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.

Car doors slamming. Unless there’s no houses between OP’s and the baby’s she had no way of knowing where that was coming from. Same with the raised voices.

It’s not unusual for car doors to slam at midnight on a Friday in a residential area. People come home from a night out or leave their friend’s after an evening together, especially in the Summer.

Typing on a forum, everyone's a superhero. In the real world, if something is wrong at the home and you stroll over to 'assess the situation', a parent opens the door. You ask if everything's okay, the baby sounds distressed. They say yes, the baby's very hot, has reflux, whatever. You suggest a cool sponge bath. Through gritted teeth, they thank you for taking an interest. And slam the door.

Now you feel better for having 'done something' but have zero further insight to the situation. The police can demand to see all members of the family, have experience and background knowledge if applicable, and can insist on entry.

You did the right thing.

I'd call it sleep deprived parents at the end of their tether because their baby won't stop crying.

Hi just to clarify OP you 100% done the right thing. Social services are not an emergency service and the police were the ones who could respond for something like this. If needed they will then contact social services and ask for their assistance. Well done op!

'Triggered'? Not reading it properly?

It's noticeable that at no point in your post you give any passing mention of reassuring parents who had/have a baby that cries for 30 mins or so when a pair of police officers show up banging on their door (and likely waking said baby up again in the process if by some miracle they'd actually gone to sleep) during those visits.

Nobody at any point has suggested that is what you should have done and I think you know that.

This is what happens when you make an AIBU post - You invite people to judge you. If you can't stand the heat and all that...

I don’t think you were wrong to call the police for a check, but you were very wrong to assume that the parents were making no attempts to calm the child. When my DD had colic she would scream hysterically despite us walking the floor with her for hours, rocking her, gently talking to her and singing to her, putting her in a sling, a rocker, pushing in her pram, literally everything we could try and NOTHING calmed her.

You did absolutely the right thing. Preston Davy screamed and screamed and if somebody had done the same thing he might be alive now. Safeguarding is everybody’s responsibility. I had a baby who turned out to be autistic. When he was tiny he screamed constantly unless he was being fed, most likely due to massive sensory overload that he couldn’t explain. He was inconsolable and even as an experienced parent, I did not know what to do. I did speak to neighbours as I knew it was disruptive and I live in a terrace. I sought help from the HV, GP etc. If somebody had called the police I would have understood. It’s better to be wrong than do nothing.

Exactly

DH just reminded me that 100m is 2 Olympic swimming pools away, and asked how the heck someone would know which house something was coming from at that distance without investigating.

He thinks its stinks of drama sprinkled with prejudice (just assumed the worst)

Yes, you probably would feel awful. But frankly 'so what'? If it keeps another child safe that's not being rocked & comforted then it's a tiny price to pay isn't it?

I’ve had colicky babies myself (which turned out to be CMPA) and there is a slight pause between cries usually at the very least or a change to the cry if someone is trying to settle them.
This was was a very loud, very distressed cry for a prolonged period. Ultimately it was hours after I made that call. It just didn’t sound right at all.
it’s had to describe but I think as parents you do recognise cries and can hear a colic cry or a scared pain type cry. Obviously the two can sound similar.
Anyway the police came and checked and they did also have others calling too. I’d rather it just be that they had a bad night and things are essentially fine but if it was what it seemed like then I felt like the baby was my priority not potentially offending new neighbours.

Well that’s how loud the crying was and although I wouldn’t have known which house in particular it’s a row of 4 houses, so I’m sure the police would’ve been able to work it out.
I don’t know any of the families there and wouldn’t be able to know what they look like so how can I possibly be prejudiced?

I do kind of see your point that the most unhelpful thing to have happen when grappling with a colicky baby would be to have the police called on you.

I can't help feeling there might have been some halfway measure to try first - walking down and looking from across the road, or knocking on their neighbour's door to see if they could shed light.

Walk down any street at night time and you will hear a baby crying. Babies cry at night for multiple reasons. A mother at the end of her tether and sleep deprived might raise her voice or slam a door. That doesn’t make her a bad mum. If people reacted as OP has done the police would be inundated with calls every night.

Yeah I also felt like perhaps it was a bit much but as I said it was concerning and again because it was so late at night, I didn’t want to go walking past trying to investigate.

My husband (who had been downstairs) said he’d actually been worried too and had listened for a while to see if it settled down but noticed he could hear shouting, the baby still screaming and car doors slamming and driving off and then coming back, shouting started again.

best case scenario is that they just had a bad night but worst case is exactly why I felt like I needed to at least pass on the info to someone who could help.

That’s not what I was describing though. It was more than that.

You just have to hope you're jn an area where the call handlers don't think they're God & 'know' it's not a priority!

Depends if she felt she could do.

Name change fail!

So it could have been 3 events from 3 different houses, no? But you just jumped to conclusions.

If they were actually a call handler!

id expect an actual call handler to know that the police ARE the emergency service you need to contact & they will contact SS if necessary.

No idea why you felt the need to post about it online though.

I people like you mean well, but your suggestion is batshit. You either aren't very bright, or you're not very street-smart or good with people.

It is in no way OPs responsibility to offer help to a stranger's baby like this. It is not a hunter-gatherer society whereby the mothers help each other's baby in a tribe. They may be neighbours, or they might live on the same street, but they are still strangers. Not friends or family. Calling the police if you're concerned about a child is expected, but no more. Depending on the situation, by 'offering her help', she might be getting involved in a potentially risky or even dangerous situation herself. In some neighbourhoods, such offers to 'help' would result in a door being slammed in your face, at minimum, and potentially future issues for you or your children if it's on a rough estate in particular.

So often, people have such high expectation of women, and your daft suggestion shows it. Women are expected to be free care-in-the-community, a free resource that can be used at any time in a way I just don't see being expected by men.

I think it very over the top to call the police because a baby has been crying for half an hour. You should have knocked on the door and they may have had a good explanation. Instead you have used police time and made your new neighbour's feel very unwelcome.

My first baby screamed the house down in the early hours every night for what seemed like forever. It was summer on a quiet road with all the windows open so the entire street would have been able to hear. Nothing we did helped, he had colic but whatever we tried didn't really work.
I would guess it's something like this and either one of the parents has got a bit stressed and gone for a drive, or gone to buy something from the 24 hour supermarket for the baby but are sleep deprived and feeling a bit ratty. But obviously that's a massive assumption, so if you think something else you are always right to report it.