Do I get a safety helmet to my baby or is it ridiculous?

[SleepFreeZone]

Hear me out before you all say I'm being ridiculous.

DS is 10 months old, has been standing for months, is now walking with a push along dog and cruising. Fine. It's early but ok. He falls, a lot. It scares me. I have come off all social media to make sure I have no online distractions (I Mumsnet while he naps). I am with him everyday. I try and make sure that I'm close by when he is practicing however still he falls.

We have thick carpet with thick underlay and floor boards so on the one hand the floor is as good as it can be, but still he bangs his head on the floor around twice a day.

I was looking at those safety helmets you can get babies. These kind of things www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00PRVEBU2/ref=mp_s_a_1_33_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1480596128&sr=8-33&keywords=safety+helmet+baby. Has anyone used one? Are they just a nonsense? Is all this head banging going to damage him long term? I just don't know what to do 😁

He's very cute and he'll be fine - wait until he moves on to the head butting the floor with frustration

My nearly nine month old fell off our bed today whilst I was having a pee (in our ensuite with a full view of our bed) - I left him slap bang in the middle of the bed and he's never rolled so far before. I've never moved so fast in my life, pants round my ankles and scooped him up as he started screaming. My hubby legged it upstairs thinking I had fallen over (I nearly broke my foot tripping over last week, so I can see why he thought it was me!) to find me hugging the life out of our son, with my knickers round my ankles, crying my eyes out......once he'd established everyone was ok, he howled with laughter. My little boy was fine within a minute or two but I've been checking for bumps all day!
I think the helmet is a lovely idea but as others have said, you need to let him learn from falling and bumping things, although I totally get that it isn't easy or a nice thing to have to do. I console myself with the thought that we must have done the same when we were babies and are still here to tell the tale!

Yeah
The thud
It's like a melon hitting concrete isn't it?
Please don't get him a helmet
He will be fine and he will fall because that's what children do

Oooh he's lovely
My eldest (now 13 and taller than me) used to have this annoying habit of looking over his shoulder whilst he was walking - he kept walking into door jambs - split lips and all sorts!

This thread has definitely helped. I laughed at the mental image of sobbing all over the baby with knickers around ankles 🙊

I've actually taken him to the doctor after he fell off the bed at 6 months. Thinking back I was a silly silly cow thinking that pillows either side would actually stop my baby from rolling off (I was so sleep deprived I was just so very very grateful he had fallen asleep whilst feeding). I cried all over the doctor who looked at me as though i needed a psychiatric evaluation (not sleeping for 6 months sends you a bit mad funnily enough).

We moved past that until the day my very stupid DP put the baby down in his room, went to go straight down the stairs and instead diverted into the bedroom to kiss me goodbye. In the 10 seconds that took the baby had of course crawled out his bedroom at break neck speed, through the open stair gate and plummeted down the stairs (thankfully out stairs are split into parts so he basically slalomed on his front down about 6 stairs and screamed). Another rocking in a corner moment for me and now of course we have banging his head on the floor daily. I spend my days in constant anxiety trying to stop him from hurting himself. I have a feeling he will cause me worry for a fair whole yet, I seem to make impulsive and energetic little creatures.

You are going to have to try and relax a little or you will break. I get that it's terrifying though. I fell downstairs once with my first in my arms and dropped her half way down. She hit the baby gate at the bottom and got a black eye. It was awful.

OMG Moomichi I have nightmares about that happening. Sometime I go upstairs and take the baby from DP as I imagine him falling as he carries him down. I used to be the same with DS1 until he could walk down the stairs himself.

To be honest, although a helmet is maybe a step too far (and could possibly disorientate his developing balance??) I veer towards the cautious end of things myself.

It is just so easy for just walking babies to have a bump. It's really easy for children to have accidents, full stop. They do need watching, helping, guiding. You can definitely help avoid accidents certainly by moving things like coffee tables, covering up things like marble hearths with sharp corners with cushions. No they won't need this doing for all time, but at 10 months, your instinct is spot-on IMO. My children have had accidents (split heads etc) whilst being looked after at family's houses (when we weren't there) because there was the attitude of "you've got to let them go, blah blah.." Not under 2 you don't. Stairs, hard tables, hard floors, hearths, ponds - keep your beady eyes open!

