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.

Same, DD2 screamed (for no discernible reason) for the first 6 ish months. It only improved when she could do things for herself (sit up, crawl, etc).

I was already broken with postnatal depression, the stress of constant screaming, and a toddler: nosy neighbours and the police might well have tipped me over the edge.

Hope things are better for you now. DD2 has grown into the most delightful person, I'm beyond grateful that we both survived her babyhood.

I’d have gone round before calling the police but I probably would have waited longer. 30 minutes of a young baby crying is nothing.

Would they have heard all this 2 or 3 times a night from 100m away?

I would wonder if the slamming doors is due to windows being open in this hot weather, it creates a vacuum in the house and doors keep slamming. We have all our windows open and have had to use door stops as it keeps making the doors slam shut

We had this with a next door neighbour whose baby was screaming hysterically. Luckily it was at a time when GPs came out to do home visits and he came to me to use my phone to call an ambulance. It turned out the baby had an inguinal hernia where part of his bowel had entered his scotum.

I thought the same, we've had quite a lot of that over the last week

OP, police are always best when you have an immediate safety concern for a child. Social Work cannot ever force entry and they cannot ever immediately remove children from dangerous situations without consent from the people who hold parental rights and responsibilities. Only the police can do those things.

The police will refer onto SW if there are ongoing concerns, they can take care of longer term support, assessment and action if needed.

I’m enjoying imagining how much Old Mumsnet would have ripped the piss on this thread.
There would have been lots of jokes about “sitting right / sitting wrong” à la ministry of funny walks (“am I sitting right when I do this, OP?”)

The whole tone and manner is exactly what the mumsnet of old was an escape from

Posters are going to come at you for daring to suggesting that parents get frustrated but your post is spot on.

I had up to 6 hours of non stop crying every single day for 3 months. Of course it made DH and I frustrated with each other. I’m sure there were raised voices. At no point was DS ever in harms way, but anyone who says they have not had moments of struggling with their partner in difficult moments is lying.

You did right. One time I didnt and I regret it ever since.

Social services are not an emergency service. If you have concerns about immediate safety then the police are the appropriate service. I cannot stress that enough.

You have a hundred per cent done the right thing. We seem to have a lot of people here who are either very brave or very naive. It could well be innocent but it could well be someone hurting a baby who would then turn that anger on you.
People being so dismissive is how cases like baby Preston end up happening - because everyone thinks ‘oh it’s none of my business.’ Safeguarding is everyone’s business and the first rule is that you pass everything on because it could be the one piece of the jigsaw that’s needed.

You need retraining

Have fun imagining! I'm so old now my now-grown baby was born on Old Mumsnet and they'd have been more likely to have 3 MNers drive there to physically knock the door than be ripping the piss out if it. There were many 'rescues in the night' back then. Would be so risky these days though, funny how things change, I'm nostalgic now.

Thank you! He improved massively from about 3 months and went on to become a very happy baby who is still a very happy and smiling toddler. Huge difference to his first few months.

We also had a toddler when he was a newborn, and having a small child with a newborn that cried for hours every day for no reason was so unbelievably tough. Yes DH and I argued as we were both stressed and I think having police called because they heard raised voices and a crying baby that wouldn’t settle would definitely have destroyed me. As PP said, a neighbour checking in to see if they can help is so much kinder than the immediate thought that there’s a safeguarding issue.

My first child spent most of the first six months screaming. We would try everything to comfort him - carrying him, rocking him, rubbing him ..nothing settled him. I was trying to get help from doctors but they were very dismissive. Finally he was diagnosed with multiple severe but obscure allergies (passed on through my breast milk) and he transformed into a happy baby

I wouldn't have minded you calling the police though. It might have helped me get more help faster

You did the right thing. I had a colicky baby years ago but would have understood if the police had called. He was obviously colicky and police would have contacted the health visitor who would have confirmed how we were dealing with things.

You have to do what you think is right, and i agree that safeguarding children is everyone's responsibility. It could just be some distressed, struggling parents having their worst day, or a child welfare case, you have no way of knowing - all you can do is hand it over for the appropriate people to investigate.

I had a collegue who had the police called to his house for the same reason, his baby daughter wouldn't stop crying no matter what they did, he and his wife were distressed and losing their cool (nothing harmful), meanwhile their toddler decided to join in and started yelling blue murder (as they do). The police checked everything out, found no issue, comiserated with them, and left. When he came into work he was incredibly upset, felt like a failiure and terrible parent. It took me a while to reassure him and talk it through so he could go back home and support his wife. They weren't doing their children any harm (the kids are healthy, happy teenagers now), and the incident is long forgotten. This is the most likely scenario, but it could be something more serious.

You did the right thing absolutely, and the fact that multiple calls were made about it to the police means that you're not overreacting and that there's at least a chance the child is in danger.

Shame on anyone who says otherwise.

Newborn Dc1 cried inconsolably from about 4pm to 10pm every day for several weeks.

But I agree that there are different types of crying. So hard to judge. Plus it was very hot.

Shame that OP couldn’t get someone to at least talk to the next door neighbour to find out if things were
ok.

OP I think you did the right thing. Only you know what it sounded like and you wouldn’t have called unless something wasn’t right. The police would have triaged it and they obviously felt it was a concern.

hopefully (well you know what I mean) it’s just a colicky baby and stressed tired parents. But you never know.

are you able to know the outcome? I’m thinking not due to confidentiality. I had to make a call one day due to domestic violence very clearly happening nearby and they did call me back to do a sensitive update.

@summermumma2021

she did. she phoned the police who went to investigate what was going on

you don't know - its possible there are adults who need the protection and assistance of the police there.

Meh 🫤 baby hot, unsettled. Parents at the end of their tether. It’s probably been hard for all of them, all week. I remember weeks of fractiousness when my two were babies. I cried, they cried, we all were shells of human beings. Sounds like the parents were just trying to think of ways to settle baby - taking it out in the car and probably having an argument in the process. It’s no fun when it gets like that

Do you think baby Preston's neighbours heard crying?

The baby wasn’t taken out in the car though, if they were the OP wouldn’t have been able to still hear the screaming.