Handhold please - DD4 at A&E

[CautiouslyPessimistic]

Brand new 'big girl' bed today, mid sleeper with a den underneath. Twice today she's hit her head standing up under it. The second time we weren't in the room to see it but about 15 minutes later she got a brief nosebleed and then produced an enormous blood clot out of her mouth.

We rang 111 who weren't concerned but said they'd have someone call back for 'home management' advice. We kept her up for two hours but no one had rung so I let her go to bed. 20 minutes later they call and ask me to wake her.

I've never seen her asleep like that - we had to turn on the lights, pull off the covers, shake her and basically shout her name to wake her up. She's now gone to A&E with DH and I'm sitting here like a lemon watching my son's baby monitor with nothing to distract me from the panic.

Fuck that fucking bed. It took me a day to put together and I fucking hate it now. Jesus Christ I was terrified when we couldn't wake her, I think my heart stopped.

Distract me? Reassure me? I feel completely powerless and out of the loop.

Sorry OP, that sounds so stressful. Can I offer some reassurance?

1. It was her forehead she hit - one of the most resilient parts of the head, as my GP father always used to tell me when I panicked about head bumps (having done the usual checks, of course)
2. You likely tried to rouse her when she was in her deep sleep cycle - this happened to my boy once or twice and it’s really scary how difficult it can be to wake them! (Especially when I’d never had trouble rousing mine at other stages in the night)
3. The bed - mine moved to a mid-sleeper aged four, with a bed rail on the side. Definitely had a bumped head once or twice in the early days. Then the den area got filled up with crap toys and it never happened again

Fingers crossed she is home soon and you can give her a cuddle and relax!

@Absolutelyscunnered Yup my thinking exactly. Was even thinking of buying a large piece of foam and just stapling it to the whole underside of the bed just in case.

You poor thing, OP, it’s the most awful thing in the world when they hurt themselves.

I hope you get good news soon.

Can you distract yourself with some crap on Netflix?

The foam idea is great. I’m sure she’ll be fine and try not to worry too much about the being unable to wake her, how often have you tried before to wake her after she’s been asleep, it could be that she was just in a deep sleep as you’d expect.

36 year old ds has a lovely scar on his forehead. Went to hospital. He’s quite big in his field now so no damage done other than the scar. I’m sure she’ll be fine. 💐

So scary. Hope she is home and safe soon.

Yeah to be fair I don't think I've ever tried to wake her 20 minutes after she fell asleep. Maybe she was just in a really deep sleep cycle?

DH says the nurse has shone a light in her eyes and said she's the chattiest patient she's had today (which sounds about right) and they're waiting for the doctor now. I feel much calmer, this thread is definitely helping. After they left I just sat down on the kitchen floor and cried - the dogs probably thought I'd lost it!

OP, I had something similar with my DD when she was 4. She fell down the stairs. She seemed ok but I phoned 101 to be sure. They said a nurse would phone me back. By the time the nurse phoned, DD had fallen asleep - and I couldn't wake her! The nurse sent an ambulance. By the time the ambulance arrived, she had woken up. She was examined in hospital and found to be fine - she had just been deeply asleep when I tried to wake her. The likelihood is that your DD was also just fast asleep.

Don't blame yourself. Lots of people have these beds for older siblings and then younger ones climb up the ladder and fall off etc so that was another trip to A&E for us. These things happen - it's impossible to predict every danger a lively child will face. Luckily, they are tougher than they look.

Best wishes for you and your DD overnight.

Awww, hugs OP, please don't beat yourself up!! These things happen! It sounds like she's bounced right back! I'm sure the difficulty waking her was due to the stage of sleep cycle she was in, and she'll be home again in a minute, probably with a 'I've been brave' sticker!

Oh sweetie, you did nothing wrong at all. Accidents happen. Kids are very resilient. She's in the right place, they'll be checking her over and monitoring her thoroughly.

Oh, how frightening! It's horrible having to wait and worry, hope you get the reassurance from A&E you need soon. The news from there sounds good so far.

Hope she's OK, as a PP said if she was in a deep sleep cycle that could be why she was so difficult to wake. Hope she's home soon

Sorry to hear that and quite shocked that standing up from a bed can cause such an injury. Just like @clareykb above, toddler DD slipped off a chair and hit the back of her head. Vomited shortly afterwards and appeared drowsy and then vomited again in the hospital waiting room. She was kept overnight for observation where they measured blood pressure every two hours and everything was normal. She was back to herself the next day. I was with her in hospital and obviously frantically googling everything possible on concussions.