Jane one of my DCs has a permanent scar on her face from an accident at a relatives house, aged 14 months. It's not just the brain damage element, scarring isn't great either.

Don't get one. He needs to learn his own capabilities and limitations. He will be fine - it's not like he's 6 ft 2 and falling from a great height with force.

What I will say is try and work on the anxiety a little... Otherwise when he's three and hurtling around on the 'big boy' apparatus at the park or jumping down the stairs or off the sofa at home you're likely to have a few minor heart attacks. Kids are climbers

Aww! Your little boy is lovely. You sound like a fab mum. Of course you worry, but even when you were really anxious your common sense kicked in and you decided to check your ideas out.

Oh please don't or you will ever survive the teenage years - it's all about learning limits. It's nerve shredding this parenting lark....but we wouldn't swap it for the world. Extra cuddles for your v lucky little baby and his lovely mum.

Awh what a cutie!

Dd2 started walking at 9 months and was so wobbly!
Dd1 didn't walk till 18months so it was all new to me.

She's almost 11 months now and really steady, she even runs away if you pretend to chase her.

Awww he's gorgeous. My DD was (still is!) a climber and totally accident prone. Add in the PFB post 5 miss and PND to that stage and even my GP was expecting me there twice a day. And yes, for the first couple of days a I was on the phone all the time.

But the GP gave me two pieces of advice which made it easier - 1) location. The skull is thickest at the front and the back, the time to be concerned is if they hit the Fontanelle. 2)how quickly she got back up. If she was up & screaming and then comforted easily, she would be fine.

Seriously, you are doing great. And if you are worried about overreacting, do what my DH did. He would pick her up, comfort her than ask if she'd made a dent in the floor. This was so successful that when she did a head-first somersault off the rocking horse in reception into the concrete playground (splitting her lip & knocking out a tooth) she asked the teacher to check the floor.

Big hugs and and this for later

Well I don't think you are being ridiculous, I considered these helmets for DD.

DD also walked relatively early at 9mo but she fell like a log. She never fell like other kids, she didn't bend her knees, she didn't put her arms out, so her head was always the first thing to hit the ground. Understandably she then wailed for half an hour in pain. Falling backwards was the same, she did not bend her body and land on her bottom, she fell straight so again hit her head quite hard.

I considered this kind of hat but there is a problem with overheating, so in the end I had to live with the stress (I did take her to more than one doctors, they could not find anything wrong, they advised teaching her how to fall on a mattress and building up arm muscles with toy wheelbarrows, etc. DS falls 'normally', it was just DD that was like that).

We have evolved to survive childhood. If we were so fragile we wouldn't have managed to walk upright. He will be fine

SleepFreeZone
She was upset but ok. I beat myself up for ages about it. She's ten now and is awesome. I think you are doing a great job and you need to relax a bit and enjoy it xxx

OP: falling for toddlers isn't like falling for adults. They have different body dimensions, which means they can fall repeatedly without getting hurt.

The average toddler takes 14,000 steps a day and falls 100 times. Each day.

DD is a couple of months older than your (gorgeous ) DS. She's still walking along holding onto furniture at the moment but I've considered padding too! Her speciality is trying to twist round dramatically and tipping over onto her noggin. I've aged noticeably in the last few months!

As long as the obvious dangers are removed and you've an eye on them it's game face 'budum' noises and kisses for tears - while you fall apart on the inside

I've had baby hair envy since she was born but her being a baldy still doesn't help, I'm sure it's easier when you can't see the bumps constantly

booboo that's exactly what DS does. Just falls like a felled tree, head bang on the floor 😁 But he hasn't fallen at all today!! He looks pretty stable actually! If we could get through today without a thud it would be marvellous.

Then I really feel for you Sleepfree! It's completely different from the usual toddler fall. My DC2 fell like a regular toddler, I.e. frequent falls where he managed to save himself most of the time and almost always got up by himself without fuss. DD was nothing like that. You may find it useful to teach your DS how to fall. On a mattress (ideally on the floor) show him how you fall forwards fist on your knees, then on your knees and hands. Also encourage him to crawl (my DD never crawled) and push toy wheel barrows to strengthen his arm muscles.

Madame yes because evolution is famously a victimless process!

I know its an old thread, but this is my DS 10m to a T, we just had a head hits the floor incident. DH thinks DS screams for the attention, but it must blinking hurt. Looks like I'm doing a how to fall safely course..