Mom Can’t See Toddler on Baby Monitor, Unprepared for Where She Finds Her

A mom-of-three got the fright of her life after checking in on her toddler via a baby monitor only to realize she wasn’t in her cot.

Ciara Smith from Salisbury in the U.K. told Newsweek she “panicked” when she couldn’t see her two-year-old daughter Ella and “ran upstairs and into her room” to investigate.

“Her duvet was in a mound on the bed so I presumed that she was under there but I was wrong,” she said. “I looked everywhere in her room and couldn’t see her.”

Smith was initially baffled as to where Ella might possibly be. Nothing about the scene that greeted her in her daughter’s room made sense.

“She has a stairgate on her door which was locked when I went in there,” she said. “I thought she’d either become a grand escape artist or she was still somewhere in there!”

It was only when she turned to walk out of the room that Smith discovered what had happened. There’s rarely a dull moment in the life of a parent but most would say the first few years of having a child are among the toughest.

In fact, a poll of 800 U.S. adults conducted by Care.com found that more than half of the parents surveyed viewed the ages of 0 to 4 to be the most stressful.

As a mother of three young kids, Smith knows a thing or two about the stresses that come in those first few years. While eldest, Harry, is now six, she’s also got Ella and her four-month-old younger brother, Archie, to contend with.

On this particular day, it was Ella keeping mom on her toes at bedtime. “As I turned around to walk out her room and look around the rest of the house, I noticed her wardrobe door slightly ajar and saw some toes poking out,” Smith said.

To her mom’s surprise, Ella had decided to ditch the comfort of her cot for a night of sleeping rough on the carpet. “I found her tucked up with a little blanket but no pillow or duvet,” Smith said.

Mom has “no idea” what inspired Ella to sleep on the floor, but this wasn’t the end of it. “The next night when I took her up, she asked to sleep in there straight away,” Smith revealed. “I said no.”

When Smith asked Ella why she wanted to sleep on the floor, her daughter told her “it’s sooo comfy.” Her mom is not entirely convinced about that assessment though. “I’m not quite sure how a hard floor and cramped space is comfy,” she said.

Thankfully, since that heart-stopping night, Smith has taken steps to prevent a repeat. “Luckily the closet door that she got behind locks into the ground,” she said. “So I’ve made sure to lock it every night since before she goes to bed!”

She’ll be keeping a close eye on Ella over the monitor from here on out though. Just in case.