A heartbroken mum has recalled the moment she woke to find her "beautiful" baby girl dead on her bed just hours after giving her a night feed.

Melanie Bolton, from Ramsgate , found 11-month-old Kaycee upright between the bed and the wall, leaning over the mattress as though asleep, on the morning of April 5.

The tot was unresponsive, and despite her older sister Jessica's attempts to resuscitate her while her mum called 999, she never woke up.

An inquest at County Hall in Maidstone heard how Ms Bolton woke at 8.30am and reached out to her son Eddy, three, and Kaycee, who had both been sleeping in her bed.

But instead of finding her daughter next to her, she saw Kaycee, who she had given milk at 4.30am, leaning over the side of the bed, not breathing.

Ms Bolton, who has four other children - Jake, 22, Jessica, 19, Bonnie 13, and Eddy - says her death has devastated the family.

"Eddy was Kaycee's best friend and he misses her so much - he asks to send a rocket to the moon to get her back," she said.

"Jessica gave rescue breaths to Kaycee until the emergency services arrived and Bonnie, although young herself, had to comfort Eddy.

"It's had a massive impact on them.

"You can never even begin to imagine what it's like to lose a child.

"I used to only imagine too, but now I know, and how you imagine it is nowhere near what it's actually like - you can't even put it into words.

"Our bubba was beautiful, brown-eyed with matching fuzzy eyebrows.

"She had the most beautiful smile and big teeth. With a beautifully funny, big attitude and character to match.

"She will be remembered and missed for the rest of our lives."

At the inquest on Friday, assistant coroner Catherine Wood was faced with two possible causes of death, given to her by pathologist Dr Samantha Levine, who was unable to give a definitive conclusion.

One was that Kaycee, who was just weeks away from her first birthday, died from positional asphyxia, caused by falling and getting wedged between the bed and wall, and the other, a sudden unexplained death in infancy.

To help explain how she found her baby, Ms Bolton demonstrated the position Kaycee was in - upright between the bed and the wall, leaning forward over the mattress from the waist, with her head turned to the side.

Ms Wood, after seeing this and examining other findings, said there was not enough evidence to conclude asphyxia.

"I therefore find the cause of death as sudden unexplained death in infancy," she said.

"This means it is still unknown and we don't know exactly why she died."

The family has always insisted Kaycee hadn't been found wedged down the side of the bed and therefore disputed it was positional asphyxia.

Speaking after proceedings, Ms Bolton said: "I had a lot of guilt, but I can rest now knowing that I didn't do anything wrong, that I couldn't have prevented it.

"Knowing how I found Kaycee, she wasn't wedged, she didn't fall - she was asleep.

"In a way I'm glad the pathologist put the two potential causes forward, but we know in our heart of hearts it wasn't asphyxia.

"After she died, I had to restructure my bed to how it was that night and there was room for my three-year-old son to stand between the bed and the wall and he's double her size.

"Also, if she'd fallen and got stuck, she would have been shouting 'mum'.

"I'm pleased with this finding and also that it's come during Baby Loss Awareness Week, which is really important."

After Kaycee's death, the community rallied round and raised £3,000 within 24 hours for the family.

Ms Bolton said: "We as a family would like to that the overwhelming support from my local community, family and friends."

Was battery in mouth cause of tragedy?

During the proceedings, it was heard how Ms Bolton had taken her daughter to A&E days before her death - concerned that she had put a small coin cell battery in her mouth - after seeing a hole in her palate.

When doctors examined her, they removed a small object which the family believe was the remnants of the battery.

They are now trying to find out if the battery may have been to blame.

"We think it stuck to the roof of her mouth," said Ms Bolton after the hearing.

"The acid in these batteries conducts with the saliva and it can dissolve within two-and-a-half hours.

"We did an experiment using a bit of wafer ham and a battery in it, within 20 minutes it's dissolved, it's just black.

"In the inquest we heard a doctor say about the soft tissue damage in her mouth and this is the hole we're talking about.

"We believe this could have been to blame and I'll be taking steps to look further into this."

Ms Bolton says when she went to the chapel of rest, Kaycee's mouth was black inside and the fingers on her right hand, which she would put in her mouth, were black, too.

Pathologist Dr Levine said, however, that this was common in people who had died. But the family believes it was caused by acid from the battery.

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