Calling the police to check on a crying baby

Nothing better than a noisy neighbour who didn't want to talk to the parents before calling the police but happy to follow the police visit first line.

First rule of safeguarding:
its not your job to investigate

if something doesn’t sit right, you report and the experts can investigate

well done OP !!

Can you see out the window or go outside a sec to see if the noise has stopped in conjunction with a police outside - presumably doing a welfare check as they told you was being treated as priority? X

A crying baby, no I wouldn't have reported. A crying baby, raised voices and slamming car doors, my DH would have wandered up to the house and asked if everything was OK. If we'd not been reassured and despite that, felt domestic abuse was occurring, we'd have called the police.

So sorry just seen your reply above

Is the baby still crying OP?

Gallows talk and humour is how we function in our world
we are human you know - we worry the same as everyone else outside of our professional world - and yes we refer to ‘the social’ and ‘the law’ (or the rozzas) ironically,/humorously in our personal lives.

I would call police because no adult answered the door then checking in on the family.

No, totally different situation. Someone had gone to the address and wasn't getting an answer from an adult at the property. That would be an immediate response.

If you are genuinely concerned it's never wrong to report in my view. But I had a baby that cried endlessly. I remember being so worried that someone would report me. but I couldn't stop the crying no matter what I did

You're a social worker and your fellow social worker texted you because she was worried her neighbours could hear her crying baby and might call 'the law'?

Well I hope everything is ok.

Can you still hear the baby crying ?

I’ve been on the other side of the coin. It was a boiling hot day about 13 years ago and my newly placed-for-adoption son just couldn’t settle. He screamed for over an hour (it felt like longer). Absolutely nothing I did made any difference, pick him up, walk around, put him down, cool bath…he screamed. Constantly. The entire time! We had all the windows open because it was a really hot day. After about an hour a lady knocks on my door and tells my friend that someone really should be soothing the baby and why are we letting it scream like that. My friend was in the middle of explaining that mum was upstairs trying, when I came down with son in my arms clearly using all my best efforts and possibly looking little frazzled. The lady took one look at me, apologised profusely and left.

I honestly didn’t mind that she have knocked on the door though. I understood how it must have sounded and I would rather they knocked unnecessarily than ignore a situation where a child needed help and they could have made a difference.

However, we may have spent the rest of that summer with all out windows closed to save the poor neighbors ear drums! 🫣

Would you apply this sort of rationale to the situation I’ve just written about…where the baby had been left alone for hours because Mum and the new boyfriend fancied a night out in a club?

Is the baby still crying out of interest ?

We had this by us about 30 years ago. Was woken by awful crying that didn’t stop.. it was about 1am, finally found the source of the cries in a little cottage down the road. The crying didn’t stop at all and the place was in darkness. My DH hammered hell out of the door thinking something awful had happened and another neighbour phoned the Police.
They arrived and as they were trying to sort out access, the “mother” and her new bloke arrived home - from a nightclub!!
They all left in the back of a Police car, and moved out several days later.
Poor baby.
How can people do this?