Has anyones DC had an accident that was mere or less their (parent's) fault? If so, please tell me...

[feelingterrible]

...because DD (2.5)found and broke a drinking glass today, and it shouldn't have been within reach, and she has cut her hand very badly needing stitches.

I feel like shit. I hate myself.

namechange, btw.

[Bonneville]

Please dont beat yourself up about it. The very fact that you hate yourself and feel like shit shows you are a very caring parent.

[feelingterrible]

Thankyou. I don't know how I even got her to hospital.

Now I can't help worrying about the authorities becoming involved. I know health visitors may be informed DD went to hospital, and I understand why, but what about SS? She's never had any accident before.

[DeathbyDora]

I've posted this before but I remember reading something in Michael J Fox's latest book that made me smile. During an interview with David Letterman he said something like "Parenting is basically like one long suicide watch. Your children try to find new and interesting ways to injure or kill themselves and it's your job to stop it before it happens..."

Don't beat yourself up too much.

[coolpersephone]

A and E inform GP/HV
The only reason for this is to pick up repeated accidents[neglect]
or non accidental injury~done by carer to child[not relevant in your dds accident]

Don't worry

All children have accidents

[used2bthin]

Really don't worry about the hospital and health visitors, children have accidents all the time. When my DD as been in hospital the hv will give me call to check we are ok,it isn't anything to worry about.

[Spero]

Yes. My daughter nearly lost the tip of her finger in a heavy glass shop door. I left her playing by it which was bloody stupid. She was lucky she didn't lose her hand. I still get flash backs now.

I got the letter from social services 'asking if everything was ok' - bloody effective if I was abusing her! - but it will be clear to the hospital if this is a situation of concern or just an ordinarily loving and sensible parent who slipped up.

It happens. Really nasty things can happen very quickly and although they may be our 'fault', it is a fault shared by many, many parents. We are only human, we can't remember everthing and small children can move bloody fast.

So just try to keep on top of the obvious dangers, but don't beat yourself up too much.

[nevergoogledragonbutter]

I was playing blind man's buff in the upstairs hall once. Very sensibly my mum realised that i could possibly fall down the stairs blindfolded and moved a rocking horse to block the stairs.

Only she didn't mention it. Then i found the rocking horse and reached behind it to find the bannister i thought was there.

me, rocking horse, falling down stairs etc.
she meant well.

oh and i even got the call from our HV after 3 accidents with DS1. one bump on the head, one cup of coffee spilled on him and then he sprayed mr muscle cleaner in his own face. all in the space of a fortnight.
HV was very understanding.

[weegiemum]

My dd2 fell 4ft into a river when I left her in the garden to answer the phone.

I saw her do it - I have never run so fast in my life!

Luckily she didn't need to go to hospital. But I should never have left her.

I only realised I was soaking wet when friend came round half and hour later and said "Weegie? Why are you all wet?"

[feelingterrible]

Thankyou all. You are all makeing me feel a bit better...although still feeling crap, iykwim.

[snorkle]

dh slammed dd's finger in the door once, when they were larking about, and broke it.

[serenity]

DD grabbed the hot iron when I ran out the room to grab something I left in the kitchen and burnt her hand quite badly. I felt awful at the time, but she's fine and I'm far more careful with the iron now (even though she's years older, and unlikely to touch it again)

[Quattrocento]

Fireworks party hosted by Friends AA. Friends BB turned up with their children. Everybody brought fireworks. These were left on a table in the garden within reach of children. The children of Friends BB were 5&7 and lit a firework on the table when everyone was drinking and talking and socialising.

Firework went off, missing one of the guests by less than a centimetre.

The odd thing is that Friends AA were horribly shaken and blaming themselves, and asked me over a bottle of wine later whether I thought it was their fault. I thought it was clearly Friends BB who should have been supervising their children.

You might think otherwise, of course.

[bruffin]

My DD burnt her hand on an iron too. I ironed ds's sweatshirt to take him to nursery. Forgot to turn it off, took the dc's out to take ds to nursery. Came back with DD, she went straight in living room and managed to knock the iron onto back of her hand. She ended up with a skin graft. I felt awful about, she was 2 at the time and 11 now and I still get flashbacks.
She is a bit accident prone and I think she has had 5 trips to a&e in all for accidents.
DS ate some flowers in the garden which were related to digitalis which involved him having to eat charcoal.

