To ask, what's the worst parental mistake you have made in good faith?

[Havingitall]

As end of term approaches the kids and I were looking back over the highs and lows of the last school year. One incident stood out. World book day. I sent my daughter in wearing a bonnet and an empire line dress - take your pick of the Bennet sisters - but my son (14 and autistic) loves the Simpsons so with a yellow swim hat, some face paint, a shirt, jeans and a cushion, he made a fabulous Homer. That night they came home keen to talk about their day. DD quite happy, DS less so. Turned out my son's book day at school was the following week. He got off the bus that morning, well, you can imagine. Because he is the first to be picked up in the morning I hadn't noticed anything was wrong. I asked him what they said, and he replied "Mrs X said, 'Don't worry, we can wash it off"...."
By way of footnote we did turn disaster into triumph the following week when he reprised his role and came back with first prize, but both kids have spent the afternoon revisiting - I suspect this is a maternal gaffe never to be forgiven or forgotten.

Oh just remembered a car seat one. I drove around for about a week with DS aged 2 carefully strapped into a carseat which I had forgotten to actually strap back into the car after having taken it out to use in my mums. I took a corner a bit sharpish one day and the whole seat fell over sideways!

Pre school booster vaccinations for dd; there was no way I could have predicted the outcome, but making a decision that put her in ICU because of a massive allergic reaction still haunts me (and affects her).

I took my newborn DS (under 2 weeks old) on a train to see my parents by myself. Got onto the train with the pushchair, DS in car seat bit on the frame. I had started to detach it then decided to push it along the carriage. Of course the car seat bit rolled off, hitting the floor upside down. I was convinced his skull would have been crushed and was desperately trying to push past the pushchair while train staff looked on in horror. Thankfully he was so tiny that his head was well inside the seat and he was absolutely fine inside the straps. The train staff took pity on weepy incompetent new mother and so his first train journey was in first class!

Not me, but my brother (10 years younger) had a stage when he was about 4 of tugging on his private parts.

Mum lost it one day and said 'stop pulling it, your sister used to have one and she pulled it and it fell off. That's why she is a girl now'

He still looks at me now with a look of horror

I was breast-feeding my then 3 month old dd. I looked down and there was a spider crawling over her head

I fully threw her off me (luckily we were on the bed) and ran out of the room screaming. I felt awful but it was an almost involuntary reaction. Poor dd was crying as clearly being thrown had woken her. No harm done though!

Choccy I understand that reaction. I was getting a lift to school once from a school Dad I barely knew and a MASSIVE spider appeared and landed on my lap.

I freaked the fuck out...screeching and writhing. The Dad had to pull over to get rid of it. I was so embarrassed! He found it funny luckily.

Tried to catch DD as she fell off a window sill, accidentally punched her in the face. Oh. My. God. The guilt.

Nearly bit my sons finger off when he was about 18 months old. I kept pretending to eat him and was making pretend growling and yummy noises and he loved it and was squealing with delight and belly laughing. He put his hand near my mouth and I bit his finger very hard by accident. The look on his face will haunt me forever. He slowly stuck out his bottom lip and started trembling. Then we both burst into tears. The worst bit was he was trying to comfort me by patting my face and sobbing "Sowwy mummy! So Sowwy!" His finger was bruised for days. It was his middle finger too so he kept holding out upright going "Mummy? Owww!" He's 12 now and I'm still guilt ridden.

I've made so many mistakes in my son's not-quite-ten-years of life, I just want to spend the next ten cuddling him

When DD was about 9 months old I was playing with her in the living room. She loved it when I held her up high above my head... we were having a lovely time until I stood up to do it, and totally forgot the ceiling fan was on! Poor little thing had a very grazed head. She was ok but she screamed for ages. Worst thing was it was a few days before her christening, so all the photos are of her with big scabs on her head!

Oh MelB that is ridiculously funny!

My ds received a large amount of money aged 13. Mistake- not hiding it in an account he couldn't access. Now 16 and spending it faster than I can say PlayStation Goggles

I drove for an hour with 6 month DS strapped into his carseat but the carseat not attached. I've never even told DH!

More sadly, I wish I had persevered with exclusive breastfeeding - started mixed feeding when DS was 8 weeks due to failure to thrive. I think I had some bad advice.

When I left my ex after domestic violence, I spent a period of time house sharing with a good friend of mine.
I wasn't well at this point, with post natal depression and generally not feeling sure of myself at all.
When DS was about 13 months, he hated the bath. My 'friend' was adamant that the reason he hated it was because I pandered to him and should just leave him in there and play with him to encourage him to enjoy it.

She bathed him with me one day and he screamed blue MURDER. His legs were bright red and I was crying, desperate to get him out. 'Friend' convinced me it was the neurotic PND talking and I should go in the other room and she would deal with it.

Eventually I couldn't take anymore and wrestled him out of her arms but he was bright red and the bath had obviously been too hot. Poor love was hysterical.

I still feel sick to my stomach about this, 2 years on. The guilt eats away at me! I'm not sure I've ever admitted it before.

We are not friends anymore!

Taking Son 4 to (a rather precious church school we left after a while) and still dropping him off even though he got stung by a bee on the way. Well, he wasn't fussing, had no known allergies and lived to tell the tale. The teachers acted like I'd sawn his head off and sent it to school in a book bag, or something....

