On the day before Christmas Eve, Charlie pulled his Ikea stool up to Olive’s crib, climbed in, and started jumping on the mattress. We heard a scream and ran into the room to find Charlie’s leg wedged in between the crib slats. We gave him that bag of m&m’s he had from a trip to FAO Schwarz the previous day, which kept him pretty happy.


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His leg was really wedged in there, as you can tell from this picture.

Charlie was crying while we tried to dissemble the crib (in between bites of m&m’s). Alas the slat where his leg was stuck was one piece that couldn’t be taken apart. Mr. Bee cut off Charlie’s pajamas to see if that would give us some more wiggle room. My mom insisted that we break the crib with a hammer because Charlie was so frantic! But Mr. Bee turned to Google and put Aquaphor on Charlie’s leg (they recommended Vaseline but we didn’t have any). He then turned Charlie’s leg on its side and it magically slid out. Charlie was perfectly fine afterwards, though his leg was red and a little bruised the following day. I think he was more scared than he was in actual pain.

This is a very popular crib — the Oeuf Sparrow — and I can’t help but wonder how many other toddlers have gotten their legs stuck between its slats. Charlie is not even a large boy (~20th percentile), so smaller and larger children could easily get their legs stuck. Charlie stopped sleeping in his crib shortly after he turned 2, but there are many kids still sleeping in their cribs at 3 that could easily get their legs stuck like this.

I’ve always wondered why most cribs have slats like this. Is it aesthetic? So you can see babies more easily? If cribs didn’t have slats of this width, this certainly would never have happened, and it would eliminate the need for bumpers.

Charlie is old enough to have learned his lesson and he’ll never jump on Olive’s crib again, but we certainly were freaked out for a little while there!

Has your LO ever been hurt inside their crib?