This toddler escaped his crib and took himself to McDonald’s while his mom slept
This story is equal parts terrifying and hilarious—a combo any parent of a toddler probably feels on a daily basis, tbh. A mom is going viral on TikTok for sharing how her three-year-old son snuck out of his crib while she was asleep on the floor, and took himself out for a little Happy Meal, as a treat.
Yes, really.
Marissa Phiffer, mom to three-year-old twins Aiden and Aleiya, says she and her toddlers were taking a family nap that had her in terror the second she woke up.
“I was sleeping on the floor right next to their cribs,” Phiffer tells TODAY.com. (Raise your hand if this sounds familiar.)
When she woke up, Aiden was nowhere to be found.
“He was not in the house. He was not in the basement. He was not in the front yard or the backyard,” Phiffer says in her TikTok clip.
In a panic, she decided to call 911 and report her son missing.
“I really started to get nervous when he wasn’t in our neighbor’s yard. I thought that’s where I’d find him. They have a bunch of rocks and he likes to line them up and play with them,” Phiffer says.
The police arrived almost immediately after she placed the 911 call. And here’s where the story goes from terrifying to a hilarious, huge relief. The police officers showed her a photo of her son, whom they had already found.
He was safe. And he was at McDonald’s.
Phiffer says a Good Samaritan called the authorities about a young child who was wandering by himself. Luckily the McDonald’s restaurant Aiden escaped to is only 0.4 miles from his home.
“We run in, and he goes, ‘Hi, Mom!’”
Of course he did. He had just shown everyone that he’s a big boy who can order his own Happy Meal, thankyouverymuch.
“Y’all I have genuinely never felt so sick and scared,” Phiffer writes in the caption of her now-viral TikTok. “We already had the basement door switched out so we can lock it at night but NOW I need something for the front door! You never think it can happen to you, till it does!! Y’all know I got this house babyproofed as much as possible but OMG.”
Toddlers, man. They are little Houdinis who find a way in—and out of—everything. They’ll have you scared to death one second and crying in relief and love the next.
When Phiffer asked Aiden why he left the house, he said he did it because he was “hungry.”
“I almost bought him a Happy Meal, but I was embarrassed,” she says. “I just wanted to get out of there.”
LOL. Hey, we all have a story about our own kids when they were toddlers (or ourselves). It happens. We’re just glad the little guy is safe and sound. And, hopefully, full of nuggets!
