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.

The thing is with these threads is, it affects nice, normal, loving parents who would never in a million years think of harming it neglecting their children. The idea of police turning up is scary, of course it is.

But there are kids out there who don't have parents like that. Who need the house to be checked, to have someone show up.

A passer by doesn't know for sure which one it is. Pretending that having a near stranger knocking on your door to see what's going on would go down any better than a police officer is ridiculous, in either situation to be honest. FFS there's a 20 page thread of hand wringing over a teacher posting a certificate through a letter box and the "anxiety" it caused.

I'd rather 9 parents get visited to be told yep, we can see things are ok, sorry to disturb, call this number if you need any support etc, if it means the 10th visit protects a child who is in danger.

That's ridiculous

Recent event have shown us more than ever that safeguarding children is everybody’s responsibility.
No woman in their right mind would go knocking on the door of someone they don’t know while a domestic is going on, at midnight, to ask if they can help.
The police IMHO are pretty useless but even they should prioritise this and do their job.

OP FWIW I spend a lot of time especially in the evenings home alone with my toddler, I worry that if something to happened to me nobody would know and toddler could be crying for me so I would want a neighbour to do something (anything) anything to help. If nothing was amiss at your neighbours then no harm done, if something was wrong then they can get help.

different people have different thresholds for what they think is reportable. Years ago my partner was horrified that I called 999 and tried to flag down a police car for a little boy walking barefoot down the pavement next to a 40mph road after midnight, he thought it was a 101 job. The police dispatched several cars on blue lights and found him within minutes. I grew up with friends who’s parents were police officers and they encouraged us to always trust our gut and not worry about wasting police time if you could in fact be helping someone, after all the NFA calls take a small amount of time

Ok ladies!
Make sure you say you heard a misgendering/racist slur too and the cops will then be dispatched with their blues and twos en masse.
Shame on you for not dispatching officers to this -what on earth is more important than a child’s safety??
I truly DESPAIR about this country. How has it gone to the dogs in 30 years?

OP YANBU. And it sounds like you weren't the only one concerned. What you did was sensible and responsible.

I have had knowledge of similar and advised someone to contact the NCPCC. They are usually very thorough, extremely personable and caring and without prejudice. I would thoroughly recommend contacting them. They will liaise with relevant agencies without ruffling feathers and get to the root and resolve things quickly.

You did the right thing to report it.

Anyone saying otherwise is recalling that they have at some point left a baby crying and had loud/frequent arguments around them, and is embarassed a neighbour might've done the same to them to safeguard the child.

Ha, 2008? Mere whippersnapper! Some of us have been here since the millennium party decorations were still in a box in the corner 😂It's true though, there did used to be BF advisors that would run round to your house in the middle of the night and communal camping trips. BUT there were also people (in general, not specific MN cases) who got stabbed or the shit kicked out of them for intervening in DV cases. That's why now we call the police instead, not because no-one cares anymore but because some people are shitty.

Calling the police was clearly a good idea because they attended to check the child's safety, but I can't see that giving live updates on Mumsnet was necessary or helpful.

Was the slamming doors and shouting from the babies address? If so that seems potentially reasonable, but crying alone definitely wouldnt be.
My DS had silent reflux and until we figured out the cause he would cry for a couple of hours inconsolably each evening. Id taken him to the gp and spoken to the health visitors repeatedly and it was initially put down to being colic until the third gp appointment where they prescribed reflux medication to see if that was the cause and it completely solved it.
I would be walking around the living room holding him to try and settle him until he would eventually fall asleep but there was no indication from his crying that he was being comforted.

I'd have had the Police visiting every day from 6pm until 10am when DD1 was a baby.

As it was, we just covered about a thousand miles a week as the only time she didn't cry was when the car was moving. That was with switching from BF to non dairy formula (I was constantly being harangued by my mother that I was clearly starving my baby and there must be something wrong with me/my milk - she didn't approve of the non dairy but DD was even worse on standard formula - MIL was no better as she was insisting that if I was going to let DD down by not BF, the only option was to give her standard milk from the milkman), infacol, sterile peppermint water, all of the attempts to comfort her that we could and when the two of us were operating on about 20 minutes sleep at a time, yeah, we squabbled occasionally when DD's crying was particularly unrelenting and we'd run out of money for petrol.

