Calling the police to check on a crying baby

OP, police are always best when you have an immediate safety concern for a child. Social Work cannot ever force entry and they cannot ever immediately remove children from dangerous situations without consent from the people who hold parental rights and responsibilities. Only the police can do those things.

The police will refer onto SW if there are ongoing concerns, they can take care of longer term support, assessment and action if needed.

I’m enjoying imagining how much Old Mumsnet would have ripped the piss on this thread.
There would have been lots of jokes about “sitting right / sitting wrong” à la ministry of funny walks (“am I sitting right when I do this, OP?”)

The whole tone and manner is exactly what the mumsnet of old was an escape from

I thought the same, we've had quite a lot of that over the last week

We had this with a next door neighbour whose baby was screaming hysterically. Luckily it was at a time when GPs came out to do home visits and he came to me to use my phone to call an ambulance. It turned out the baby had an inguinal hernia where part of his bowel had entered his scotum.

I would wonder if the slamming doors is due to windows being open in this hot weather, it creates a vacuum in the house and doors keep slamming. We have all our windows open and have had to use door stops as it keeps making the doors slam shut

Would they have heard all this 2 or 3 times a night from 100m away?

I’d have gone round before calling the police but I probably would have waited longer. 30 minutes of a young baby crying is nothing.

Same, DD2 screamed (for no discernible reason) for the first 6 ish months. It only improved when she could do things for herself (sit up, crawl, etc).

I was already broken with postnatal depression, the stress of constant screaming, and a toddler: nosy neighbours and the police might well have tipped me over the edge.

Hope things are better for you now. DD2 has grown into the most delightful person, I'm beyond grateful that we both survived her babyhood.

You did the right thing OP and I wish more people were like you.

Children's welfare should always come first and it is better for the police to attend and find that everything is OK rather than risk a child being harmed by not doing anything.

Anybody who criticises you for doing this is deranged as far as I am concerned.

Because we all know police and social services never make mistakes

The OP has 3 children so I think she knows when a baby's cry is off. No attempt to calm him. Having said that some parents do let their babies cry as a "go to sleep method". I find it bloody cruel.

And in this case if there are no issues and the baby is just crying loudly, then the police won’t take any further action.

They would have heard car doors slamming as we used to take her in the car 2 or 3 times a night as that seemed to sooth her. They would have also heard the foo fighters being played as that also got her off to sleep (discovered this completely by chance as we were at the end of our tether with sleep exhaustion and did it while she was crying on our shoulder and she instantly went to sleep).

A child's natural reaction to being hurt or abused will be to cry, being silent when hurt is a learned reaction, so perhaps if someone had been more concerned when that child was crying sometime far before, they wouldn't need checking up on due to being too terrified to make noise. We can all be snarky, doesn't help keep people safe. And a baby having colic doesn't involve multiple slamming of doors and raising of voices, you need to take the whole situation into account. HTH.

I think sometimes people know when something just doesn’t sound right. Better to err on the side of caution. In some ways, the neighbour should be pleased that people are potentially looking out for her child even if it turns out to be nothing. Very hard to see it that way at the time though.

Safeguarding wise, you can never be too careful. Lots of things have gone wrong in the past for children when everyone thought someone else would do something.

OP didn't call the police because of just the baby crying and one slammed door though, don't make it something it wasn't. If there was slamming doors repeatedly AND raised voices ongoing AND a baby crying ongoing it may sound like there's something concerning going on, which is subjective unfortunately. But if OP was genuinely concerned it sounded like there could be something untoward then phoning the police is the correct safeguarding step. If abuse is occurring, someone untrained in assessing/dealing with abuse knocking the door to 'check in' won't help much.

Surely if we say better safe than sorry, we should call the police every day on our neighbours with children? I mean what if everything is quiet? How do we know the child isn't too terrified to make noise? Surely the police should check every home with every child every day...I mean a crying child could mean abuse but equally a silent child could mean abuse?

Now I'm not saying we shouldn't call for help if we are concerned...but how far do we take it?

And fwiw half an hour of crying sounds totally plausible if a baby has colic.

Wow it’s a heat wave and babies are going to be uncomfortable and cry and yes parents will be a bit fractious and sleep deprived. When I had my twins I’d have hated living near busy bodies like you all - one twin in particular would scream and scream

great that there are some holier than though smug parents whose babies never cried how great for you that you never got frustrated from noise and lack of sleep that you’ve never slammed a door 🙄

This. The weather has been incredibly hot this week a baby could easily cry for 30mins in their mums arms purely because they are too hot and cant get to sleep?!! Im a bit surprised you called the police tbh. Babies cry, they are known for it. Sometimes you've fed them, changed them, soothed them, and they still continue to cry it can be all sorts, wind, colic, its too warm, the sound of the hoover upset them, they are teething etc.

This . I lost track of the number of times DS cried inconsolably for over an hour whilst I was holding him, walking him him, trying to breast feed him. And yes sometimes he was in the cot while I was in another room getting a few minutes respite.

On one memorable occasion, when he was a toddler ( under 2 but no longer a small baby) his crying was truly ear splitting so I took him to the doctor, who was also concerned. The wait in the waiting room was short ( mercifully for everyone else in there) The doctor. couldn't find anything wrong, exactly, though DS seemed to be in some pain related to passing urine so he prescribed antibiotics and more calpol ( which I'd already given) and said to come back the next morning if he didn't seem better and gave me symptoms to watch for that meant DS should go to A&E as an emergency. None of which he had at that moment or developed luckily

He cried from mid afternoon until around 10pm pretty much non stop, truly ear splitting screaming cries as if he were being hurt. The first 2 hours of this were at home while I waited for a 111 callback and a doctors appointment, the rest was in the car, the doctors waiting room and the pharmacy and again at home. This was then followed by intermittent crying until the early hours, equally loud but less constant while I held him.

DH and I had some strained disagreements and words during this as it was incredibly stressful. Eventually it stopped, DS finished the antibiotics over the nex few days and seemed fine again. I never found out what it was but it is a sharp memory from his childhood 21 years later

I am not saying you are wrong to call the police op but hopefully it is not needed. Children can cry inconsolably even when being consoled

OP it's a tough one, but you know if the news this morning had reports of a harmed baby you'd regret having not called. And also the general public would be asking why the neighbours didn't do anything, can't win sometimes 🤷‍♀️

I can empathise with both sides here.

It’s good that neighbours are looking out for eachother.

On the other hand, if the police had turned up at my door last year when my DD had obstructive sleep apnea and i was suicidal from pure exhaustion from over a year of extreme sleep deprivation, it definitely would have sent me over the edge.

Hope the family is ok.

Another one chiming in to say you've done the right thing. We need more people like you and less of the 'not getting involved' brigade.

*A baby was crying an unusual cry for a prolonged length of time.

*There were raised voices.

*There was the slamming of doors.

*You don’t know these people as they are new to the street.

*You called the police who have sent officers around.

Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility (and that’s for the young, elderly and vulnerable).

Anything could have been happening and it’s better to be brandished a nosy neighbour than for a child to be killed. It may sound extreme but child neglect/abuse happens. It may also have been domestic abuse.