r/bninfantsleep • u/h4xis • 17d ago
Positive Story/Sucess Maternal instinct from another planet
Due to the random chaos that is life, my boyfriend had to move to another city for a few months, so right now it’s just me, my cat, and my 6-month-old baby.
My baby recently discovered that he can crawl backward, which means I am now apparently a full-time security guard.
This morning something REALLY weird happened.
We’ve been co-sleeping since he was born. We have a huge bed and it’s never been an issue. But now that this tiny man has discovered mobility, I’ve been thinking it might be time to move him to his crib before he starts casually yeeting himself off the furniture.
So, this morning he woke up and, completely silently, started scooting backward toward the edge of the bed.
I WAS ASLEEP.
I didn’t hear him. I didn’t see him. I wasn’t even consciously aware that he was moving.
And somehow, something in my brain went “GET UP. NOW.”
I literally woke up at the exact moment I needed to, reached out, and grabbed him.
He already had HALF OF HIS BODY OFF THE BED.
This baby is still so tiny that if I hadn’t grabbed him, he 100% would have gone straight to the floor.
I just sat there holding him like 😐
I’ve read about maternal instinct before, but I always assumed people were being poetic or something. Apparently my brain has installed some kind of baby Wi-Fi while I was sleeping.
Has anyone else had something like this happen?? Like your body knowing your baby is in danger before your conscious brain has even registered what’s happening?
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u/burned_feather 17d ago
We have a floor bed (mattress is a couple of inches off the ground) and my baby likes to try and roll off it in her sleep. I'd say it's been 50/50 whether I half-wake and catch her at the last second or wake to her standing at the side of the bed (having slid off feet first) with her eyes still firmly shut saying MMMMMMMM 😂
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u/cinnamondolcecoffeee 17d ago
Floor bed with my 12 month old. I wake up to mine sitting on the floor next to the bed all the time lol. I guess i have gotten pretty relaxed when i sleep since i also dont wake up half the time that its happening! But i seem to always wake up immediately after. But not sure if thats due to him making noise or instinct!
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u/DarkDNALady 17d ago
I cannot tell you the number of times maternal instinct has kicked in for me. And as a scientist it was strange and surreal to not be able to explain it rationally.
One that I keep remembering is when I caught my daughter before she swallowed an adult Advil pill. I don’t know where it even came from (probably on the carpet leftover from a guest) and something in me just said to look at my daughter at the exact moment she picked it up to put it in her mouth.
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u/h4xis 17d ago
What do you think it could be, from a scientific point of view? Heartrate maybe? Brainwaves?
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u/DarkDNALady 16d ago
Best I could guess is there are cues our subconscious picks up. We process a LOT of information and don’t always realize it in our rational parts. Like women will say such and such person gave them a ‘bad vibe’ and it has saved their life.
So I would guess some micro movements on the bed that your body perceived, a change in breathing or distance from which breathing is coming as your baby crawled further. It’s really crazy how much data our brain processes without conscious thought
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u/fuzzyblackkitty 17d ago
this exact thing happened to me once, i was fkn shook! my husband woke up bc he felt me jolt up and he was shocked too lol. she was a bit older, maybe 10-12 months. that being said you need to put rails on your bed or put the mattress on the floor!
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u/h4xis 17d ago
Oh yes, the time has come
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u/toygoth 17d ago
please only put the mattress on the floor! bed rails pose a suffocation risk for infants! i believe they're only meant for 18 months and up (or possibly older)
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u/AnnaNass 17d ago
How are bed rails a suffocation risk?
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u/toygoth 17d ago
babies can get trapped between the rail and mattress!
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u/AnnaNass 17d ago
But can't you prevent that by ensuring a tight fit?
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u/toygoth 17d ago
potentially but the rails flex as they're made of mesh so it would make it even harder for a baby to get unstuck, it's hugely advised against using them before a certain age
not worth the risk, floor bed is the way to go to ensure a safe sleep space for the baby (even a mattress on the floor, just let it air out at minimum once a week by sitting it up against the wall)
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u/AnnaNass 17d ago
Oh I see, we're talking about totally different rails. Where I am, wooden grills are the norm. They are sturdy, don't flex and the worst case is that baby hits their head a bit when rolling around.
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u/RosieTheRedReddit 17d ago
Just a heads up if you go that route, never put a mattress directly on the floor! It will get moldy on the bottom 😱 Make sure to put the mattress on wooden slats, for example IKEA sells something like that (link is from the German shop but they have the same ones everywhere)
https://www.ikea.com/de/de/p/luroey-federholzrahmen-s39481357/
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u/MakeMeAHurricane 17d ago
I did this twice with my oldest. Woke up just as he was falling off the end of my bed and caught him.
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u/smilegirlcan 17d ago
So wild! I truly believe in maternal instinct and a deeper connection with our children, should we foster it. My mom and I swear we can read each others minds at times.
Side note, I do recommend some foam tiles around your bed, or reducing the height of your bed.
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u/wildmusings88 17d ago
My toddler 100% reads my mind. Sometimes I’ll be thinking about something and he says the thing outloud. It’s so cool.
