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?

Age 4 months forgot to strap dd in buggy she slid out 4 steps up and land flat on her face. Was fine by the time we reached a&e

At 8 months I found her happily sucking on a bottle of opened harpic. Another a&e trip.

At 16 months the fire brigade were called when her head got trapped in the bannisters while I was having a wash.

At 2 I flipped her out of the buggy onto the station platform at Waterloo. Nasty bump on head.

At 2.5 she fell into a swimming pool in Spain while I was chin wagging. She was rescued by a nearby waiter.

About a year ago I slammed her whole hand in the ca door.

At Xmas I was having a very sneaky ciggy in the garden she walked up behind me and made me jump. As I turned round I burnt her arm with ciggy.

How she had made it to 12 I do not know:

That must have been really annoying Kara. Is it the sort of thing you could claim for on your house insurance?

DD loves pulling her blanket over the head and scaring me. She now has a crocheted blanket just in case. She did scare me witless last week when I left her on the bed for a few minutes and she managed to pull the duvet over her head. When I uncovered her she just gave me a grumpy look as she was trying to sleep.
She also loves putting things into her mouth. Dread to think what I'm going to find.

Oh my dd was a master at scaring me with the blanket. She used to wrap it round her head and hold it down like she was trying to smother herself. I used to leave he to fall asleep then put the blanket on and tuck it down but to no avail. Everythime i would check it was over her head. She still tries to smother herself with teddies or sleeps face down.

I am sure when i leave the room she has a good old chuckle at my face

I was chopping a pear up for my dd when the phone rang. After a few minutes on the phone my newly walking (and very unstable) dd toddled into the kitchen and was round my feet saying something. When I looked down she had the very sharpe knife in her hand and was telling me "sharpe knife mummy". I hung up and burst into tears! Stripped her off to check for massive (but hidden?!) wounds and cried again.
Just thinking what could have happened makes me shudder. I am now obsessive about knives. That sounds bad! Not obsessive in a wierd way, in a safety way.

I've clipped the top of ds2's finger with the nail clippers. I've refused to get up one morning when dh had a hangover, and made him get up with the children - and when I got downstairs he was asleep on the sofa, and the only breakfast the boys had had was bananas that ds1 had climbed up onto the kitchen worktop to fetch.

We've forgotten to be the tooth fairy so many times.

Dh took the dses to the park with his brother, and they decided to play piggy in the middle, but didn't have a ball with them - so they used a lump of ice instead, and some of it hit ds2 just above the eye and he came home pouring blood and had a black eye.

When ds1 was going through the terrible twos, he had a huge tantrum one morning - he'd tantrummed for over an hour and a half the previous evening, and by 9am was tantrumming again, and I was on the phone to dh in tears because I couldn't cope, when all of a sudden it went quiet. Ds1 had found the left-over tortilla chips that dh had binned the previous evening, in the top of the kitchen bin, and was eating them. And I let him carry on, because it was better than the tantrum!!

Approaching a travellator thing in a supermarket with DD1 nearly three. I pushed the full shopping trolley on the down side and got on it. DD1 refused to get on it. So I go all the way down with DD1 still at the top. I get to the bottom. Instead of leaving my shopping and running up to get her, I push the shopping onto the up side. DD1, meanwhile, gets on the down side. I yell at her to stay put. She gets to the bottom. I get to the top. She gets on the up side again. I have to go down again. This went for as long as it took people to notice the unaccompanied two-year-old and for the stopping at staring to commence. DD1 refused to get on any sort of escalators for a good nine months following this incident.

Abroad on holiday when ds was about 4, he wasn't behaving very well.
dh took his cuddly and cut off its head with a pair of scissors.
Even he admitted it was the worst thing he could have done.

DH was setting up the new baby monitor and I sat forward to have a look at what he was doing.......completely forgetting 4 week old DS who was lying on my chest! He did a slow motion somersault and landed on his industrial sized packet of nappies fortunately. Still feel sick about it now though! But clearly haven't learned my lesson.......DS is now 8 months old and I brought him into bed with me the other morning and while I was dozing in and out he managed to launch himself off the side of the bed by shoving really hard with his feet (lies on his back, lifts up bum and shoves with his feet - kind of reverse crawling I think and he can move quite fast!). I woke up to the sound of a small thump and outraged crying and found a small disgruntled boy looking up at me when I looked over the edge of the bed.

