Three-year-old survives on cheese and leftover lasagne as she fends for herself for two days after mother dies



Police alerted by Lauren Silbery's brother when he hadn't been able to contact her

'Mummy won't wake up,' Shylah Silbery told officers when they arrived

A three-year-old girl survived for two days on eating cheese and leftover lasagne after her mother died suddenly leaving her locked in her home.

Shylah Silbery, from Wellington, New Zealand, also hugged her favourite toy - a teddy bear named Possum - as she waited alone in the house near her mother's body.



She was rescued when 28-year-old Lauren Silbery's relatives alerted the authorities when they had not heard from her for two days.



Police who went to the property managed to coax Shylah to drag a coffee table to the door so she could climb up and unlock it.



Tragic: Lauren Silbery collapsed and died in her home. Police have said they do not think her death was suspicious

She told them: 'Mummy won't wake up.'



Lauren was found face down next to her bed. Her daughter had been able to drink milk and feed herself with whatever she could find in the fridge.



Shylah spent several days in hospital recovering from dehydration and urine burns before attending her mother's funeral.



The child's uncle Pete Silbery, 24, said: 'I can only imagine her in there for that long, trying to wake Mum up.'



'She's doing okay now. She's still bubbly. When we lowered the coffin into the grave at the cemetery, though, she pointed at it and said, "Mummy's in there". It was pretty heartbreaking.'



Mr Silbery spoke every night to his sister, but he nad his mother grew so concerned after failing to reach her for two days they rang a friend who lived nearby.



The friend went to the house and saw Shylah inside but no sign of her mother.



The dead woman's mother, Heather, said: 'Lauren and I were very close - she would ring me every morning.



'One day I was in the garden and that afternoon at about four o'clock... her brother Peter and I said, 'Well, we haven't heard from Lauren'.

'So we got a friend to go around there and [the grandchild] had come to the cat door, but Lauren hadn't, so I dialled 111.'



But she said she knew her daughter was dead the instant she heard that neighbours couldn;t contact her.



'Lauren wouldn't have done anything silly,' she said. 'She loved Shylah so much and was a devoted mum. But I knew exactly what had happened. It's a mother's instinct.'



She added: 'Her daughter was everything to her. She was the type of person who has a nice way of bringing people together.'



Officers saw the three-year-old inside the house and taught her how to open the door by getting her to stand on a coffee table.

The child's grandmother said: '[She] is still a bit quiet, but she still smiles and she's one of those kids that makes you laugh and you love to have her around.



'When we started cleaning and taking Lauren's stuff out of the flat, she did say "Mummy won't wake up" and when we went back in, she had shut her mother's bedroom door.



'She goes all around the flat happy, but she would not go in that room.'

Mrs Silbery praised Shylah for coping so well with the traumatic experience.



She said: 'Shylah doesn't quite have the spark she used to have but that will come back with time. But she still has her little sense of humour.



'We took her out for lunch and as her uncle David picked up a chip to put it in his mouth she'd grab it and eat it - then she'd laugh her little head off.'



She said the fact her grand-daughter was left alone 'is what really rips into me the most ... just how resourceful my little granddaughter was. She was brilliant'.

The road in Wellington, New Zealand, where the toddler was found alone but alive

The death of Ms Silbery at her house in the Upper Hutt area of the city is as yet unexplained.



Police and the family believe that she died of natural causes but an investigation on behalf of the coroner has now been started.



They said the fact Lauren was face down next to her bed was consistent with her having a heart attack or stroke and falling out of bed, but they said they need to wait for the results of an autopsy.

They don't believe Lauren's death was suspicious.

The toddler is now awaiting a Child, Youth and Family decision about whether she will be returned to her family.



Shylah was placed in CYF care after the discovery. But yesterday, central regional director Karen Petrie said she hoped to place Shylah back with her family.



She said: 'This is an absolutely tragic event and our sympathy goes out to this family. Child, Youth and Family's preference in these situations is to place children in the care of extended family members as long as this is in the best interests of the child, and circumstances permit.'







Shylah was in regular contact with her family, and the agency was working with them to care for Shylah's immediate needs, Ms Petrie said.



Heather Silbery said her daughter had not written a will, and confirmed her family was applying for custody of Shylah.



Meanwhile, a neighbour at the flats in Whakatiki Street, Upper Hutt, said yesterday that in the days before the discovery silence had descended on the flat where Shylah and her mother lived.



'Everything had gone pretty quiet because they were normally quite a loud family, going up and down the stairs. All of a sudden it got really quiet,' Dominic Curry, 23, said.

