Last night I was down here on the computer until the wee hours of the morning. It was 1am and I heard a very loud crash; the kind that never turns out well. I went upstairs as quickly as I could and found Chloe on the floor. She was crying.

Chloe sleeps in a top bunk. So does Katie for that matter, as both of the girls’ bedrooms have bunk beds. Both Chloe and Katie have slept in top bunks for years. We’ve never had a problem before.

Before last night, that is. We haven’t bothered with the side rail because it’s been a major hassle to jump it in order to get in the bed. This is my parenting instinct gone bad. We should have kept the side rails on the beds.

I have no idea what Chloe was dreaming about last night that caused her to catapult over the edge, but she did. And we have no idea where her head hit when it hit, but it hit something and hit it hard. Though she was crying something fierce, she was still sleeping through the whole thing and wanted nothing more than to curl back up on her bed and go back to sleep. On a mattress. So I let her do that.

Fast forward to 8am this morning when she woke up. She hobbled down the stairs holding her head. I asked her how she was doing. She said her tummy still hurt and her head was throbbing. I asked her if she remembered falling out of bed the night before. She didn’t.

Over the course of the morning her symptoms warranted a phone call to the doctor who said we needed to get ourselves to the ER. So we did. The verdict is: Concussion. The conclusion: Put the rails back on the beds, pronto.

Since this experience I’ve heard of more than one horror story of what can happen when a child falls off their top bunk and on their head. Such sadness all the way around.

I know rails are a major pain to deal with. Trust me when I say this: Concussions are much, much worse. Go get your rails out of the attic or basement, dust them off, and put them back on.

Better safe than sorry, right?

Thankfully for Chloe, her concussion is slight and because we went in 8 hours after the fact, the doctor didn’t even think a CAT scan was necessary unless her symptoms get worse over the next few days. She’ll most likely continue on with the headaches for a while, but we don’t need to worry too much about it. Tonight she’s sleeping soundly again on her top bunk, but this time she’s surrounded on all sides with the rails. And I’m surrounded with the “If only I would have’s.”

Thanks, God, for protecting Chloe and that her concussion is in the “not as big of a deal” category. Thanks for saving her in spite of us.