A lesson from Mason's mom, Amber

On December 29th Mason was crying really loud, an unusual cry, so I ran into his room as usual and found him in his crib with his camera monitor cord wrapped around his neck many, many times, strangling him. He had pulled all of the cord in his bed with him and all around him and around his little neck. (His camera monitor just sits at the very top of his crib in the corner and the cord runs behind the crib hidden and plugs into the wall, so we have no idea how he got a hold of it...all we can guess as he was playing with his hands behind the crib rails and he felt the cord and being curious he started playing with it and pulled the long cord from the bottom, the camera part of the monitor stayed at the top of the crib and didn't move.) He was alert, panicked, screaming, crying so hard and very red faced. I was terrified, trying so hard to get the cord un-wrapped from his neck, it felt like forever and finally got it off and just held him close as he collapsed in my arms. He was hysterical as expected and I was crying my eyes out. The cord choked him bad leaving bad red lines and bruises around his neck and blood spots (petechia) all over his face and head. It was terrifying and Thank GOD he is alive.


Mason's camera monitor sits on the back top rail of his crib in the far corner, the cord to the monitor runs unseen down the back of the crib rails (the thickest part of the crib because its the side) and then plugs into the wall. The cord to that monitor is very, very long. When the accident happened, Mason had pulled through the crib slats all the loose cord into his crib with him and was tangled up in it and had it wrapped around his neck 4-6 times, strangling himself because he had rolled around with it so much. So... what we have done now to prevent this from happening again is: the camera monitor still sits at the top of his crib in the corner so we can still see him at night when he is sleeping and napping on the weekends. We have double taped (either use masking tape or painters tape so it doesn't mess up the furniture) the cord to the back of the crib as it runs down to the floor, the rest of the long cord is gathered up and zip-tied together and then tape is around that and lays under the crib on floor. It plugs into the wall behind his crib, but my husband did go ahead and put tape around the plug part too where is attaches to the wall. I hope all of this makes sense. If parents choose to secure or nail the monitor to the wall, that is fine too, but the cord still has to run down the wall to plug in. So, its just important for the cord to be taped down or secured in someway that it is not loose for a baby to grab and play with.

Please, please, please go tape or nail up your monitor cords. We WILL be doing this in our bedroom and in the nursery when Jackson transitions into his own room. This is so very dangerous and I didn't think about this until Amber mentioned it.