The fact that your DD wasn't sick is a good sign. Nosebleeds are very rarely listed as symptoms of concussion, it could be possible that was a coincidence or an existing weak blood vessel that was aggravated by the bump. I had daily nosebleeds in late pregnancy and they were terrifying but a lot less sinister than they appear. It took almost nothing to trigger them, sometimes just scratching my nose set one off together with the giant blood clots from the mouth. You also mentioned keeping her up for 2 hours while waiting for them to call back. Could it be possible that she was just really tired and therefore slept very deeply? DH used to be a paramedic and says it's a combination of falling from above their own body height and onto the back of the head (not front, side or top) that tends to be more dangerous. In your case it sounds like DD bumped the top/side of her head while standing up, which is far less likely to be serious.

Hope that your DH might have given you reassuring news by now. Basically if eye reflexes and blood pressure are normal, then things should be fine. If she's being kept for observation then you can relax because there will be nurses checking on her every 2 hours and making sure she can be lightly stirred without fully waking her up.

Sounds awful but I'm sure she'll be fine. xxx Surprised at 111 though.

They say 6+ on those beds because of the risk of falling (which you've obviously thought about because of the bed rail) she could have banged her head on anything, there's no point beating yourself up about it. Foam padding is a good idea as it will put your mind at rest!
The blood clot is almost certainly nosebleed blood that's gone down into her mouth and mixed with snot and saliva so looks much worse than it is. I'm sure she will be catapulting herself towards other furniture soon!

Handheld OP - I know the terror, she'll be fine and you'll have aged a decade in one night! Hope she's home soon

The 111 lady kept asking questions and then saying 'hang on a minute while I speak to my advisor' and then asking more questions and since literally everything she asked DD to do, she could do, I guess they just figured the nosebleed and blood clot was a coincidence?

Idk though, I've kind of lost faith in 111 since reading so many stories of bad advice given during the pandemic. Having said that they told me to go to the hospital when I had stomach pains during one of my pregnancies and thought it was probably nothing, and that turned out to be a ruptured ectopic, so maybe I should trust them more!

Big blood clots are the norm from a nose bleed and I also think that 20 minutes into sleeping after being kept up later than usual would be hard to wake any child from. Good to get her checked of course but in all likelihood she will be fine. Hope you don’t have too long to wait for reassurance 🤞

Mine are grown up now but I recall in the late 90s/possibly early 00's when 111 was introduced it was so awful my view is that if it's out of hours and you feel you need medical advice, go straight to A&E.

@User478 Yup we bought a minimum depth mattress so there's a good lip around the edge of the bed and then put her Baby Dan bed guard up as well so there's no way she's going to fall out of it, but I just didn't think about the den aspect, which I'm now obviously kicking myself for. The bed was a storage necessity - her room isn't big enough for a full size bed and separate storage. It's one of those ones with a moveable chest of drawers and bookshelf under it.

In alot of cases,
111 either send an ambulance for no real reason or say your fine when its life and death

They are just reading off of a computer and pressing yes or no and it will generate a ‘general’ answer...

Blood from a nose bleed can run down the back of the throat

But you were 100% right to get help, especially after a bang to the head

Ahh op I hope she's doing ok and you are feeling alright.

I think on the whole 111 are a great service but I do wonder if they've had to take on and train new people due to the volume of calls during covid. This'll make you laugh - I called about my baby daughter recently. Gave her very non-gender-neutral name and used her female pronouns throughout. Call handler very lacking in confidence kept checking stuff and repeating questions. Frustrating but better to check hey? My faith went out the window when she asked if my daughter's testicles were noticeably swollen. By this point I've been on the phone nearly 30 mins and wasn't impressed!!

Hope you're getting some rest and feeling less bad - you've done nothing wrong. Give the bed a kick next time you’re in there!

OP, there must be thousands of those cabin beds in use. 4 is about the right age, it’s 6 for bunk beds which are a lot higher to fall from. It was just unlucky, nobody’s fault. I used pipe lagging to cushion the corners of a shelf, it’s already split so easy to attach.

I’m sure she’ll be fine.