The nail clipper and top of finger thing - both DH and I have done this and on seperate occasions! We both felt so terrible about it we're too nervous to cut his nails too often!

I really am a terrible mother.........!

3 falls down the stairs.
1 fall off bed onto laptop.
Regular eating of sand, wood chips, leaves.
Occasional eating of cat food.
Ignoring funny skin on DS's face (thought it was dry skin, turned out to be roundworm)
Letting the cat sleep in his cot when DS not in cot.
Letting cat sleep in cot when DS in it cos getting cat out would wake DS (16 months).
DS has chipped a front tooth, no idea how. And I'm a dentist!

I have clippered the top of BOTH of DS's ears whilest cutting his hair with clippers. He refuses to let me do it now and only lets Daddy cut his hair.

where do i start?

DS1(3months) was christmas, sister was round with her boyfriend and i excitedly opened the massive tin of quality streets, i was stood over DS in his bouncer and the lid wouldnt come off so i tried to prize it off, it popped off and the lid landed right on DS1 head with a sysmbol(drum kit) style noise. H just looked at me with a surprised look on his face

DS1 aged 2.5 i had just picked him up from preschool, put him into the car i had bought 2 days previous, it didnt have central locking as was a cheap runabout for me, i put my keys on the drivers side, put DS1 in his seat, strapped him in and put the lock down on the passenger side, realised when i got round the drivers side tht i hadnt opened the drivers door and had locked the passenger. i rang DH who was at home on a day off from work, fortunatley i didnt put my bag in my car and i kept it with me. DH came up to the school in his car with a metal coathanger so we could try to break in the car, that didnt work. RAC were 2 hours away, our last hope was the fire brigade. Seconds after putting the phone down to the emergency services i heard sirens, a few minutes later the fire brigade turned up and rescued him by prizing the door open, using the coat hanger to grab my keys then opening the door. As soon as the fire brigade left,the RAC guy turbned up - 2 hours?? yeah morem like 15mins. A week later it featured in the local paper

DS2 aged 1yr, was left in the room by DH when he was a SAHD, DS1 had poo'd (potty training), it was down his legs and in his trousers, DH carried DS1 into the bathroom to clean him up. He came into the room to grab DS2 so he could bath DS1 and thought that DS2 had eaten the chocolate that he had hd earlier. Then the smell hit him when he realised the 'choccolate'' was in fact shite. It was in his finger nails, his hair, al over his face, up his nose. I got home from work at 6pm went to give DS2 a kiss and was told to not kiss him then DH told me he had just had a mouthful of shite.

DS1 3.10yr i told him to go upstairs to get something from his bedroom, i was in the kitchen putting up nursery pictures he'd brought home when i heard a bang bang bang bang bang, then i heard crying, it thought 'Oh what now' as thought they the boys were arguing again and throwing things, when i got to the bottom of the stairs DS was holding his head crying, i stood him up to shout at him for 'messing about' when i saw the blood :( he had fallen down the stairs as he slipped and tumbled down smashing his head on the radiator at the bottom of the stairs. I called for an ambulance, that turned up within minutes (hospital only 5 mins walk but didnt want to walk holding wound on DS1 whilst pushing DS2 in pushchair) Paramedic gets out and it was the same paramedic who had turned up 4 days earlier whn DH was having heart problems

DS2 aged 18months old, we was going to a photography session one morning and the electric had gone out, i rushed out to put the electric on so i could rush back inside to finish getting ready as was running late (gas/elec meters are outside) i open the front door on DS2 whos head had banged on the door, he cried, seemed fine after a few minutes. When we was just finishing the photo session 3 hours after the accident DS2 started to have a nose bleed :( except it was a string of blood and a little bit of blood that was it.

I still feel shit to this day for everything, although they are still alive :)

I feel sick saying this, but I ran over my daughter's foot with the car.

I was dropping her off at her music lesson, with about five errands to run before I picked her up again, and I was so distracted I started the car rolling before she was clear.

