To ask for your children “near misses”

[Chattycat78]

Earlier today I was wrapping a present and so I was putting the kitchen scissors back in the cupboard after i finished. However I dropped them on the floor on the way back to the cupboard. This wouldn't be an issue if it weren’t for the fact that my 19 month old was near me when I did it!

Now I can’t stop thinking “what if”- what if they had hit him, especially with the sharp end! I’m
Guessing they could have done him some real damage.

I know I need to learn from it rather than “what if” but it isn’t stopping me.

Has this type of thing ever happened to anyone else?

Yes. Every single person on here will have had a near miss or an accident involving their child which they feel responsible for. When my son was about 4 months old I placed him in his car seat ready to take him out. I knelt down to fasten him in, my knee hit the front of his seat and he was propelled through the air hitting his head on the skirting board. His lump was a sight to behold and I still remember the scary journey to the doctors 13 years later. It was my fault. Be kind to yourself.

I don't have children but when I was very young I apparently fell head first off a kitchen counter when my parents were not watching.

I'm still here a lot of years later and my parents still tell me, to this day, how bad they felt at the time.

Mine is horrible - checking on dd, 6 weeks, in her cot when I saw ds, 20 months, his face at my window. Outside. He was up a ladder the scaffolders had left accessible.

Put dd down, ran downstairs and outside then climbed the ladder, grabbed ds and began to shake.

I ended up having to shout for help from a neighbour to get us both down.

I don't want to sound like a slummy mummy but I have now had so many actual accidents they bother me so much more than the near misses!

Although just this Christmas day my young children were playing after Christmas dinner while the grown ups finished their meal. My SIL found my 2 sons playing with a pen knife that had been a cracker present we hadn't noticed in all the rubbish of hats and jokes etc An actual functioning pen knife!! I hadn't bought the set of crackers but even so I wouldn't have imagined one to be inside. The kids were very disappointed when we took it off them and no fingers were harmed.

On Holiday last DS smashed a glass with his face.
It was on the table and he looked up and as he looked down he hit the glass with his face and it broke leaving a razor sharp shard sticking up from it. Not a mark on him.
A few weeks before that he fell backwards down some stone cellar steps, bit shaken but again unhurt.

I fell downstairs and whacked ds2's head on the bannister (he was 10 mths)

Ds1 bounced off a trampoline aged 4 and landed head first on concrete - nasty concussion

Ds1 aged 5 shot off on his scooter and if I hadn't grabbed him would have been straight into an oncoming car

Ds2 aged 15mths found the stair gate at the top of the stairs open. I was putting washing away in another upstairs room. I've never moved so fast

All left me shaky and nauseous and I still think of them now

Restofthetimes !

"What if"? I think a tiny cut at worst.

Are they your first? You do need to relax?

My worst near miss was our youngest falling off our low front garden wall. A rosebush bamboo-supporter scrapped their temple as they fell off. A centimetre or two to the left would have blinded them or worse.

MollyHuaCha - it started a bit of a nervy b for me as I had undiagnosed pnd at the time. He would have been instantly killed on falling

restofthetimes

No- second child!

TBH I think I’m more jumpy than perhaps I should be about these things as DS1 had a serious accident abroad last year where it was much more than a near miss and he fractured his skull.

I guess I’m looking for reassurance that it’s not just me!

Rest i've had similar!! Not my child (i was a nanny). Was off duty, dad had the little boy (3) who was a menace for climbing. They had scaffolding round the house & somehow he got out of the window & onto the scaffolding outside. It stretched across the whole of the front of the house & he was running from window to window 'being superman' - i nearly died when he ran past my window. He must have squeezed out of the bloody thing as they had (so i thought) decent latches on - we had to rescue him from the outside. Scariest. Moment. Ever

My 2.5 year old ran into a hotel room just before Christmas and we were all looking around it as we got in the room. She pressed the lit-up button on the front of the coffee machine, screamed and ran off. Luckily it was the loud noise that had scared her and not the boiling water pouring out the front of it. It hadn't even occurred to me that it was there, on a low counter and that she'd press it.

I think it was when DD was a toddler,she called 'look at me I am a space man's,very often I would have ignored this from a minute.This time I went in and she had a bag plastic over her head and face that she had somehow got off the Sunday magazines.
There are others but that is the one that stick as one minute could have made all the difference and been the one I wouldn't have been able to live with.

I fell down the stairs holding ds, who was only about 10 months at the time. I held onto him as tightly as I could and I took the brunt of the fall. I was about 8 weeks pg with dd too. Luckily there were no problems.

When ds was about 10 months (again lol) he choked at nursery and had to be rushed to hospital in an ambulance. I'd only been back at work about a month and felt quite guilty as though I'd somehow caused it. Luckily he was fine.

Dd fell down the stairs as a toddler too and I didn't manage to catch her (I thought her dad was watching her. Obvs not ). She cried a bit but was fine.

Accidents happen to all of us. It doesn't make it better or easier to deal with but they do keep us on our toes and stop us getting too lax.

DC1 driven home in car seat attached to base unit - but not actually strapped in... no crash, but phew...

