I was recently reading a post in a Facebook Asian moms group about how it’s basically a “right of passage” to experience when your baby falls, whether it’s off the bed, out of a chair, off their changing table. You know how it goes: falls are the number 1 accident that happens with babies that results in some injury. In the newborn days, leaving Kaia in the middle of our bed was not a worry at all because she had no core strength to roll, and so we’d easily leave the room with her on the bed to grab another onesie to get her into — no problem. Once she started rolling at around six months, we had to start creating “barriers” with huge pillows all around her if we’d leave the bed even for a second because we knew she was a fall risk. Sometimes, to ensure she didn’t roll or fall off, I’d give her something I know she would get fixated on, like my (locked screen) phone or her pacifier, so it would buy me at least 30 seconds to a minute where I’d know for sure she’d be safe.

Well, the day finally came when I accidentally let my almost 9-month old baby fall off the bed. I had just finished changing and moisturizing her, and I was letting her roll and squirm around the bed as she pleased. I was at one corner of the bed, and she moved so fast, just outside of arm’s distance away, and fell off the bed — first with her head hitting the cushioned bed frame, then straight onto her head onto the rug. It happened so quickly that I barely even registered what happened for a second until her piercing scream and cries ensued. I quickly grabbed her and pulled her up to look at her, and for a second I wasn’t even sure if she was breathing because she had this look of terror on her face, and she just grew silent for a few seconds before continuing her shrieks of pain and terror. While she did cry a lot and eventually calmed down after being comforted by both of us, luckily, she had no bumps or signs of injury, and so we’ll just be monitoring her over the next 24 hours to ensure she’s fully all right. Within 20 minutes, she returned to her usual babbling, rolling, smiling self, thankfully.

Welp. That was a pretty shitty mom moment. I felt awful about what happened and that I had allowed that to happen. And it only made me realize (in a painful way) exactly how quickly she is developing, how fast she is crawling and rolling around, and I really need to step it up and keep up with her. I need to account for anything that she could get her hands (or mouth) on, I need to ensure she has barriers from dangerous edges, and I need to think three steps ahead before getting too far away from her when she’s on any elevated surface. This is when babies start becoming really dangerous, so I need to keep up with her better moving forward. Sometimes, you learn the hard way, but in this case, at least she is still safe.