9 month DD had a accident and I feel guilty

[kbaby]

Help,
On saturday DD had a accident prone day. She wasnt feeling too happy to start with and then managed to catch her fingers in a draw, hit herself with the remote control and then tipped the airing horse on herself. I feel really guilty about the airing horse incident as I saw her play with it but didnt think it would do much harm. Anyway it fell and I cant work out if it hit her or just frightened her. She stopped crying when I picked her up and was ok the rest of the day. The problem is I read the first aid part of a book about head injuries and have convinced myself that I have seen straw coloured liquid from her nose, mil who looks after her said shes not noticed anything other than normal snot. I dont know if its due to guilt that I think it must have hurt her more than it did. Tonight I even sat under the airing horse and tipped it on myself just to see if it would hurt. Am I going bonkers or just overreacting.

[MunchedTooManyMarsLady]

honey we all have days like that. The DTs seem to have so many accidents. Don't worry honey. I'm pretty sure she's fine.

[FairyMum]

They will have accidents, but your reaction is normal. I am the same. If I told you about the accidents mine have had, you'd report me. honestly! You are not going bonkers, just being a mum!

[HunkerMunker]

Oh, sweetheart, don't fret. I'm sure your DD just frightened herself - if it had been serious, she'd be more upset now, I'm sure. Have a big hug and don't think about it any more - days like this happen to us all and I'm sure tomorrow will be better xxxxxx

[mummytosteven]

sounds like the normal babyhood accidents to me - we all make bad judgment calls on occasion - i know DS has gone from looking slightly wobbly to fall headlong over onto the floor before now!

an airing horse really sounds far too light to do any damage. if DD had a serious head injury she would have seemed unwell before now.

do you find that you worry a lot about this sort of thing? if so, might be worth having a word with sympathetic HV/GP

[pixiefish]

If I was in your shoes I would think that dd was ok. my dd has done this- got trapped in the clothes airer- she scared herself more than anything. If she settled down when you picked her up and didn't hit her head hard then I should think she's ok. (says she who'll sit up for hours at night if dd has a little tumble before bed ) I think all this worry comes with the territory.It's Tuesday and she's ok- i'm sure she'll be fine

[lilsmum]

kbaby, we have all been there, dont blame yourself, it may sound a bit insensitive but i had to laugh at the thought of you delibrately hitting yourself with the clothes airer

i have been exactly the same, nhs direct know me by 1st name terms lol

dont worry, i am sure she is fine

xxxxxxxxx

[bubbly1973]

kbaby, you will feel heaps better once you have read all these postings

a few weeks back i posted about all the accidents my ds had in a space of 1 week!!

your comments about tipping the airing horse on yourself to see how much it hurt also made me laugh as i used to do exactly the same thing..still do now sometimes!!

when ds was about 7mths old he fell off the bed, luckily i had put cushions on the floor as a 'just incase' anyway, i rolled over the bed myself to see if it hurt ...well it did hurt me as am much heavier than ds and my fall was more of a thud as opposed to ds's bounce!

hope you are feeling heaps better xx

[colditzmum]

Ha when ds was very tiny, I rubbed baby shampoo neat into my eyes just to make sure it doesn't hurt. There is worse to come, like when you leave a room, come back, and they're not there!!!!!

[hercules]

colditzmum lol. I think it's all normal, although not sure about rubbing shampooo neat into your eyes!!

[bubbly1973]

colditzmum, where were they?? hiding?

[colditzmum]

He was behind my (very long) curtain, absorbed with his cars. He didn't make a sound for about 3 minutes which, I assure you, is ample time to go nuclear and start demolishing the entire house in desparate search of your baby! That's what i did in 3 minutes anyway. Luckily the phone is behind the curtain, so I found him just before I called 999.

He found my hysterical sobs quite amusing, it seemed!

[Levanna]

colditzmum!

kbaby, I reacted very similarly when I bumped my 2 month old DD1's head whilst lifting her out of her carseat, on the inside of the car roof (quite gently in retrospect). I rushed her to the docs, read up on t'internet for hours on end about all of the internal damage to her head that she could have been suffering from. This worry went on for months . I even sat in the car bouncing up and down and bumping my head off of the ceiling to see what it would have felt like / how hard is was! She was and is fine, absolutely fine.
Please stop beating yourself up about this (literally too! Your clothes horse will only take so many falls to the floor ). Your LO will be fine. If she cried when it fell, that is a really good sign (it would be worrying if she had lost consciousness, or been dazed). If she was fine for the rest of the day and reacted well to being comforted, that's also good. If you are ever, ever worried about anything call NHS Direct for reassurance, the nurses there have provided me with lots of info and advice if ever I've been worried about my DD's. A lot of them are mums too, so know just how it feels.

[kbaby]

Thank you everyone. You were all very reassuring and now looking back I can laugh at the airing horse thing. Although I actually managed to bruise the top of my nose in getting it to fall on me dd seemed fine and I think the straw coloured fluid was actually clear snot but with a food stained mouth underneath made it look coloured. I suppose I had better get used to the accidents as standing up comes next.
Thanks again

[Prufrock]

kbaby - there is a school of thought (which I heartily subscribe to) which says that you need for your children to have these kind of really quite harmless accidents to teach them about danger and risk.

[vess]

I was going to say the same thing - little accidents help to prevent big ones! Children are a lot more likely to get seriously hurt if they haven't been allowed to explore - next time she'll know that even though the airing horse seems big, it's not all that stable!