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.

And understand what is being said too. That might be important too…

I was expressing my scepticism that the poster I quoted was a Social Worker.

Obviously a better quality of call handler. Thankfully!!

I remember dawn raids to get women out of abusive situations. I remember cleaning crews when people weren’t coping. We had a secret Santa where people sent presents to each other.
I was invited to nap in a mumsnetter’s central london flat because working full time with a non sleeping baby was killing me.
people sent food parcels

I am absolutely appalled at the amount of people that think you are being unreasonable for phoning the police!!!! If ever you hear domestic abuse and you know that a child is present, you should absolutely phone the police!!!!

I think it’s wrong to call the police! Have you had a new born who has colic or who cry’s? & no sleep so the parents argue? Has one one ever been though that? Calling the police is over the top! If you were really worried why wouldn’t you go over & ask how she is & if you could help in any way!

That's a completely unnecessary amount if time.

Since your neighbours knew your baby had colic and that you were doing your best to soothe them, it would be very strange for someone to call the police under those circumstances.

Someone who could hear your baby 100m away, along with shouting and slamming doors isn't the same situation.

💯 the right thing!!! Too many cases fall through the cracks, it’s a simple welfare check.

Yes if you hear domestic abuse. But are car door slamming and raised voices doesnt necessarily or even usually equal abuse.

Absolutely. Get a rapid cool and the bottles are done in 3 minutes. No baby should be left to scream for 30 minutes!

The OP said the baby was screaming for 30 minutes and things didn’t seem right. Perhaps if more people alerted the authorities when they had a feeling like this in their gut instead of worrying that they were overreacting, there wouldn’t be so many abused, dead children.

Well Obviously she would, because she wouldn't know that's the situation until
its checked out. Whuch she wouldn't have bothered to do!

I had a similar situation once, though a toddler and an older child I heard shout once, too. First time I'd heard anything from them, but I could hear something was very wrong with the kids

I have a deep suspicion of police, due to watching them beat up my mum quite frequently as a child, so I did phone SS not police - who were worried I'd phoned them not police and told me to hang up now, phone police and call them after instead.

I also did go round - it stopped the screaming certainly, but all it actually did was alert them to the fact that everyone else could hear, which meant they then didn't open the door to the police when they turned up. Then there was loads of police shouting and threats to ram the door for ages, which can't have been calmer for the kids at all.

I think you did nothing wrong at all OP. I was an abused child and nay fucker did anything, despite there being every knowledge and opportunity. If your family noise is so loud and long it causes others genuine worry, then you shouldn't be surprised if they do indeed worry.

Babies don’t seem right when it’s 30 degrees at midnight, for the fourth day on the trot. Crying is its only way of telling its parents that they’re tired and have had enough of this heat.

We’ve had grown adults, on here, this week saying the heat has made them vomit, given them migraines, they can’t sleep, don’t want to eat, don’t want to work, yet we expect a tiny baby to be full of the joys of Spring and be its normal self.

She also had her DH at home.

Yes- this would have been terrible advice. If you were stressed out with an ill baby, would you want a stranger member of the public turning up late at your door demanding an explanation; and if you were harming your child, you're maybe the type of person to harm a well-meaning visitor checking up on you.
Report- don't investigate

Yeah well, I’m sorry for you that you were so stressed out, but what an earth is that got to do with this situation? You’re ridiculous.

There are several ways to cool a bottle down rapidly.

it doesn't take super powers.

FFS it wasn't just a bit of crying though, was it? It was prolonged, distressed shrieking that could be heard from several houses down the road, along with raised voices and slamming doors.

Yes it was probably nothing more than bad colic and hot frazzled parents. But there's also a chance it was more than that. It's a baby at the end of the day, I'd rather know I at least tried to get somebody who could handle the situation (whatever it was) to check everyone was ok.

It was 30 minutes of crying.

Your children didn’t have colic did they.

As an emergency worker

always trust your gut!

always.

Yes to both of you. “Better safe than sorry” is a handy cop out for people who want to feel good about themselves but don’t want to be good enough neighbours to invest a tiny amount of time in knowing who they are.

It wastes time and as in your case - the police coming out to me with a distressed colicy baby would have finished us off and certainly I’d never have trusted a neighbour whose first contact was to set the police on us because the baby had colic.

“Better safe than sorry” is not a zero harm option and can cause problems for the very people you claim to be helping on this basis. Actually knocking on new neighbours’ doors to introduce yourself and leave a number if they had any questions about the area or services, connecting them to the street whatsapp or similar is the zero harm option.

It was a crying baby.

And unless there’s OP’s house and no other houses for 100m how can she be sure that the slamming of the car door came from the baby’s house? The same with the raised voices?