The Ex may have ultimately been a twat, but he did months of driving through the night so I could get a few minutes of half sleep (until he had to stop at some traffic lights).

The idea that somebody nearby was calling the Police on us and thought we were child abusers/neglectful when we were doing everything we could would have done a right number on me when I was already wondering why my baby hated me so much.

For hours, yes, I get it - but after 30 minutes? That was longer than DD slept at any given time for 3 years.

What the actual fuck is wrong with some people. How many more dead babies do you need to read about in the press before you deem it sensible to get police involved. If it's entirely innocent, then there is no problem and the police can be on their way. I will tell you one thing though, it's the last time the parents allow their poor defenceless baby to cry for hours on end again. So well done to the OP

It’s very very likely a baby that just can’t settle. But if something was wrong you’d never forgive yourself. So I think you were right better safe than sorry

However there were sounds of a domestic disturbance as well, so I think that would have been poor judgement by the police not to do a welfare check.

It was 30 minutes.

I’m also not aware that you can always get babies to stop crying.

TLDR for everyone that doesn't even read the whole OP and just keeps talking about colicky babies;

Do not call the police if ALL you've heard/seen/know is a baby crying for 30 mins.

Please DO at least consider calling the police if a baby is crying AND there's repeated shouting AND repeated slamming of doors that sounds abnormally loud and violent.

Better safe than sorry, you did the right thing. I also wouldnt have gone over into a potentially volatile situation (doors slamming, raised voices etc) when I have my old child sleeping at home. These people are strangers.

How do you know it was a domestic dispute?

You were right to call them. With recent news I wouldn’t hesitate. You cannot take any chances when kids are involved. People are too slow to report bad situations for kids out of fear of being wrong or seen to be interfering. I would rather be wrong every time than ignore it and have another Baby Preston. I can’t help but wonder if things could have been different for him if a kind neighbour like you would have reported his distressed cries.

Those people suggesting you go out at 1am and get involved in a domestic dispute are fools.

I hope the baby is ok.

I see the parents of colicky babies are triggered by this post. Perhaps they’re so tired they haven’t read it properly.

Its fine OP… there’s nothing wrong with making the call. It’s one of those calls which might have got bumped down the list if the police were busy so they may not have made it until later. It’s all in the job though ….a lot of time is spent by police on issues of welfare. Ultimately you make the call and they’ll decide what the course of action is. It’s a complete waste of time notifying Social
services or NSPCC at midnight. They have no powers to do anything in an emergency. ( if for example the child needed to be removed )

In case there’s any doubt I was an officer and trainer in child protection for many years. We don’t expect members of the public to conduct their own investigations prior to calling. The fear that they are wasting someone’s time or it doesnt meet some threshold inhibits people from sharing information when they have very reasonable fears.

If you have a colicky child and you worry that your neighbours could be concerned perhaps speak to them and let them know what’s happening so they can be reassured.

Just another voice here saying to trust your gut. I'd rather be accussed of being an interfering neighbour than risk letting a child be harmed.

Yes, it could potentially really upset and stress the parents out. I'd have been devastated snd felt like a bad mother if a neighbour reported me when my baby wouldn't settle but they are not the priority in this situation.

Every time a child is abused or killed people crawl out of the woodwork to say they'd seen it but didn't do anything. Don't be that person.

I think it's probably a case of they were doing some version of "controlled crying" (which is abuse in itself but that's another post) and the stress of that and a newborn.

But, you did the right thing.

Raised voices and slamming doors and 1am - what would you call that ?

Do you live somewhere where it’s normal to behave like that ? Do you regularly hear screaming and crying that you’ve become so accustomed to the sound and no longer find it concerning ?

If the crying was so loud that relyl far away you could hear it... is it possible you were just too far away to hear the parents attempting to soothe. I don't scream when I'm soothing a baby. i coo gently and cry helplessley when it goes on and on and on

I think it's fine you sent the police but it does seem a bit of an OTT response.

Domestic dispute could just be a normal argument about whose turn it is to wash the dishes. It's not automatically domestic abuse.