When Scotland mother Dexy Leigh Walsh put her daughter Connie Rose to sleep in her cot one night in March, she had thought she was preventing the 18-month-old from falling out by stuffing it with teddy bears.
But overnight, the little girl rolled under a large teddy bear and suffocated.
Grief-stricken Ms Walsh has now vowed to warn other parents of the dangers of keeping soft toys in cots after her daughter’s death. She created the Facebook page Connie Rose Awareness to spread the word and pay tribute to her little girl.
“On March 6 8.01am 2018 my life changed. I woke up to get my oldest ready for school to find my youngest baby had passed away,” the devastated mother wrote on the page.
“I have been blaming myself as she passed away due to suffocation as I had packed down the side of her bed with teddies and placed a big one on top of the smaller teddies to stop her from falling down the side of her bed, and she did exactly that but as it was all teddy bears she went under the massive teddy and fell asleep with the angel,” she continued.
“All I think about now is what if I just left it empty she would still be here maybe with just a small bump on her head. It’s all what ifs now.”
Ms Walsh, who also has a five-year-old daughter, says the tragedy should be a reminder to other parents to leave cots empty.
“But I want every parent to see and be aware of this. Let them fall – don’t try to stuff small places up with soft things, just leave it empty,” she wrote.
“She had a bed guard at one side and the smallest gap from her wall to her bed and that’s where I had put all her teddies – my biggest regret in life.”
Red Nose, a charity that aims to eradicate sudden infant death syndrome, recommends keeping pillows, doonas and cot bumpers out of cots.
You can read more about safe sleeping here.
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