A mum has issued a warning after her 'healthy' seven-month-old baby died while sleeping in her bed.
Tragic Jermaine Harris was found lifeless by his grieving mum Sheree on the morning of February 13 this year.
She had fallen asleep with her baby boy in bed, but when she got up to answer a phone call and returned she noticed he wasn't there.
His lifeless body was then found when she kicked the bed away and saw he had become wedged in a small gap between the bed and cot, reports Plymouth Live.
The opening of his inquest last month said she then found her son "had become wedged in a v shape between the bed and the cot which were located close together."
The coroner heard he appeared to be lifeless and attempts to revive him failed.
The full circumstances surrounding his cause of death will be examined at a full inquest hearing at a later date.
Further medical tests are being carried out and currently no cause of death has been given although police say there are no suspicious circumstances.
But a tearful Sheree, of Plymouth, Devon, said she wanted to issue a warning to other parents not to sleep with their baby in the hope of avoiding further tragedy.
She desperately tried to revive him using CPR while she waited for medical help, but says he was pronounced dead in hospital just after 9am.
She said: "I was going into shock. My body was like jelly".
Evidence will be held from the police, South Western Ambulance Service and other agencies at the coroner's hearing due to take place later this year.
She revealed she was woken at just before 6am that day and gave him a bottle feed before "the usual baby talk" between her and Jermaine.
She added: "He was yapping away to me. Jermaine would sometimes sleep in my bed – he would always sleep better there. I spoke to him, we played for a little while. I put him in the middle of my bed.
"Jermaine used to prefer it in my bed. He had a cot, but he always preferred it in the bed.
"He would kick his covers off in the cot and I can be a heavy sleeper and I used to be petrified that I'd go in a deep sleep and he would kick his covers off and freeze. I couldn't work the heating timer properly."
Sheree added: "It was a cold winter so that's why he slept in the bed with me.
"I went to make a cup of coffee. I sat back in the seat for a couple of minutes and fell asleep."
Just after 8am Sheree said her whole world collapsed.
She added: "The phone was ringing. It was my friend Julie. I had my phone in my hand as I spoke to her.
"I went to the toilet and then went to the bed. I pulled the quilt off where I believed Jermain was. He wasn't there."
Frantically she looked over the bed and then the cot beside it. Fearing the absolute worst she kicked the bed away and Jermaine's body was revealed.
Her phone records that she phoned the emergency services at 8.15am.
Trying to gulp in breaths to speak through her sobbing, Sheree explained how Jermaine was "cold and floppy".
She added: "I knew. I knew straight away.
"I've got nothing to live for. I've had my days. It's not the same now. That little boy was my own life"
Sheree wants other parents to heed her warning: "Don't leave them in your bed – ever. I thought he was safe in my bed. Never, never ever do it. I'd done it will my kids when they were poorly. It was only me and Jermaine at my flat.
"I can be a heavy sleeper but when Jermaine was in my bed I never slept properly. I'd sleep so light when he was in my bed.
"I'm just keeping busy now, go out for walks. It helps me. I'm collecting up all his clothes and toys and will be giving them to a charity so that it will help someone else.
"If by sharing my story, if I can save a child's life or save them from injury, then it's worth telling it. I can't change the past, but I hope I can save someone's future."
Sheree, 41, who has three other children, says she was shocked to become pregnant so late in life.
But she added: "I was on the ball 100 per cent. Every morning we were up and washed and fed and dressed.
"I had done a 12-week parenting course and passed it."
She said Jermaine was born a month early, on July 5, 2018 and was a happy and healthy child.
She added: "He was brilliant in every way, he was happy. He didn't like playing on the floor – they said he was too posh for the floor. He liked being out and about. If it had got to lunchtime he'd want to be out, as if saying 'c'mon mum, let's go'.
"He was such a gorgeous happy little boy, always smiling. A beautiful little boy. People would come to the pram and say what a beautiful little boy.
"I miss him so much. He was just learning to say 'mum'. I used to put Jermaine on the bed to change his nappy and all that and I'd put my hands side by side of him and say 'Mummy's coming to get you' and he would wiggle on my bed like a little worm laughing at me.
"I miss him, I miss him so much. He was like my world, he was my world.
"He was a healthy, thriving boy."
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