AIBU to ask you to tell me your worst chld-rearing errors just to make me feel better?

[gallicgirl]

I'm feeling like a useless mummy this morning. I managed to put DDs bottles in the steriliser last night without any water. I didn't realise until after I'd made up her bottles this morning. Two of the anti-colic rings are damaged so the bottles don't seal properly. They cost £3.99 each to replace and Philips are out of stock anyway so I have to go buy new bottles later.

Not a big mistake in the scale of things, DD isn't going to be damaged but after 5 months, you'd think I'd be able to do this pretty simple task without cocking it up. Although it makes me feel like shit right now, I know in the back of my mind that I'm not the only one and I will probably make far bigger mistakes in the future.

So come on, cheer me up by telling me your worst cock-ups.

Please?

Why was she standing in the fish bowl? Was it a huge hint to take her paddling?

Oh and last week I forgot to pick up dd1 whose 11 up from basket ball he didnt have his phone on him and walked home it took him 30 minutes and it was pouring so he was socked we was not pleased

Snipped the very tip of DD1's finger while cutting her nails as a newborn.

Then did the same thing again about two months later. After than threw nail cippers away and bought safety scissors and it hasn't happened since. Phew.

DH managed to split the skin on DD2's forehead when he was scooping ice-cream which was hard frozen, snapped the handle off the icecream scoop, and handle went flying WHACK into DD2 forehead. She was six weeks old and has a white scar about 4mm long. Whenever DH is huffing about the house in a mess etc etc I just point to the scar. And silence.

gallicgirl
He couldn't really explain very well as he was only 3 but I can only guess it was because a few weeks before we had been to sea world type thing and the man was actually in the tank with the sting rays which made dd very excited

Started reading thread, thinking I can't remember any of the appalling things I've done to my ds's over the years. Then slowly, through the mists of my memory, I remembered that when ds1 was about 4 months, I'd got him in his silver cross pram, not strapped in (for reasons that I can't remember now! I never did it again! We were coming home from town on the bus and the driver stopped a MILE from the kerb so I had to try get the pram down from the step onto the road. Ds slid out of the bottom end of the pram and was sort of balanced between the tarmac and the pram. I panicked, couldn't move and a passerby picked him up and handed him to me. I felt such a dick!

When dd2 was about 2.5 I was late picking up dd1 from school. Got in the car and raced went to the school. DD2 fell asleep on the way. Got there and rushing to get her out of her carseat to carry her over the road to the school whilst trying not to wake her up. (She was a nightmare when woken from a nap). As I lifted her out if the carseat and was guiding her head out of the car the car door shut over a little and I managed to cut the corner of her eye on the sharp point of the car door whilst getting her out. She woke up screaming and the blood was pouring everywhere.

At this time I started panicking as I was really late to pick dd1 up at this point. Ran over to the school where dd1 was the last one waiting with her teacher. Her teacher saw dd2 and took us straight to the first aid room. Thankfully she didn't need stitches although there was that much blood I thought she was dying. The teacher was lovely and brought me a cup of tea with sugar in it as I was shaking like a leaf, and sat with us till I'd calmed down.

She's got a tiny scar there now.

Oh, and linked to child-rearing. When I was doing my earth-mother weaning thing with ds1, I made some lentil puree and froze it. Wanted to get it out of the plastic pot to heat it up in a pan and thought I could lever it out with a big kitchen knife. Only after I'd cooked it and started feeding it to ds1 did I notice that the tip of the knife was missing - had snapped off into the lentil puree that I was feeding ds1. I blame Annabel Karmel. Still have the knife though!

i put my young daughter on a train she must have been about 5 and my 8 year old was holding on to the buggy with me on the platform as i tried to put it on to the train. then the doors started to close, they shut on the buggy leaving the buggy wedged in the doors my daughter on the train screaming, my son in the buggy and me and my other daughter on the platform shouting really loudly.

pmsl tallulah

Hiya gallic (can't think why you didn't post this on our post-natal thread :o)

DH has done the melting the steriliser one too.

DD1 fell off the sofa aged ca. 5m old. I stayed up to check she didn't cark it when she had her (2hr-long) nap!

DD2 once ate some of DD1's poo [bleurghhhhhhhhh] when she had just learned to crawl, and DD1 hadn't yet learned to poo in a potty blush]

So far, so good with DS1 but I'll let you know...

When DD was 7 months we put her in our new baby carrier-backpack thing and took her up Loughrigg Fell (in the Lakes). It was January and a sunny cold day.

We were walking for about 3 hours and on her feet I thought that two pairs of her (cotton) socks would be sufficient. The rest of her was clothed in a down suit but when I think of those cotton socks I squirm with shame. She cried most of the way and when we got her back to the car I realised her little feet were beyond freezing - bloodless and so cold. Her poor baby toes.

God I felt terrible. I look back and wonder what planet I was on but you don't necessarily realise these things in the early days with your first. Needless to say DH and I had a huge row on the way back largely as we both felt so terrible and were worried we had done her permanent damage!

That's the only thing tho - no other terrible stories (so far at least)

I did the car seat thing a couple of months ago. Got the boys in the car, drove around the corner and heard a "thunk", which I ignored as was running late. Cue DS1 shouting "Mummy why did you TIP my brother?" Pulled over and opened back door to find ds2 strapped into his car seat, UPSIDE DOWN below the back seat. I was so mortified I couldn't even tell dh for a couple of days!
Couple of weeks ago I dropped ds1 off at playgroup, fastened ds2 aged 6 months in but thought the seat belt didn't look quite right. Not until I got home did I realise I'd put him in ds1's - forward facing - seat.
This morning dh picked ds2 up off the floor and found 2 small safety pins in his mouth. Nice.
There are many more but I don't want to list them all in one place. The shame is too great. But they're both happy and healthy so far, touch wood.

