Wake me up before you go go

When Uwe came home last night we had a chance to catch up and I told him how that afternoon when I went into Astrid's bedroom after her nap I found her propped up on her knees holding onto the railing of her crib. It made me nervous to see her head and arms above the top of the rail and I was concerned that she could fall out of her crib. I asked Uwe to look at the crib to see if there was some way to lower the mattress. (Subsequently we found that you can't lower the mattress but you can raise the side rail of the crib.)

Uwe assured me that she was fine. Since she wasn't standing yet, the possibility of her getting high enough to fall over the side of the crib was very low. But he said he would take a look at the crib in the morning to see what he could do to make it safer.

So this morning I was jolted awake by a loud "boom" sound. We've had a few really windy days that have blown the side wooden gate to the backyard open and when it slams shut it makes a loud noise. In the couple seconds it took me to jump out of bed and run to Astrid's room (luckily her bedroom is right next to ours), I was really hoping it was the gate and that I was just overreacting.

As soon as I opened the door I saw Astrid lying on the floor on her back with her legs spread eagle and her arms stretched out in a Jesus pose. I stayed calm and went into emergency 101 mode. I quickly picked her up and examined her to assess if there is any real injury. Thankfully she was fine. I thanked my lucky stars that we put a thick hand-woven rug down next to her crib. Since she landed on that (rather than the hardwood floors), it softened her fall.

I rubbed her head and back and kissed her cheek and told her it was okay. It happened so fast but I don't recall her crying immediately after her fall. I think she only started crying when she saw me. It might have been because of her free fall, (which for a baby must have felt like she was falling from a tall building) which scared her, and/or having the wind knocked out of her since she landed on her back. Recreating the event in my mind (since I wasn't there to see it), she must have fallen forward and done a full somersault in mid air in order to have landed on her back with her head facing the crib. Very scary!

I carried her into our room and Uwe immediately asked if she was okay. By this time she had pretty much stopped crying. We ruled out a concussion because she was smiling afterwards and didn't show any signs of nausea. But it was still very scary and right after Uwe adjusted the crib. I would recommend every parent who has a baby that's even starting to crawl to adjust their baby's crib to keep an accident like this from happening to them.

On a lighter note:
Uwe being the adventurer that he is said, "You know, if we hadn't heard her fall, and she didn't hurt herself, she could have crawled all around her room for awhile without us knowing and gotten into everything."

Hearing that made me picture her scaling up the railing of her crib, putting one leg, then the other over the railing, and jumping down. Then standing there looking around her room and thinking to herself, "It's party time!" I'm hoping this isn't a premonition of things to come!