My HV knew about DD's hand and dd was questioned in depth by the doctors when they thought she had broken her arm playing horses with ds, but that was the extent of it.

[dilemma456]

Message withdrawn

[seeker]

My ds broke his finger when he was 11 months old. Sort of my fault I suppose - he pulled a heavy doorstop down on top of his hand at my friend's house. i wasn't watching him - but you can't watch them all the time!

8 weeks later, I slammed the same finger in the car door. Definitely my fault this time - I can still, 7 years later, hear the slam of the door and the scream....

Even if it's not your fault you blame yourself - ds broke his wrist falling off his bike while dp was sitting having lunch with friends 10 yards away. He still blames himself - he cries if he thinks about it too much. Even though it wasn't his fault and he couldn't have stopped it happening.

[claricebeansmum]

I dropped DD on her head when she was a few months old because picked up car seat and had not strapped her in.

DS drunk an unknown quantity of calpol. We left the bottle out but the top must of not been on properly.

DS fell out of car - luckily not moving - and hit his head on the kerb. When I called the GP she just laughed and said "You wouldn't believe the accidents I have had with my children".

As you can see we've all done things that have led to accidents and we're all a bit more vigilant now. Stuff happens - try not to beat yourself up too much. You DD will be fine.

[wifeofdoom]

10 day old dd, didn't put moses basket back on stand properly, dd fell on floor screaming, 8 hours in a&e. Thank goodness she was ok. Don't beat yourself up - though it still makes me go cold when i think about it...

[whoingodsnameami]

When dt1 was about 2 years old, she was sat halfway down the stairs, I had stripped the bedding, but while carrying it downstairs, one of the sheets that6 was dangling gripped her around the head and she rolled all the way to the bottom.

[neolara]

I gave my daughter (about 18 months) a bunch of mistletoe to play with while I was wrapping Xmas presents. It was only after I fished a number of berries out of her mouth that I wondered if they might be poisonous. A quick google search revealed that they are. Very. Legged it down to A & E asap. Fortunately I don't think she actually ate any and she was fine. I felt pretty shit though.

[ShowOfHands]

She broke one of your drinking glasses? I hope you gave her a good smack and told her off. It's her fault entirely and she deserved to be hurt for misbehaving.

If you agree with any of the above then you should hate yourself. If, in fact, you feel terrible, it physically hurt you to see your little girl in pain and you are mentally replaying it and beating yourself up, congratulations. You are a normal, run of the mill parent with an ordinary run of the mill child.

You can only minimise the damage they do. It will happen. You do your best. I have a fireguard in front of our open fire to protect dd. She has fallen and banged her head on it several times. You cannot prevent injury.

[4andnotout]

DP was playing with dd2 pretending to kick her up the bum but he accidently did and she fell forward and knocked her teeth, there was lots of blood and whe felt guilty for months after.

But it was an accident and accidents happen, it is just one of those things!

[lucysmum]

I let my DD aged 2 down awkwardly from a piggy back and she ended up with a fractured elbow. Same DD last week wanted to go faster on our slide - I suggested water on the slide... by the way she had no clothes on. Flew off the bottom of slide, sustained grass burns on bottom and I a big graze from the fibreglass slide on her arm - very painful. DD3 aged nearly 2 broke her leg on our trampoline when bouncing with her sister - no adults around so bit difficult telling hospital what had happenned. No calls from SS yet !

[preggersplayspop]

My DS nearly choked on a coin when he was about a year old, I still feel sick and tearful when I think of it.

He also broke his leg, tripping over a toy in a bit of freak accident. I was asked repeatedly at the hospital what happened and I was really worried they thought I had done something to him (although I think they just weren't listening). If another well-meaning person said 'oooh, you have to watch them all the time don't you?' I would have throttled them!

You can be uber-vigilant but it really can happen to anyone.

[Overmydeadbody]

Accidents happen. Don't beat yourdself up about it.

When DS was just 4 I watched him lift his bike up onto a low wall, and then just watched him pedal off along the wall and fly off the end, falling headfirst into concrete.

I don't know what happened that day, but I just had a mental block and simply didn't register that what he was about to do was dangerous and could have ended very badly indeed.

Why I just watched I will never know. I felt guilty for weeks and weeks.

On the plus side he wasn't badly hurt and he llearnt a very valuable lesson about gravity that day