Calling the police to check on a crying baby

[summermumma2021]

Just had to call the police to check on a new neighbours baby. What would
you have done in this situation?
New neighbours live down our road around 100m away from us and could hear loud very distressed crying for over half an hour.

It sounded like a newborn or young baby crying and so I assumed they’d settle or some attempt to comfort them would be made but the crying stayed at the same level for ther period time. I could also hear raised voices and car doors slamming and I asked my husband if he’d heard it too (he was downstairs) and he said yeah he was worried as well.

Anyway in hoping it was nothing and the little one is fine but it just didn’t sit right and it sounded like no attempt to comfort them was being made at all.

i have no idea who the new neighbours are as it’s quite far from our bit of the road but for it to be that loud from this distance didn’t seem right. I have also had three colicky babies so I do know babies can cry for periods of time but as I said it sounded like no attempt to help them was being made.

Anyway police treating it as a priority case and checking things out. Just wanted to share really as worried.

It could just be the baby has colic or something, but if your gut is uneasy, it's probably best to report it. A one off I probably wouldn't have but something obviously didn't sit right for you, so maybe better safe than sorry. I wasn't there after all and you were.

Thank you, yeah it was the intensity of the cry really that just didn’t sit right and the fact we live quite a distance and it was still that loud.

You have done the right thing.

Why didn't you go and offered your help? To see if things were a police matter?
Children do cry a lot. We have three and tbh you would most likely have called the police more than once on us for no good reason.

Thank you.

Don’t know them and my own three children are asleep in the house so I can’t go for a walk down the road to intervene in a domestic dispute.

Op of course you have done the right thing . Who knows what's going on and if it's innocent whilst police presence may feel horrible it will go if all ok

Because other adults should and must look out for children. Has recent news taught you nothing at all?

Thanks, that was my thought process too. It’s hard to explain but whatever was going on just didn’t seem quite right.

Is this the first time you’ve been concerned?

as a second time mom of a 6 week old my baby could cry for that amount of time because of boiling the kettle, making the bottle, changing nappy whilst waiting for it to cool down…

I hate this new thing of calling the police on everyone over every little thing. We got a kitten and it got lost and we couldn’t find it so we thought it had got out (it hadnt). Me and my TEEN sons were out on the street at night looking for it and instead of being asked if we are ok or needed any help a neighbour called the police on us! It would have been obvious we were looking for it as we were calling for it! What happened to just asking people if they are ok?

Sometimes I think MN is a bit over the top.

I've done the same thing before OP. I have no regrets.

This!
Crying babies and lost cats are so common. Ask before calling police.
The police must be crying.

One of my fellow social workers is off on mat leave with a 3 month old.
she texted earlier ( while I was in the pub ) thankfully with 6 grown up kids and 4 DGCs now 5 and above ) to say her little man is fractious and won’t settle in the heat and is crying and all over the shop can’t be settled or consoled and is worried about the noise bless her.
I imagine what her neighbours are hearing is more intermittent with soothing gaps and being in arms etc rather than full
on screaming. I told her not to
worry.
but she will
thought of someone calling the law on her is chilling the poor old stick but I guess in my service we rely on the public picking up
on these things

police won’t touch it though I wouldn’t imagine ?

My adopted son was left for hours on his own by his birth mother and it only came to light this was happening and he was actually alone in the house overnight, cold, hungry and in dirty nappies when the neighbours reported that he had been crying and sounding extremely distressed for over an hour. That level of neglect has had a major impact on him.

You did the right thing.

Sometimes you just 'know' something doesn't seem or sound right. Better to be safe than sorry.

That doesn’t take over half an hour. It’s probably innocent but OP did the right thing

You did the right thing, babies do cry differently depending on if they’re angry hungry etc. and poor thing must have been very distressed to be so loud

As a police call handler - we wouldn't have dispatched officers to this. I would have advised you to contact social services though, and think that you should.

DS cried up to 6 hours a day non stop for the first 3 months of his life. So glad I didn’t have neighbours who thought I was neglecting him. I think it would have broken me to know police had been called when I was exhausted and almost broken with the non stop daily crying.

That sounds like poor judgement on your part in the middle of the night to be honest.

Some babies and loud without being abused. We are back in UK on holiday this week.
The C is intense. Our youngst cried at bedtime yesterday. It's not unheard of.

Yes I’ve spent loads time in the MASH and I can’t imagine police or EDT in social care will pick this up

Several hours/ all night maybe ?
so if you are concerned keep an ear out and if same now call EDT children’s services

*Emergency Duty Team

I don’t know. People can have wild imaginations. The WhatsApp group for my estate went nuts earlier in the week after a few houses had visits from plain clothed police officers looking for a missing girl. Even though the police had badges and gave the crime reference number, there were many posters who insisted it was fake, that the badges were bad copies made using AI and that police from a neighbouring borough would not be allowed into ours. One Googled the name of the officers and because there were no results, used that as evidence that it was fake.

Six hours later, people were still going on about it and wanted to call 999…

Luckily someone with common sense called the police force and verified that it was genuine.

So quite often, people don’t just know something isn’t right. They get carried away and encouraged by others.