After a week of hearing my baby giggling in his room in the middle of the night—and finding absolutely nothing when I checked—I finally set up a Wi-Fi monitor to see what was really happening while I was alone in the house.
I’m 35F, American, single mom to my son, Edduin.
And yes, I terrified myself with a baby monitor.
A little over a year ago, my whole life fell apart.
My husband, John, kissed me goodbye one morning, coffee in one hand, car keys in the other.
“I’ll be home early,” he said, patting my very pregnant belly. “You two better miss me.”
He never made it home.
Car accident. Wet road.
Wrong time, wrong place. One of those phone calls you never forget, even when you want to.
I was seven months pregnant. The stress sent me into labor a few days later.
I gave birth to Edduin small, early, and angry at the world.
I was in a fog of grief and hospital disinfectant, staring at him through tears, thinking, “It’s just us now, kid.”
Raising him alone became my whole identity.
I work from home doing customer support. So my life was headset on, baby on my chest, one hand typing, one hand soothing.
People kept saying, “You should get help. A nanny.
Move back with your parents.”
But I wanted him to know me. Not strangers. Me.
So I did everything.
Bills, work, feeds, diapers, appointments, laundry, crying in the shower at 3 a.m.
Somehow, we found a rhythm.
By the time he was almost one, things were… okay.
He was bright, giggly, obsessed with dropping things off his high chair and making me pick them up. Classic baby chaos.
Then he started having trouble sleeping.
He’d bolt awake screaming, not his usual “I’m hungry” cry, but this panicked, from-the-guts scream.
I’d rush in, and he’d be standing in his crib, little fists white on the rail, staring at the same corner of the room every time.
During the day he was exhausted and fussy, yawning constantly, eye-rubbing, wanting to be held more than usual.
I took him to the pediatrician.
“Babies go through phases,” she said. “Night terrors, teething, dreams.
He looks healthy.”
I nodded, but my stomach knotted.
Because my gut was screaming something was off.
The first weird night, it was around 1 a.m.
I’d just put him down. I watched him fall asleep. I double-checked the windows, the outlet covers, everything.
I flopped on the couch with my laptop and the cheap audio baby monitor on the coffee table.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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