A mom has revisited the terrifying moment her 3-year-old son slipped out the front door at 4 a.m. and wandered into the darkness. Britt, a mother of three from Indiana who asked for her last name to be omitted from this story, has watched the security camera footage of what her son Brooks, 3, did that night countless times. "We had moved him from a crib to a big-boy bed, and he would always come to our room in the middle of the night," Britt told Newsweek.
The challenges they were facing are not uncommon. According to the 2024 C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health, 43 percent of parents of children ages 1 to 6 said their child moves into their bed during the night.
On this particular night, however, there was an issue. When Brooks went to snuggle with mom and dad, he discovered they were not in bed. "That particular night, we were changing the sheets on our bed, so we were lying on the couch in our upstairs loft watching a movie and fell asleep," Britt said.
"Our son then came from his bedroom to our room, saw we were not there, and proceeded to go outside and look for us." Though the front door was locked, Britt and her husband had not yet fully turned in for the night, meaning the alarm they usually set before going to bed had not been activated. Britt said it's not uncommon for Brooks to step outside the house, as he did that night. "When we're at home, since we work from home, he always wants to go outside and see if our car is gone," she said.
"So he unlocked our front door and went outside and, thank God, saw our car and turned around." Britt said it was her husband who first woke up and heard Brooks crying. He went to find him and brought him back to snooze on the couch with mom and dad. It wasn't until the next morning, when Britt checked the security camera footage from outside their front door, that she realized what he had done.
"My reaction was pure horror. I was so scared that happened," she said. "I was so upset that we didn't set the alarm and, even though we've told him numerous times not to unlock the door, clearly he still had a mind of his own." The incident prompted Britt and her husband to renew their childproofing efforts and add a higher lock to the door.
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