A mother in Brentwood checked on her sleeping daughter to find a real-life urban legend come true: There was a snake in her baby’s crib, she said.

Cari Abatemarco, 32, of upstate Troy, was visiting family in Brentwood late last week when she awoke after 1 a.m. Thursday to the sound of her 7-month-old daughter’s cries and responded as any mother would. She said she found a live snake coiled around baby Isabella’s leg.

“Once I lifted her up and the snake fell off of her, she stopped crying. But then I was the one crying all night,” Abatemarco said.

Abatemarco’s uncle Charlie Vecchiarelli eventually pried the hissing snake from Isabella’s crib with a back-scratcher and placed it in a bucket, according to Joyce Abatemarco, the baby’s grandmother. Animal control officers said they picked it up later Thursday and brought it to the Town of Islip animal shelter in Bay Shore.

Now the family will sue Toys R Us and mattress maker Sealy, claiming the mattress wasn’t properly packaged when it was sold. While some suspect the snake, which is not indigenous to Long Island, may have been someone’s pet that got loose and then slithered into the Abatemarco house to beat the heat, their lawyer said, “Either the heat from the baby drew the snake out of the mattress or just the snake migrated out on its own looking for a meal.”

As for the mattress, it’s been returned—and it’s unclear what Toys R Us will be doing with it! And here’s some other good bedding advice: Never bring home used or discarded mattresses, box frames, springs, etc., because they might be infested with bedbugs.