WWYD baby next door screaming 20 mins now

[Dobbysgotthesocks]

Parents outside having a smoke.

I just came in from work. Popped upstairs to get something. Hear child crying (their bedroom next to my bathroom). Hear the bedroom door shut loudly next door. Increase in crying from child.
Next thing I know both parents are outside in their back garden. Definitely can hear child as directly below bedroom. Child is hysterically screaming. Child just over a year.

I've been upstairs 25 mins now and they are still crying.

Frequently hear child cry for extended periods overnight but not this hysterically and always assumed parents would be with them as I wouldn't necessarily be able to hear parents trying to calm an upset child.
Often hear them shouting at their older child.

Call Social services?

This is the thing I'm not a parent so I don't know what's normal. But it broke my heart listening to them.
At no stage that I was upstairs did I hear anyone come back up to check on the child. Next door have a creaky annoying staircase and doors. You can hear them come up and down. The father was outside in the garden with their older child for much of the time apart from when it poured with rain.

This….

I don't have a good relationship with them unfortunately so I wouldn't speak to them about it.
The father has threatened me in the past when I asked him to move his car and trailer which was blocking my access to my house.

@Seahorse87 why does it make it OK if they are "sleep training"? To the child the distress is equal to if they aren't, why is it ever ok to leave any baby to cry? If you don't want disturbed sleep you don't have children, quite simple, not have them and leave them to cry to "train them".

Poor little baby. I would find it very hard not to run round and comfort it. But wouldn't! They won't thank you for asking if you can help. Maybe ask about the baby next time you see the mother? Get an idea of what you should do next time (ignore, or call SS).

Oh for god's sake. No. Don't call social services because you heard a baby cry. Or because you heard them shout at their older child once.

Do you know how overworked and understaffed social services are?? I know one who works til 8pm most nights and uses weekends to catch up on admin. She's seen some dark things. They don't need phone calls from people tattling on neighbours because their baby cried (which could be for NUMEROUS reasons) and mum and dad went outside for a cigarette.

Yes my Mum was an alcoholic. Please call.
I wish someone had called for me.

Yes I am a parent, I have two children and there’s been many times that I haven’t known what to do for my relentlessly crying child/ baby and so have put them in their cot for a breather before I crack, but I don’t think this is the same as leaving them in their room and then going outside for nearly an hour while they’re in that state (if the parents stayed outside for the duration).

Also, my nieces were alerted to social services. Thank goodness they were as we didn’t know how bad it had got.
call them. They’ll make an assessment.
no issue? They’ll take no further action.

@SleepSleepRaveAsleep it doesn’t make it ok. I was just suggesting the OP might be able to gauge the situation a bit better by trying to find out if the parents are just at their wits end because the baby won’t sleep, or otherwise

I think these are the main points that people are missing 🥺💔

Call just for your piece of mind and then let it go.

I've left DD to cry for 20 min a few times when I was very sleep deprived and noticed that I was starting to feel aggressive towards her. So call for the just in case because you have to, but let it go because the chances are that it's explainable.

Just call and let social services decide what to do. As other posters have said, it could be part of a bigger picture and the family might be known to them already. If not, they won’t investigate and no harm done. The potential consequences of not calling could be worse than the consequences of calling. All safeguarding training states you should report and let the professionals make that call. Trust your instinct.

It's the smoking parents that tip you off to the extreme danger

Really? When there are 2 parents at home you put your screaming child down and both of you walked away so you both didn't lose your cool? I don't actually think it is normal at all that between 2 parents you couldn't handle your baby without the risk of losing your cool. I can understand tag-teaming, one takes a break, the other takes over but there was never a point when raising our 2 children that we had to both walk away and leave them upset and alone because we were afraid we might harm them which is what I presume you mean by 'losing your cool'.

Why is leaving a child to cry for an hour fine at night time but unacceptable in the day?
Call SS and let them decide on the appropriate action.

My friend's son used to scream really loudly at bedtime so she used to put him downstairs with music playing. He would be asleep within minutes, but if they brought him back upstairs he would lie in his cot screaming hysterically.

We sleep trained my eighteen month old about three weeks ago.

There is a lot of judgement here about cry it out, but it was the only thing that worked. So called gentler methods made him furious. We had one night of absolute, utter hell, and since then, his sleep has improved so much. And I have my life back. Please don’t judge. It isn’t ’disturbed nights’ as in up a couple of times, it’s nights with barely any sleep, bed at 8, up at 11, broken, exhausted sleep at 3, up at 6.

With that being said I remember saying to DH that I was worried the neighbours would report us, but bring it on. I’d rather thousands of people like me were checked than some of the really sad cases lately.

@Choopi FWIW I don't think this situation sounds great and I do agree with you, I was more talking generally. Out of both of them, one could've definitely taken over, and the previous threats aren't great. I don't thinkSS will be that interested here, mind, without any further details besides crying.

It's fine if they've done everything and the baby simply won't sleep. Engender or not you agree with CIO (I've never left them to cry for more than 5 mins) - it's still different trying to sleep train vs just leasing your baby with shoe milk and soiled nappy because you can't be bothered.

That's a lot of typos!🙈

You have no idea what sort of day they have had. Sometimes the best thing for the parents is to let the child cry it out. It is not as if the little one is a new born.

For repeat instances including shouting parents then yes raise a concern but 20 minutes one evening? Jeezs give your head a wobble.

There’s a difference between leaving a baby crying for a short time while you calm down, than leaving a baby screaming hysterically for 55 minutes while both parents are outside smoking! Why are people not grasping this??

55 minutes! Is that still acceptable to you?

I'm a social worker. Call them. They will be concerned that both parents are outside for a considerable amount of time without checking on the child. The fact that you often hear crying and shouting should ring alarm bells with such a small child in particular.

Good on you for not being intimidated by them, you're doing the right thing.