This mum 'army crawling' past her sleeping toddler is motherhood in a nutshell.

The need to escape a sleeping toddler is a challenge most parents are all too familiar with.

After a long day, the chubby little thing finally dozes off. But you know, you just KNOW that the tiniest sound, vibration or movement will wake them. You’re far too exhausted to go through the arduous process of putting them to sleep again – so you only have one chance. You have one opportunity to escape, and it needs to be taken very, very seriously.

We’re sure this ordeal would be fascinating to watch in any household, as a fully-grown adult tries to outsmart and outplay a very small sleeping person. But for one mum from South Africa, having cameras in her house meant her (very funny, and slightly creepy) escape was captured on tape.

Caryn Chelin Morris AKA toddler-escapee extraordinaire used her “initiative” for an ingenius exit, and her husband very generously shared the video on Facebook.

The video, which was posted on January 14, shows Caryn lying on the floor of her son’s nursery, before inconspicuously shuffling out on her back over a 45 second period.  Of course, her eyes were on her sleeping son the entire time, trying to detect whether he could sense her leaving.

“The best thing about having cameras in your house is watching your wife trying to exit the room after putting your son down!!” wrote Tyrone Morris on Facebook. “Sometimes you have to use your initiative for your exit!! PS The SA Army are calling me for you to do training on the reverse leopard crawl!!”

The video has since been viewed almost half a million times, with thousands of parents from all over the world leaving comments essentially saying, “this is me,” in some way or another. Hundreds of people also left their congratulations for the mum, with one Facebook user writing, “Now that has made my day. That’s excellent and some brilliant backwards crawling.”

Another wrote, “Hahaha. I’ve also had to sneak out plenty times but I have never tried the ‘reverse leopard crawl’ – this is next level. Hats off to you.”

For many, the footage was also made slightly creepy by the fact that it strongly resembled something from horror movie Paranormal Activity.

Several commenters said they thought it was a trailer for a new instalment of the film and couldn't bring themselves to watch it, while others claimed to spot orbs throughout the footage. Somehow, I think this mum is far too busy celebrating her parenting win to even worry about her toddler's room being haunted.

What's your hack for escaping a sleeping toddler?

Listen to the latest episode of Mamamia's parenting podcast This Glorious Mess: The woman who gave birth in peak hour traffic.