Locked keys in car with DS still inside on 2 occasions when he was about 2 yrs old. On the 1st occasion the keys were in his car seat with him & after much encouragement he pressed the unlock button. DP was not impressed when I told him.

Couple of weeks later & I do it again but keys were on front seat & DS strapped in the back. My bag & phone were also locked in & it was boiling. Tried breaking window but it just chipped. Eventually someone called the fire brigade who rescued him

Had to concoct a story about car being broken into to explain the smashed window as DP & I had already argued that morning & I couldn't face the earache. Luckily DP had left a new pair of trainers in view in the boot so I gave the trainers to a friend & told DP that it was his fault the car got broken into as he left valuable stuff on display

yep ive carefully strapped dd into her rear facing carseat but not strapped in the actual seat. This morning she was lying on the playmat and i was clearing away some of her toys. I carried the new sit in activity centre by the seat but it fell off,caused the thing to drop froma great height and i swear on of the legs literlly landed next to her head.When dd and dh got back from their walk i was holding my face and saying omg over and over.

Was reading this and laughing. Then 5 minutes ago was carrying 7 month ds and hut his head on door frame as I spun round to talk to dp!

I was trying to get ready one morning and DP had buggered off out and left me with a whingy DS who wouldn't sit nicely in his cot and play. I ended up letting him crawl around on the floor and he followed me around the bedrooms as I was clearing up but he was particularly slow following me at one point, I went to find him and managed to just catch the awful moment where he'd gone to crawl down the stairs but instead fell head first and tumbled the whole way down. I'm still traumatised by that nearly 2 years on!

Another doorframe head banger here....

Pfft woman you are a total beginner. To date DD (14m) has...

Eaten a slug
Eaten one of those little cardboard boxes raisins come in (I gave them to her to keep her quiet in the supermarket and didn't notice till I was in the queue that she had some suspicious red ink marks round her mouth and was covered in raisins).
Eaten quite a lot of gravel and soil and whole handfuls of those bark chippings from under the swings at the park.
Nosedived out of the swings.
Nosedived out of her highchair.
Fallen off the roundabout at speed.
Toddled straight into the swimming pool before I got in (which is how we know she definitely can't swim).
Drunk water out of the birdbath.
Had a healthy swig of beer out of an unattended bottle (and showed every sign of wanting to have more before being intercepted).

Despite my best efforts she is still alive.

The little voice from the back seat of the car ,Eurycantha did you know you haven t strapped me in.
Another episode .The first day in a new nanny job I had the two month old twins on their changing mat up in the nursery.The door bell went ,their mother had locked herself out ,as I went downstairs a foot of water was running through the living room, freak thunderstorm,I opened the door to their mum who d been checking the weather damage,stepped out and the door slammed behind me.I said slightly wildly The babies are upstairs you have a flood in the living room,any way she turned tail and ran off up the road to fetch a spare key, returned, opened up and all was fine ,well obviously apart from the water running through the lower part of the house.

I left my dd in the trolley after a shop when she was a few months old whoops.

She is 16 months now and has a fascination with the washing machine, the other day I slammed the door shut however didn't realise her finger was in there! Total screeching and tears - from me!

My mum slammed the car door into a DC (14 months at the time and easy to see that they hadn't toddled round to the other side of the car!), DC still sports a dent in their head to this day from that one.

I dropped The Contented Little Baby Boook on DD1s head whilst she slept in her moses basket.

It was a crock of poop anyway!

Gallicgirl - so you wrecked 2 bottles worth £3.99 each?

I can better that - I managed to wreck my electric breast pump (£80!!) by placing the motor part in the steriliser

God knows what the hell I was thinking

To continue the theme of forgetting children, I was at a friend's house for coffee and she suddenly said "oh it's 12.15. Don't you have to get DS1?". He was at playgroup that finished at 12 Jumped in the car and met another friend halfway there who'd picked him up for me.

DH got home from collecting the children from school, looked round and he'd only got 3 of them. They'd sat there and not said a word that he'd forgotten one.

Another time he was in a hurry dropping off. DS2's school had a drive that you went in one end, dropped off in the middle and drove out the other end. He drove in, straight through and out without stopping.

I had an interview in London and DH took me up there. When he picked me up at 5pm I asked him if his dad had picked the DC up OK. He looked blank and it transpired he had only asked him to collect 3. To make matters worse it was exeat weekend. The Head was not impressed

One time we had an earth tremor in the middle of the night. What woke me up was ds crying & as he was teething at the time I assumed it was that and rushed in to give him a quick dose of teething gel. Poor little guy, room starts shaking & Mums answer is teething gel

When he was a couple of weeks old I didn't tuck his coy blanket in properly & on one of my regular night time checks found him under is blanket. He was absolutely fine, but for that split second I was more terrified than I've ever been in my life.

Ah have had a few (my poor ds is only 7 mo)...

When barely a month old, placed him in his chair and brought him into the kitchen to watch me wash up. Decided in my wisdom to place him next to the fridge (far away from my perfectly clean bin). Opened fridge door, dropped a bowl of pate on his head (proper china bowl as it was homemade). It flipped and landed upside down on his head. I bawled my eyes out. He had a tiny red mark along the front (and loads of pate in his hair).

Let him play with the toilet roll whilst on my lap while I was talking to DH as he was showering. One hour later, he coughed and toilet paper came out

Didn't strap him into his car seat and drove to my parents an hour away. The car seat however was safely strapped in.

Near miss, strapped him into the backseat of our car (a two door corsa), thought it looked odd. It was only when DH got into the passenger seat and tried to buckle up that we realised that I had strapped him in using the front passenger seatbelt. How I managed that I don't know.