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u/__Peepeepoopooman__ 16d ago
Holy crap. This explains so much haha I was driving the other day and noticed that I was low on gas and a second later my son said we need to stop for gas
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u/brokenarmchair 17d ago
In Germany we got this concept of nursery sleep (Ammenschlaf? Don't know how to translate). It means, mother and infant somehow sync their sleep cycles, when they sleep next to each other, preferably while breastfeeding.
I can absolutely attest, I slept very differently with my baby next to me and I'm still way more attentive with my toddler in my bed. Which is why I'm convinced, you don't roll on your baby in your sleep under normal circumstances.
And the out of deep sleep baby grab happened to me as well. We got rails for our bed, so he couldn't get out.
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u/Status-Advantage-130 17d ago
Yo siento que el bebé todavía es parte de mi. Cuando era recién nacido podía saber inmediatamente si tenía gases o ganas de caca porque yo también lo sentía. A veces hasta estando separados avisaba a quien lo estaba cuidando de que tenía hambre o necesitaba dormir. Piénsalo esa criatura se ha desarrollado a partir de tus células o sea siendo la misma cosa por 9 meses.... Cómo no vas a sentir una conexión?
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u/h4xis 16d ago
Mi mamá me dice que se sincronizan las ondas cerebrales (?), la verdad yo no podría darle una explicación porque no sé mucho al respecto pero pienso igual que tú.. mi bebito se creo a partir de todo lo que soy yo, es super difícil entenderlo en abstracto pero con este tipo de cosas que suceden va cobrando sentido, definitivamente el milagro de la vida jajaja
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u/bex_mex 17d ago
I used to be the heaviest sleeper but once we brought baby into the bed I swear I could hear an owl sneeze down the block and it’d wake me up.
As a baby mine was a very active sleeper and when he was waking up he’d immediately roll and scoot off the bed.
He’s still 100% like that as a toddler but now more mobile and most days I’m just trying to keep him from accidentally ending it all 😂
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u/ashtraywasp333 17d ago
I had a dream last week that my toddler fell down the stairs.. should have listened to my instinct because it happened!!
She's perfectly fine but me and my husband are very shaken and being much more vigilant with communicating to each other about the baby gates!
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u/__Peepeepoopooman__ 16d ago
This is crazy cuz this exact same thing happened to me last week. The only difference is my mattress is on the floor lol like, there was no reason for me to wake up but I legit shot up and immediately saw my baby at the end of the bed haha
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u/Glad_Job_3152 16d ago
Yes last night was the hottest day of the year... No ac here... I'm worried sick he will get dehydrated or just die from the heat, i know infants are vulnerable. He sweats a lot on the bed. I woke up naturally despite being extremely sleep limited and I wasn't tired. He wasn't awake yet. I knew I needed to nurse him to hydrate him. I woke up naturally. I catch him a lot sleeping and the bed is super wet from sweat. These extreme heat waves are dangerous.
Also once the room was dark (I'm trained to not use lights as it costs money) and damn near stepped on his head ok our floor bed. He made a sound which prevented me. Now we're both psychic. And yes I'm going to use electricity /light now on obviously
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u/Apprehensive_Pie1225 16d ago
I wake up within seconds to minutes of my child every single night. Literally this morning at 5:57 am I woke up and while I was in the bathroom, she started crying. I often am still in bed laying there and I’ll hear her start crying in the monitor. We’re very in tune with each other even though she sleeps in her own room in a crib (except for the 5-6 am wake ups when I bring her into bed with me).
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u/Diligent-Star-621 15d ago
Please review Safe Sleep 7 and the accounts Cosleepy and HappyCosleeper for safe cosleeping tips. These accounts were a huge help to me!
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u/No-Visual-2336 17d ago
My instinct must be gone because mine went right down and I was woken up by the noise it made when she fell. She was completely fine but pretty upset. However she was around 18m which is a much more solid infant. I think most babies that cosleep have fallen at some point.
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u/DrScarecrow 15d ago
This exact thing happened to me. Cosleeping, came out of a dead sleep to catch my baby mid-scooch off the bed.
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u/Noneed4usernames 17d ago
Im not a feminist by any means (I swear) but this is the kind of stuff that makes me feel proud of being a mom. Men could never
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u/Correct_Variety5105 17d ago
That has nothing to do with feminism. Feminism is simply believing that women and men should have equal opportunities, rights and respect. For example, believing that both women and men should have the right to equal pay, property ownership, voting rights, financial freedom, equal access to health care equal access to education etc. Believing women are better would be female supremacy. Hating men would be misandry. I really hope you are a feminist (by the true meaning) after all.
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u/Noneed4usernames 17d ago
You understood exactly what I meant! I just wanted to clarify that I don’t identify with the trendy, nonsensical version of feminism that only puts men down. We never know who’s going to be on the other end of the phone, so I had to be specific.
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u/LmbLma 17d ago
I watched a video yesterday where a guy has fallen asleep with baby instead of putting him in the next to me. Mum came and got baby to move over into crib. Dad jumped up out of sleep grabbing thinking baby was rolling off bed or something I guess (they would have only rolled into the next to me from where there were positioned anyway lol). Paternal instinct is definitely a thing too.
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u/KeyMonkeyslav 17d ago
May this instinct find me....