Fortunately, it's a small car, and she was wearing big boots. But it will be possible to rouse me from my deathbed by the shame of that moment...

I really really shouldn't be laughing at some of these......but i am

Deaddei, although all right minded people would be horrified by your DH's behaviour, DH and I just laughed our heads off, imaging a man pushed to the end of his tether.

Ohhh these do make me feel better!

When ds was 2 I had accidently left the front door unlocked. Was pottering around the kitchen and realised I hadn't heard him for a bit. Went into living room and nigh on had a heart attack. No sign of ds, door wide open. I have never ran so fast in my life. Ds had CROSSED the road (a quiet one but none the bloody less) and had reached the end of the road juuusst about to "cross" the busy main road. I beat myself up for the longest time :(

Makes me feel sick just thinking about it.

Did your DH do that in front of your DS Deaddei?

What a fucking horrible thing to do.

clipped a chunk of dd's tiny newborn baby leg into the lock mechanism of the maxi cosi

snipped the top of her finger while cutting her nails

ds is so far intact

DH took DS1 out in the bike seat when he was about 5/6 months old answered a nature call propped bike with child in seat against a gate, which opened when he wasn't looking, bike and baby in seat fell over onto a thankfully quiet road.

I have done the nail clipping thing, both kids have fallen off the sofa, one has fallen down the stairs. I have been locked out of my home, fallen asleep on the sofa to find da covered in pens, also ds has accidentally drank brandy...... The list goes on

See, when you are sat here reading about other people's unfortunate accidents, it is quite funny (and horrific on occasion). However, it just goes to show what happens when people are stressed and sleep-deprived.
DD has had more mishaps when we've been watching her like a hawk then she ever did when we were distracted.

mariscrane you've made me feel so much better - I have also dropped my iPhone on DS's head twice while bFing him too. I have now stopped MNing while feeding!

I often eat lunch while feeding DD so I'm always finding stray crumbs in her hair.

This really is evolution in action, isn't it? Survival of the fittest!

in a rush to school, ds in front of pushchair, i tripped him up with pushchair and then ran the pushchair over his leg, i was really late .
locked my self out of house with 2 year old still inside spent 15 mins talking to her through letter box until other half rushed home from work.
cut fingers with nail clippers done it to 3 oldest refuse to cut dd4.
tripped over and took dd2 down with me.
tipped ds out of pushchair, in my defense it was in a joovy so facing me but not strapped in, going up kerb landed on my feet, he now holds on.
dd2 got her head stuck in child gate on stairs, still dont know how she managed it, i was watching tv .
found ds in dogs crate playing he had crawled in there and thought it was great.
fell asleep on sofa and the school phoned me to see why i had not picked the kids up , i also forgot to pick dd1 up from an after school club, knew there was something i was meant to be doing.

I called my precious newborn DC5 a little monkey fucker by mistake.
I locked up the house, turned off the lights, went to bed and five minutes later realised that DC2 was sat on his own, in the dark in the front room in his car seat. In my defence he was only a few days old and I wasnt quite used to having more than one child around.
DC5 was sucking on a stone today. He had found it in the garden and was very put out when I removed it.
DC3 managed to get hold of a multipack of indigestion tablets and ate the lot when I was pg with DC4. Luckily they had no ill effects but I was mortified.

I know there are loads more. I have been a slack parent for nearly 20 years but thankfully I have fogotten most of my worst lapses.

When DD was tiny, she was wearing a new bonnet with long ribbons tied in a bow. Left her to sleep in buggy when we got in; hour or so later found she had sucked most of the ribbon into her mouth and was about to choke.

Closed car boot before DS had got all his stuff out, he has a bump on his nose to this day.

Dropped DS and DD (older now) in school turning circle and they were getting stuff from boot when I saw, in my wing mirror, that a coach was turning in. I knew that if I didn't move quickly I would get blocked in and probably be late for work, so I threw the car into reverse to move out and round the car in front. Was just revving and ready to lift foot from the clutch when I realised DD was still behind the car, getting her bags. I would have reversed into her and probably broken both her legs. I still go cold thinking about it...

I agree, it's all about being under pressure, and sleep-deprived.