Since the time Sydney was born, we've had to rescue her from herself many times. She seems to have a strong propensity for getting into positions that she can't get out of. If I were to write a book about parenting and had a chapter about the 0-9 month time frame, "Rescuing your baby" would be key parenting responsibility I'd include. In that chapter, I'd also mention that no matter how many times your baby does the same thing, he/she will likely do exact same thing again - days, hours, minutes, or even seconds after your last rescue.
Early on the chief problems were getting attacked by blankie bear in the crib (woke up with it covering her face) or getting trapped under a blanket. Both of these scenarios sparked instant crying and substantial stress for our young one and both were frequent.
As she grew, we moved on to falling over and not being able to get back up. This frustrated the heck out of her. Cracks between pillows and cushions were especially trying. Letting her crawl around on your lap results in many places to get stuck.
Then one day Sydney found herself chasing a toy and scooting (very slowly) over to it only to try to sit up and find herself under her toy piano or some other obstacle that she couldn't physically sit up under. When this happened she would just yell really loudly and continue trying to sit up. For what it's worth, she still has some difficulties getting a leg wrapped around something and remembering to un-wrap it before moving on. Whether sitting, "crawling", or walking she's generally oblivious to any inanimate objects that she's not actively trying to play with.
Then came the repeated theme of dropping into a crawling position, scooting backwards, and getting very red faced and angry because she couldn't go forward or get up out of the position. Our options were to rescue her, or watch her have a complete and total meltdown. (Although she can roll front to back, she never did in that situation.)
At some point in there was also scooting herself up in the crib so her head was rammed up into a corner which required help on a lot of mornings. Once she also got trapped on her tummy and was unable to roll over because the side of the crib was in the way (didn't occur to her to go the other way).
This morning marked yet another case of Sydney getting herself "stuck" which is the point of this story... Every morning in our house starts out pretty much the same. We sleep, we hear some rattling, some baby talk, and then some squawking. We try to go in to retrieve Sydney before any crying starts however that can come immediately or after an hour of baby talk so you never can really tell. Sometimes she even falls back asleep. Often she's content to play with her duck and blankie bear for quite some time so we play it by ear. So this morning we kind of ignored her for a little while and she squawked a few times, got quiet, and squawked a few more. It was "about that time" so Meghan got up and went in to retrieve her only to find her stuck laying on her tummy, head towards the wall, with one leg sticking out of the front of the crib between the slats. Her leg was jammed in good and stuck up to her thigh.
She was looking up at Meghan over her shoulder like "HELP!". ....what a goof ball.Sydney's current thing is to scoot from a semi crawling position. When she loses control and gets flat on her tummy, she slides backwards pushing with her arms until she manages to do the splits and push herself into a sitting position. Then the scoot/crawling thing starts again. She's actually getting pretty good at it on the floor although as methods of movement go it's complicated and almost absurdly awkward. The use of her legs really looks a lot more like swimming than crawling. Anyway, I digress. Apparently the backwards scooting doesn't work so well in her crib and resulted in her getting stuck.
This evening, I lowered the bumper so it's tucked in all the way around the mattress. Hopefully that will prevent a repeat. ...but I have a feeling that "new" ways will be found. I guess we'll see.