DC2 rolled off bed onto a extension cable with plugs in it - only a few weeks old and first roll. Got an earful from nurse at A&E who said I should have been between DC and floor. I said - how do you do that with a double bed that is not up against a wall? Still feel bad.

Ooh, and I drew blood cutting finger nails and those baby tears broke my heart

DS 1 and 2 were is a bedroom playing when I heard an almighty crash and scream. I ran in horrified to find a wardrobe tipped over, DS2 nowhere to be seen and DS1 looking in horror. I nearly threw up. When I lifted the wardrobe DS2 by some miracle was in the cavity of the wardrobe completely unharmed. As soon DH got home all furniture was attached to the wall and I poured myself a glass of something strong. Little buggers!

It's definitely not just you! And I'm quite sure your going to have a lot more 'what ifs',but I would say try give yourself a break :) these things happen,to each and every parent,regularly! Try not put so much energy into what could have happened,because you'll drive yourself nuts!

I have a nasty scar from when my father left a sharp knife sticking over the edge of the counter top and I ran into it - he had sharpened it and left it in the suction cup knife sharpener

Whilst I was in hospital, sitting on the edge of the bed holding my DS a few days after he was born, he let out an enormous fart. Having been half asleep I was so startled, I jumped and he flew out of my arms. Luckily I was able to catch him before his head hit the bassinet but it was close. I was really upset but looking back, I was exhausted and over-reacted. The 'what if' stays with you though for a while (until the next time anyway).

Be kind to yourself, you had a lucky escape.

Oh god, only weeks ago me and dp were unpacking the shopping onto the peninsular unit in the kitchen. On the other side of the unit, on the floor, was beautiful 12 week old baby DD, lying on her playmatt. Just then I must have knocked something in my haste and a tin of tomatoes fell off the work surface... I didn't even realise how close it had come to hitting her square on the head until I went to pick it up; I'd forgotten she was there!

And 2 year old DS, when he was 1 we used to bring him into our bed in the mornings and carry on dozing for a bit. We have a window right behind our bed head, the kind that opens right out if you push it. One morning I was woken by dp shouting and opened my eyes to see him grabbing DS's ankles as he was toppling over the back of the bed and out of the window! Dp had only woken up because DS had had to use dp's FACE as a step up to lean himself over the back of the bed, leaning on the open window.

Every upstairs window has a window restrictor on now. Always.

Jeez, my heart's pounding just thinking about it!

When one of mine was little we stayed in a hotel so that we could attend a function. Baby listening service in place we left the DC's asleep in the bedroom. During the party a member of staff responsible for listening in came to find me, saying she could hear a noise from the room. I dashed back to find my two year old had ran himself a bath and was in it!
OMG he so could have drowned!

This wasn't with my child. But with my cousin.

I was about 12 and my cousin was about 3 and for some reason I was trusted to take her to the park. I LOST her. I couldn't find her for about 15 minutes, I was crying and asking strangers if they'd seen her. Thankfully I eventually found her asleep under a climbing frame part of a slide. I never told her parents.

For anyone reading this. Never trust your older children to be responsible for your younger children, regardless of how mature they may be.

Loads
I was hoovering DD's room when she was crawling around the room. The hoover was plugged in on the landing, I'd shut the door but the wire must have pulled it open. I saw her feet disappear around the door and ran after her just income to see her fall downstairs. She was fine thankfully.
DD climbed up a ladder FIL left up in the garden when she was 2, I heard her shouting where's the slide, she was near the upstairs window.
I locked her in the house when I put the bins out. She was sat in her highchair waving at me. I had to get my Mum to come with a spare key.
Having a meal out and DS1 smashed a glass, we cleared up and picked up the pieces of glass to find a big piece missing. Looked and looked hut couldn't find it, then heard my Mum gasp, DS2 about 7 months had it in his mouth.
We have a shared entry with four houses. Had been outside with the kids and went in for lunch. While we were in next door neighbour must have gone out the back and not closed the gates. I sent the kids back outside after lunch while I cleared up, two came back in and I went out to see DS2who was 2 only too find and empty garden. I ran out the entry and he was merrily toddling off down the road.
DH once left DS2 in a shop. He'd been in town with DC3, picked DC2 up and went back into town. He went from one shop to the next forgetting DS2 was now with him and had a scary sprint back to the first shop when he realised.
Lost DS2 again about 2 in a massive shopping centre, we were waiting for DH and playing peepo walking around a large pillar. Then suddenly he was gone, I was crying and shouting frantically, DS1 was searching, I had staff on a radio talking about locking all the doors. He was found about to climb into a fountain.

Natweb, I remember the exact same thing happening to my sister when we were younger, only she was in a walker at the time.

The near miss that sticks in my mind was when DD was roughly about 14 months. I had left 2 x 10kg dumbbells on a wee table in the living room, not thinking. Of course DD rolled it off the table. I watched it roll off the table and I swear it fell in slow motion.

Luckily it didn’t hit her tiny foot but made a hell of a bang on the wooden floor. Still gives me the fear and dumbbells have been relegated to the shed