eK-3zmjBImBHOZjRJYEZVBw4ZWs Shaky Mommy: What Can Your 10 Month Old Do in 2.5 Minutes?

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

What Can Your 10 Month Old Do in 2.5 Minutes?

This is what mine can do:


That used to be a perfectly good chest. It was from Ikea, but it worked and it looked nice in his room. That top drawer had a front. All of the drawers slid in and out properly (the bottom one won't even close now). It wasn't cracked at the top like it is now. 


Here's what happened and why you should never leave your my 10 month old alone unless he's in a crib he can't climb out of. I had just changed Jaxon's diaper and left him playing in his room while I went to the bathroom. Two of the older kids were still eating lunch (the other was in the schoolroom). They had been being very silly at the table. I had just sat down on the toilet when I heard a crash. I yelled out "What was that?" No answer. I come out of the bathroom and checked on the two at the table while simultaneously looking down the hallway into Jaxon's room. Everything seemed okay in both rooms, except two of Jaxon's toy bins were pulled out. The toy bins are full of rattles and I figured the crash I heard was Jaxon pulling them out. I told the still silly kids to finish up their lunch and went to make sure Jaxon wasn't pulling all the cloth diapers off the changing table. 

When I walked into his room, I could not believe what I saw. The chest was on the floor. Jaxon was sitting there, perfectly okay, and happily munching on the cords of his lamp and his baby monitor, which are normally on top of that chest. The kid loves electrical cords. He had somehow managed, with all his 21 pounds, to pull the chest over, without it winding up on top of him. He had everything from the top of the chest around him, and socks were everywhere (that's what the top drawer normally holds). 


The picture above was also on top of the chest. The frame apparently hit the floor so hard that it shattered into 4 different pieces when it fell. Somehow the glass didn't break. You can see his monitor and lamp in the background. The front of the top drawer is there underneath all those socks. I guess I should have taken a pic of the entire demolished room but my first instinct when I saw it laying on the floor was to set it upright. I think I grabbed it to lift it before I even fully comprehended that Jaxon wasn't under it. As I was lifting it, I realized that no part of Jaxon was under it. 


After looking him over and making sure that he was okay, I started trying to figure out what happened. The highest drawer Jaxon can reach is the middle one and I had to put a fair amount of pressure on that drawer to get the chest to tip forward. With enough pressure on that drawer (and with the two under it open), the chest will fall forward. What I can't figure out is how he tipped the chest over, but didn't wind up underneath it. I'm glad he was okay, and so thankful that what could have been awful turned out okay. Even though the chest is not real wood and doesn't weigh too much, it definitely weighs more than Jaxon, and could have really hurt him. 


Needless to say, whenever we get around to buying a replacement chest, it will be secured to the wall.  


So, that is what my little 10 month old can do, when left by himself for 2.5 minutes. What can your baby or toddler do when left alone? Is your furniture secured to the walls?

2 comments:

  1. Oh man, this is soooo scary! I thought those IKEA dressers were a good deal at first but we have little 3-drawer ones and I don't like them at all. It's just too easy to open the drawers and the bottoms fell out of mine, too. Ugh. Anyway, I had the same thing happen to Isaac with the 3-drawer one and I had to wedge a binder underneath it so it wouldn't fall on him. Luckily I was right there when it happened and reached over and grabbed it before it fell on him.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ahh! So good that you were right there. I'm so glad Jaxon was okay. I would have been beating myself up if he had been hurt. Right now I have everything that chest was holding spread out all over the place, but I'm eventually going to have to replace it. I was looking for something yesterday and everything I looked at, I was looking to see if it was something he could pull over! I'm leaning towards some cubby storage with fabric bins. That's what the older kids have in their rooms right now. Those things have been stepped on and pulled on and have held up well for what they are (we've had them for almost 5 years!). They won't fall when he pulls the bins out, like the chest did when he pulled the drawers out. And, if he did somehow manage to make it fall, it wouldn't hurt him because they are not heavy. The bad news? He'll be pulling out and dumping those fabric bins out everyday.

      Delete