I was at primary school myself in the 1960s. I could have lost a leg on the way to school, but my parents would have made me go... I still don't get why taking a child to school with a bee sting (which I got out anyway) was such a big deal. Son doesn't even remember it.

I have 5 kids so my life is full of epic but well intentioned parenting fails.

Primary school was worse for it. I was forever turning up late for the interminable class assemblies, etc.

DS: Spent 2 years moving him away from the TV, telling him that it would hurt his eyes to stand so close - then he had his eyes tested and we discovered that he has terrible eyesight. He must have spent all that time watching a colourful blur...

DD: Told her that when she went to Brownie camp, the 'letters from home' that she received had been written before she went and given to Brown Owl to hand out - she was devastated (and she was only 32...!)

Eldest son was very tiny - breastfed for his first year and not really interested in many solid foods, unless they were (a) yogurt (b) gingerbreadmen or (c) do-nuts.

The Health Visitor started going on about 'failure to thrive' and they'd have to see him more often if he didn't start putting on more weight. We stuffed him with do-nuts for months. The HV left us alone. ;o)

Of course, about 3 years later it was blatantly obvious he had severe dyspraxia - and being food-phobic - hating certain textures of food, in particular - is a very common symptom. He's now 27 and eats anything that isn't nailed down.

I still have guilt about knicking the eldests finger when cutting his nails for the first time. He cried for two minutes. I cried for two hours. He'll be 17 this year and I'm still not over it.

The tooth fairy hardly ever had to come to our house. Reasons why include

Friend accidentally hitting child in the face, loose tooth fell out into the snow.
Loose tooth fell out in the swimming pool.
Loose tooth came out in a Chinese restaurant and I brushed it away with rice that was lying on the table. Didn't realise till waitress had removed the plates.
Loose tooth came out at school, teacher wrapped it in a little piece of paper and son put it safely in his cubby in the hallway. Guess who got to school early and decided to clean out his cubby that day. Yup, binned it.
Youngest had four teeth that didn't come through properly so had to have an op to remove them. They had to break them up to remove them.
The tooth fairy forgot to come (well, to be fair she didn't have much practice) and there was a disappointed little face the next morning.
The tooth fairy thought the oldest was old enough and would bother any more. It was mentioned about two weeks later.
The tooth fairy put the few teeth she collected in a wee box and the youngest child found it. I said it was puppy teeth and I was going to try to grow one...

Yes I caught DS with the nail scissors when he was tiny too - I remember asking the HV to look at it. She was very understanding but looking back she must have done a mental FFS.

Glad it's not just me then sandbag

When DS was 5 he had a birthday cake, for some unknown reason I bought it out with the candles alight and when everyone was singing I blew them out myself. It was only when I saw the look of horror on everyone's face that I realised what I 'd done.

I didn't think it was the worst, but some other mothers from school would have disagreed violently - they were appalled.

Ages ago now, but when a dd was 12 or 13, she and a friend decided they wanted to go to Calais on their own, for the day. They wanted to have an adventure and practise their French! We live in London so it was a case of a train to Dover, foot passengers on the ferry, off at the other end for a few hours, and back again.

The other mother was as dubious as I was at first, but in the end we said yes, with umpteen anxious warnings about STAYING TOGETHER, be careful not to lose your passports, DON'T DO ANYTHING SILLY! etc.

They went, enjoyed it, and it all went fine, but my name and that of the other mother were mud for quite a while.

I've recently cut my babies nails for the first time.
It was all going fine and I was gaining in confidence until I felt her freeze when I did one. Her face was a picture and then she screamed a cry that I've never heard before.

I had cut the tip of her finger with the scissors! it bled for what seemed like hours and both of us were crying our hearts out.

They're really long again now but I can't bear to cut them! I'm thinking about getting my mum to do it for me...

I started as I meant to go on by dropping DS head first in the hospital crib as my exhausted, post CS body gave up its strength when I was trying to lean over and lower him in.

I recently had a non uniform day fail. I'd missed the emails and was having a frantic week at work while DH was working away. DS has to be dropped off at breakfast club bang on opening time so that I can charge off to drop DS2 off somewhere else and still get to work on time, so I didn't see any other children to realise the error. When I checked my emails later on, I was mortified, particularly because I'm a teacher and have always felt sorry for the uniformed child and had now inflicted it on my own child

My most serious, but unknowing one was trying to get formula into him when I was desperate for sleep during the 5 month sleep regression. That triggered off eczema. A few weeks later when we tried baby porridge at the start of weaning, he had his first full allergic reaction and his face rapidly swelled so he could barely open his eyes. It took 6 months and 3 GP visits to get his allergies and intolerances identified. No wonder the poor thing flatly refused bottles, and I struggled to express.

Having a bad day, I drove home from a hospital appointment, 20 miles on the motorway and about the same on twisty country roads, with 4 kids.
Stopped at traffic lights a mile or so away from home, and 2yo ds, who was in the front, gracefully slid out of his seat and landed in the footwell. Turns out I'd forgotten to strap him in

When dd2 was a few weeks old, I'd dropped off on the sofa while feeding her. Dh came over and carefully lifted her out of my arms, so as to not wake either of us. Unfortunately, in my sleeping state, I thought she was falling, and tried to grab her, instead punching her in the face. To make it worse, for a couple of seconds I was more annoyed with myself for waking her back up.