bad as her brother was if she does 🤷‍♀️

This is madness. Calling social services because you hear a baby crying at night?!?! Wtf. Babies cry. Sometimes they cry for ages even when you are holding them. Get a grip OP.

If this is a one off then at 1yr possibly sleep training

See how tonight goes

The. Maybe knock and say you heard them crying a lot if everything ok

Do you usually see your neighbours /say hello etx

With respect, your are talking nonsense. First off babies get sick more than once, my DS practically spent his first year and a half sick and screaming... And there was nothing I could do except hold him.

Secondly if the baby is experiencing night terrors then stimulation like lights on, singing etc make it worse in my experience. My DS (the same one who used to get ill) was like this. He could (and still can!) Scream for hours. It's horrible for absolutely everyone. I went to drs, specialists etc and no one had any advice. Incidentally my DS started having these episodes around a year old, he's now been diagnosed with ASD and the Dr told me that night disturbances like this are very common in children with ASD.

Saying parents are neglectful because the baby is crying is nonsense. The op has no idea what they are doing. I am glad you had an easy time, but not all of us where so lucky.

OP, I think you should maybe go around there this morning and ask what's going on. Be polite and sympathetic and just see. If it's night terrors or something like that then I am afraid there is not much the parents or you can do so I would suggest earplugs.

How do you know they’re ‘letting her’ cry. They could be there holding her? My one year old has been unwell recently and she has been screaming her head off at night, I’m there holding her and rocking her the whole time but my neighbours wouldn’t know this would they.

They’re probably sleep training, it can be a bit rough the first week or so.

Poor baby. I co-sleep my 15 month old as I don't want to let him cry. I do wonder though, whether they are sleep training. My LO will cry unless I breastfeed him. So I wonder if they are there, trying to comfort him, but it's not working. I have read about sleep training and patting them, etc. But my LO will still cry, until he is breastfed. I think I would give up after the first hour of it not working though! Which is why I've never really tried sleep training!

The answer to this is always the same. No need to speculate or theorise or try and make your own assessment. That's not your job. No one on here has the first clue if the child is ok or not. If you're concerned enough about a child for the word 'neglect' to enter your mind, then report, and let the people who's job it is decide whether there's a problem or not.

Oh God, don’t go round unless that’s something you usually do/you have a good relationship. When you’ve got a crying baby and no sleep and your neighbour suddenly pops by “just checking everything’s OK…?”, we KNOW what you mean is “stop your baby waking me up”. We’re sleep-deprived, not stupid.

They're probably sleep training. I never did it but mine were terrible sleepers and so many people told me to including a sleep consultant I paid a lot of money to. If so they will probably stop crying in a few nights so I would wait to talk to them.

You don't know if the parents tried to calm her down. My daughter, in the first three months of her life, screamed for 8 hours at a time. Her face went purple from all the crying. Nobody was able to calm her down. We even took her to A and E, nothing helped.

If you don't want to be disturbed by human noise, go live in the woods.

Or, you could take 5 mins to be a decent human, pop round and ask if they're OK. Not in a passive-aggressive "jokey" but-what-about-my-precious-sleep way, but in a genuine way.

Or, if you insist on not having contact with them, buy some ear plugs.

They could be really struggling for a number of reasons. Evil parents leaving their baby to cry because they don't give shit is possible, but not the only reason.

Illness can be long term - my youngest used to scream inconsolably when her eczema was hurting at night and she was so angry due to her tiredness and being unable to sleep.

Hmmm maybe go round and ask if there's anything you can do to help, to try to get the context. It could be that they're with them the whole time but they're still screaming due to illness/reflux/night terrors/ anything really

You sound like my old next door neighbour who used to bang on the wall when DD1 cried at night. She even came round one day to complain about the night before.
There was nothing I could do as she was a baby. I did take her to the doctors but nothing wrong.
I was polite to the neighbour but I cried when she left. I was exhausted, I was trying to get my DD to sleep at night and having someone come round and bitch at me didn't help and put me on edge. I barely slept at all after that as I was worried about disturbing the neighbours and would rush to DD if she so much as whimpered.
So I think you would be unreasonable to complain.

Imagine you're the parent of a 1 year old who has been up all night poorly and crying. You've tried your very best to get them back to sleep and they're still upset despite endless cuddles. You wake up today knackered and then your neighbour comes round and tells you You've been leaving your baby to cry and are neglectful.

I appreciate you have to consider the other alternative but unless you have other reasons for concerns, I would wait and see if this is an ongoing thing.