Stuck In The Slats of My Bed…Not Just Another Country Lullaby!

Lately, I have been having a most peculiar problem with my triplets. I don’t remember ever having had this problem with my eldest son. The odd thing is that only one of my triplets has managed to evade the situation entirely and that is Kian.

It would seem that at least once a day, I find myself having to pry tiny baby body parts out from between the slats of their baby beds. I just do not understand this.

Vivienne always did have this habit of sitting on the edge of her mattress with her legs dangling out and over the “Side” of the bed in between the slats. She liked to sit there and talk to her brothers and swing her legs back and forth.

Kaiden is always jumping up and down in his bed. He doesn’t let any opportunity to boingy go by without having a go at it. I used to worry that he would hurt himself if he slipped and fell and accidentally straddled the bed slats. Luckily, we haven’t had that problem YET. I expect it any day now.

The odd thing is, that neither of these habits seems to be the root of the problem. It’s been happening while they are seemingly asleep and not doing any type of activity other than sleeping.

Now, I have been in there to cover them up at night and found Kai sleeping with his foot propped up on the wall behind his bed. He even used to insist upon sleeping with his right arm shoved down in between his baby bumpers and the mattress of his bed. But until lately, nobody has managed to get down right STUCK.

It’s quite the puzzle actually. One night, we thought Vivie was trying to do her best to keep herself awake, and had taken to giving us her best “I’m testing you to see if you will come & get my very sad self” wail.

Those of you with babies probably are familiar with this one. It’s the cry REALLY hard a bit, then stop to see if you can hear anybody coming to check on you bit (at which point the parent is caught and reeled in for much staying up past baby bedtime fun.)

I did fall for it. I fell for it twice and so did her Daddy. The first time I checked on her, she was standing at the railing of her bed, her little eagle eye watching the doorway of the nursery. The second time, she was was curled up in her blankie watching for us. (No we did NOT get caught.)

The last time I went in, I found her crunched up against the back corner of the crib, and her chin was on her chest at an odd angle and she was SCREAMING. After I got over the initial shock of her position, I realized that she had been trying to reach the baby monitor (she tries to play with it) and had managed to get stuck up to her SHOULDER in between the slats of her bed.

It actually took me a bit to be able to free her because she was stuck that well. It’s not easy freeing the babies when they are like this because I am always afraid of hurting them worse and they are usually in hysterics which makes that mommie-instinct kick in that says PICK ME UP NOW!!!

I did finally manage to free her, and spent a good bit of time cuddling on her and making sure she was really okay. Of course she was fine, but I didn’t think I was. It’s really scary to see your baby in a position like that!

Then there is Kai. Kai doesn’t just get stuck a little bit. And he really doesn’t have any noticeable reason as to why he got stuck in the first place, really. I suppose it’s in his character to always do everything really, super well, even when it comes to getting stuck and crying about it.

The trouble with Kai is, he is very emotional and always takes great delight in EVERYTHING he does whether it be having a good cry or even just having dinner. When he cries really hard, his mouth is open so wide and he is trying to be so loud that no sound really comes out. We call it his silent cry. In fact, when he is like that, you can only really tell he is crying when he stops to take a breath in between screams.

Kai always seems to get stuck the most out of everyone, and the best, too. He will fall asleep with his foot propped up on the wall in between the bed slats. Once he falls asleep, he usually rolls over and balls up, which is how his foot keeps getting caught, I suppose. If he were more awake, he really could set himself free, but being that he takes a really long time to wake up fully, he has to have help.

Then there was the big one. It happened during naptime one day and I still am not sure how this all came about. He was silent screaming; in fact he was in hysterics when I went in to get him up for lunch. He apparently had been standing when he fell asleep, and had just let himself fall backwards to the mattress in stead of taking the normal route. I just don't know for certain.

It would appear that he had been standing with his foot propped up on his knee and that knee was resting between the slats. When he fell backwards and asleep, he had managed to get his knee good and stuck between the bed slats. When he went down onto the mattress, his weight apparently pulled his stuck knee even further out and he was actually stuck up to his thigh this time, only it was at knee level as if he were standing.

His circulation must have been cut off a bit from it, and his little leg was cold. He was so very stuck, that I had to have my eldest come in and work it out from the bed slats while I held him at the right level so we could free his leg. The funny thing is, that once we got him free, he actually thanked his teddy bear for sticking by him the whole time while he was stuck. He apparently hadn’t let go of him throughout the entire ordeal.

I don’t know if other people have this problem or not. We seem to have it at least once a day, making it quite the norm at my house now. I am not sure how to prevent this from happening either. I suppose I could get them toddler beds, but then what would happen?

None of the trio can walk well yet. Of course of the three, Kai is the one who can toddle, however sideways is his specialty, not forward. I just cannot imagine the new and interesting problems that would arise out of having them in toddler beds!