Without awareness like this, mundane things like bath plugs can be left where little hands can reach them and become dangerous
A mum was awoken to every parent’s nightmare when her four-year-old son ran into her bedroom delivering the news that his younger brother needed urgent help in the bathroom.
Immediately alert, the mum looked across the hall only to see their bathtub overflowing with water and her son, Archie, 2, limply draped over the tub’s rim.
Archie wandered into the bathroom, fully clothed with a nappy on, and pulled up a stool to their bathtub, before turning on the tap, placing the plug.
Her story was shared by Tiny Hearts Education, an account which provides quality baby, infant and child first aid, CPR and helpful information for parents online.
After thinking she had lost her little boy, the traumatised mum wanted to warn other parents about the bath plug.
“At 4am in the morning our 4 year old son came running down to our bedroom shouting that his brother was in the bath and needed urgent help,” the social media post read.
“We found our cheeky, adventurous 2 year old in the bath fully clothed with nappy and everything on.
“He had pulled up a stool to climb in (he’s never climbed in on his own before) put the plug in, turned the tap on and the bath was overflowing and the bathroom was flooding.”
She admitted that the incident nearly killed her toddler and it was clear that he had been ‘trying to get out [of the tub] for a while’.
“He was kneeling on his knees and falling asleep in the water.
“If our 4 year old hadn’t of woken up I can’t even think about what we may have woken up to,” she continued.
She hopes that this near-miss will encourage parents to put the bath plug out of arms reach.
“Obviously there’s been a lock put on the bathroom door now and the plug is also in a locked cupboard. So many parents shared that they never would of thought of this either and they too have their plugs left on the bench or close to the bath.”
Thankfully, little Archie is ‘fine’ following the scary ordeal and had been checked over by a medical professional.
His mum, however, acknowledged and expressed gratitude to how ‘different’ the outcome would have been had her ‘heavy sleeper’ four year old not woken up.
She has also since installed an alarm sensor on her son’s door that will alert his parents should he go wandering during the night again.
The mother revealed she’d since purchased an alarm sensor to put on his door to alert her and her husband if he left his bedroom.
“Honestly I consider myself to be REALLY on top of child safety.
“Every cupboard is locked, every piece of furniture is anchored or mounted to the wall and every effort is taken to ensure the safety of our kids at all time but I honestly just never though of locking away the plug.
“All it takes is a few cm of water and 20 seconds for a child to drown. Please keep bath plugs safely out of reach of your little ones.”
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