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.

I was about to say this.

If someone had knocked on our door my beating would have got worse because it would have been my fault for screaming, not his fault for beating me.

And you’ve disagreed with everyone else who has suggested an alternative to your own viewpoint too … enough said really.

You did absolutely the right thing and police advice would be not to approach them if there was a domestic going on. Too many children have died because too many people turned a blind eye, decided it wasn’t their business or didn’t want the hastle. Imagine you had not called and got up this morning to find the poor child or parent had been murdered. It would be a terrible thing to have to live with knowing you could have but chose not to help. Domestic violence rickets in hot weather. Well done for stepping up. It’s irrelevant what the outcome was it was the right thing to do and it is a sad indictment of our society that so many people don’t give a shit about anyone else.

Maybe because they’d left the windows open as it’s been so hot? Mine have been slamming all week.

This absolutely every week or so another abused and killed child hit the headlines.

Yes I think you would have been in a far better position to make a reasoned and informed decision of you had done this.

I don't think your personal background here is relevant. If you had investigated and continued to have reasonable grounds for believing a crime was being commited that would have been the time to call the police.

My wider point is not about you OP but our police cannot possibly do a proper job if they are stretched in all directions and seen as the first people to call at the first hint of something unusual.

I agree! My youngest had CMPA, it was harrowing screams. OPs judgy comments have rubbed lots of people up the wrong way. OP needs to think herself very lucky to have never dealt with this to such an extreme. She also said, lots of doors slamming and raised voices, but how can she be 100% certain that it’s all from 1 house, as she also said everyone has their windows open. If it were me, I would’ve moved a bit closer to listen first before calling the police.

People saying “I’d rather upset 2 parents than there be a baby harmed” but I would hate to upset 2 innocent brand new parents too. I would’ve had more facts in place before picking up the phone over ‘what ifs’ only.

Clearly, the new mothers closer neighbours who would hear more of what was going on wasn’t concerned.

I’m pretty certain that if OP had left out the judgy motherhood bits, she’d have had more people agree, but the fact she has totally mis-judged how brutal allergies and colic can be, people assume she mis-judged this whole thing.

And DV increases during the World Cup, there is a reason why the Police run campaigns about it.

Absolutely agree with this. If everyone called the police every time they heard a child crying they would do nothing but welfare checks. It’s about having some real evidence that something is wrong enough to warrant a call to the police.

Watching England tonight I would have thought it would just send everyone to sleep!

That was a joke btw before I get piled on for not taking DV seriously.

You literally couldn’t have been further from the truth with the personal digs at me.

i responded to a comment above which clarified this.

I don’t think it’s being a judgy mum….at all….in any of what I said.

I find it very hard to believe you heard a baby cry 100 meters away.

That isn’t really a thing anymore…at least not with my generation. Gosh the internet is a depressing place with posters like you on it.

What an insightful response 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️ do you also find it hard to believe that the sky is blue?

You 100% did the right thing.

Well you’ve changed your story a little now, you clearly haven’t dealt with a level that some of us have, possibly including your neighbour. You said they wasn’t helping to calm the baby, you’re adding extras on here to try and justify why you called the police.

Maybe, no one called the police on me, because my neighbours are realistic and didn’t just assume I wasn’t helping my baby! That is what you based your whole original post about “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”. You also said “raised voices and car doors slamming”, now it’s screaming at THE CHILD, eachother & doors slamming! honestly, I think you’re saying anything now to justify calling the police. I personally do not agree with you. You judged the parents and assumed they just left their baby to scream. Now many people are disagreeing with you, you’re trying to make the situation out to be much worse.

But it should be!!!!!

This is the point some of us are trying to make!

What a terrible, soft, unsupportive world we live in if people hear something unusual from 100m away, don't leave their home, and feel they have salved their conscience and discharged any sort of moral or civic duty they might have by making a lazy phone call to a police call centre who are, in this case, less able to make an informed judgment than you!

You're the one being weird, no one knocks on strangers doors in the middle of the night offering them a hand

God why are some people so horrible? It's not recommended to interfere in domestic situations. Calling the police is the right thing to do.
There's plenty of judgement when something happens to a child and neighbours haven't report anything.
I called the police on my neighbours years ago, they argued every Friday without fail, both pissed and she had a boy about 3/4 years old. One night they were shouting, there was a loud bang and the kid screamed and then complete silence. I called the police, they came and luckily everything was ok but I was terrified he had hit the kid. They made sure to make our lives as miserable as possible after that and we moved but I wouldn't hesitate to report again.

100 meters is half way down a road.... I find it highly unlikely by the time the sound got to you it would be loud in any sense of the word. The sky is not actually blue it appears blue to the human eye due to scattering. I don't think this story is true or your measurements are way off.

At night an unconsolable baby would def be heard.
Last year a woman was shouting from her home in the small hours. She lives easily 200m away from me. I waited for a bit and then went round. Thankfully others had already arrived and she was being taken care of.

You are embarrassing yourself now with your desperate need to prove yourself to be superior.

Where I live I could easily hear a family at the top of the road (circa 100m away) because I live in a very quiet village.