Calling the police to check on a crying baby

Oh for gods sake

She didn’t “report them to the police” in the same way you report a crime.

She alerted the police as she was concerned for the welfare of a baby/small child. Anything could have been happening. She did the right thing.

@ReleaseTheDucksOfWar And there's also a proportion of people, often men, who hate Mumsnet and are actually trying to make it a hostile place to people who post.

Ooh. That’s food for thought 🤔.

Oh can we please remember baby P and all the other babies that have been abused, if people had not of turned a blind eye those poor babies may still be here, sorry I'm with the op you know cries and a baby being rocked cries different to a baby left alone.
Anyway I had the police called on me once as they had reports of a 8 year old girl named and crying outside of my house, 2 officers arrived and I explained I only have sons at home and the one in question was being a little sod and refusing to do his homework, he was 11 and he was in shorts and he was screaming that he was leaving home but it was in a joking way as even now he has a strange sense of humour, anyway I explained to the officers this and they were happy and as they were about to leave I told them that it would be a good idea to see him as they never asked to see him, anyway he made them laugh and that was that, I don't care who called the police as I think it was lovely that they cared, and I would rather someone do something rather than do nothing.

fwiw since you weren't the only one to report the baby screaming to the police, clearly something was worth questioning and you did the right thing.

@summermumma2021 don't forget that some people post just to be contrary (and on some threads will actually tie themselves into bizarre knots worthy of a prickly octopus to create some weird story that justifies telling the OP off). And there's also a proportion of people, often men, who hate Mumsnet and are actually trying to make it a hostile place to people who post.

Take the useful posts from here and ignore the people being unpleasant.

the call handler would’ve made that decision for me

This is a really good point actually - if in doubt hand the decision over to someone who has more information than you.

‘Door slamming and a baby crying’ with a record of police being called out, a history of social services involvement etc means one thing, but zero previous call outs before can mean something else. OP doesn’t have access to this history but the call handler (or the police?) does have access. Pass on your concerns and then it’s up to the police.

This is a tough one. Makes me sad in the sense of some children need people like yourself to act on your intuition. However, I am 8 weeks postpartum and my little boy will go mental only IF I put him down. So say I do so in order to make a bottle up when my husband is at work, one moments worth of crying feels like forever. And I get paranoid of what the neighbours or passers by may think! He's such a velcro baby that even the slightest lowering of him will trigger him. It could be like myself completely innocent. But, you may also have just done a very fortunate thing.

I actually think the door slamming makes it more likely that it IS a normal reason? The door slamming suggests either or both parents were stressed out, upset or flustered by the crying and possibly arguing about it. Surely it would be more unusual if a baby were crying inconsolably and there was no commotion or noise from adults in the home?

I still think she did the right thing by calling, but just giving a different perspective on the door slamming potentially not pointing to a massive issue.

You did the right thing OP.

Unfortunately there are a lot of people who think people should ‘mind their own business’ and when people do ‘mind their own business’ you get headlines about children and comments like ‘where were social services, where were the police, where were the neighbours’.

Another thing that people forget is that if the police go round and find a tired mum etc a phone call or referral from them to the GP or Health Visitor or whoever saying that the family is maybe not coping can result in help being given. Everyone needs help (not just when they have a newborn but at other times too) and not everyone has a nice auntie or dad or friends to give them that help. People’s ‘village’ can include the police, HV, social services, GP etc.

Yes.

It really was! It was the way people were posting with such confidence that the badges were obviously fake and were bad AI copies. And that there being no trace when googling whether there is a very typical British name at Bedfordshire police means the person does not exist.

I was both shocked and amused at the nonsense!

It's crazy, isn't it? And they way everyone is slapping themselves on the back saying they would have done the same. And all this 'better safe than sorry' rubbish about a baby crying for 30 minutes! And OP so proud of herself. I hope the police told her off for wasting their time.

Especially with doors slamming…because this is the issue here. If a baby is upset for normal reasons, why would there be door slamming 🤷‍♀️

Human babies and feline babies are very, very different, @LemonCakeX
@summermumma2021 you did the right thing, so please don’t beat yourself up about it.
We should all live by ”Better safe than sorry.”
Deep breaths, summer - deep breaths.

I don't think I know anybody who would phone the police for half an hour of a baby crying, tbh. DD1 (later diagnosed with SN) didn't sleep at all for the first 12 weeks at night, unless she was being smacked on the back. It was horrendous. She would start screaming at 10pm and finally flake out at 6am. The only way to stop her crying was to pat her back so hard it felt like we'd hurt her. She would then crumple against us and rest, until we stopped, when she'd start screaming again. The police would have been very busy if people phoned every time they heard her cry.

Yeah, hence why I’d have sent DH down to asses the situation before jumping in with both feet.

Have you heard the phrase “better to be safe than sorry”?

You said the baby and its parents live in a row of 4 houses, OP, but you don’t know the people who live down there. How are you so sure that the raised voices and car door slamming was all coming from the same house where the baby was crying?

This. It wasn't just a baby crying. It was also raised voices, doors slamming, etc. Also, OP has had 3 colicky babies. Good call x

Hark at these posters pontificating what they would have done. Give over, you're the ones that dither about opening your front door when someone unannounced rings your doorbell.

Exactly!

Absolutely. I bet, if the OP had come on saying she didn't phone the police as she disagreed with her DH that there was any concern and he was being a 'drama llama', some of the same posters would be slating the OP for not looking out for children.

What was the outcome to this?