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?

Ooh I forgot with dc2 he was eating a bacon sandwich one day and I was busy washing up, he started to pat me on the back and at first I didn’t turn round as I was midway through cleaning some knives, once clean I put them down on the draining board and turned around to find him bright red, tears and panic in his eyes and choking on bacon fat, I had to put my hand in his mouth and pull it back up and he still remembers and talks about it now quite a few years on.

It males me sick thinking about it.
We had the old mantlepiece/ surround leaning against our bedroom wall for a few weeks before we sold it.
One day I left my 7 month old crawling around in there for a few minutes while I went to the loo or something.
I heard a huge thud and went in to find the baby grinning at me. The surround had fallen over and it occurred to me that it could have landed on his head and killed him.
We sold it the next day.

Oh, OP I can understand that you’re terrified after such a traumatic accident. But I do hope, you can in time feel less terrible about every slight mishap. Oh, how I used to hoik up my judgy pants way above my then non-childbearing hips about neglectful parents before becoming befuddled by complete lack of sleep! DH working away, no friends or family near by and losing track of how many nights without sleep, a lil stint at Guantanamo Bay would have felt like a spa holiday. I still shudder now but I recall shopping like on automatic pilot, wandering through aisles of the supermarket, drooling and grunting like a Zombie. I even forgot my own pin number. Trotted home in a daze, let myself into the house, plonked shopping bags down and then slowly a nagging sensation engulfed me that I might have forgotten something. Then, I let out a strangled scream and sprinted with a still unbeaten record back to the store. To this day, I still feel shaky with relief that pram and offspring were in exactly the same aisle. Sleeping blissfully. The what ifs are too terrifying to contemplate.

I fell down the stairs 22 weeks pregnant with Dd1. Drove myself to hospital was put on a monitor and was having fairly serious contractions. The consultant came to tell me how they wouldn't do anything to try to save her if she delivered at 22 weeks (18 years ago). Although they would try to stop the contractions.

The contractions stopped about an hour later. She was eventually delivered at 40 + 5. She will be 18 soon.

DS nearly hanged himself in soft play when he was five. A strip of canvas came loose on a bouncy castle slide, and somehow ended up round his neck when he went down it. He had a massive rope burn and bruising. They gave him a free bouncy ball

@JesusInTheCabbageVan That's horrifying!

I was babysitting at next door neighbor's house one evening and suddenly DS1 then aged only just 2 appeared in the room. DH was busy rocking an unsettled DS2 age 8 weeks and had no idea that DS1 who was supposed to be in bed had managed to unlock door and escape. He had fortunately gone to neighbour's house rather than wandered randomly down street. He could have been gone for a couple of hours before we noticed him missing otherwise.
And he had removed his PJ bottoms and nappy which neighbour's slightly older children found hilarious!

A near miss for DS(then 3) meant a trip to A&E for me!

Long story short, we were at a wedding and the registry office was in a main road (dual carriageway if I remember correctly). Stood chatting afterwards and DS slipped my hand and ran off towards the road, I set off after him (wearing 6 inch heels) ended up going flying and smashed my face off the road and DH who’d seen what was happening grabbed DS.

I ended up with a broken nose and 15 stitches in the side of my face and various other cuts and bruises.

Rather me though than DS!

The day before we moved house

Had emptied 6 ft bookcase

DS (6) pulled on it , and it fell on him

It landed so his head was in a ‘slot’ so he was unharmed

I saw the whole thing but couldn’t get there in time

Ds didn't crawl till 9 months. He went from basically stationary to very mobile incredibly quickly which I didn't realise. Turned my back on him for about 10 seconds and heard a crash and a scream. Found a very confused baby who had some how managed to get to the other side of the room and pull the ironing boar, which had been propped up againat the wall, all the way down. Fortunately it didn't hit him but it was a big wake up call!

Once whilst cooking after then 2 year old DD had gone to bed I was dishing up when something grabbed my leg, I jumped and spilt hot oil down my leg, narrowly missing covering DD, who was the something grabbing me.

DS(13) whilst camping decided he was going to have a go at chopping wood with the axe, DS has been taught to use an axe properly many times (by me, by my Dad and by his scout leaders) but clearly hadn't been listening to a word as he not only went and got the axe without permission but wandered over in his flip flops and held the log still with his foot. Axe split his flip fop right down to the post between his toes, fortunately stopping at the tiniest scratch to his big toe.

I opened a kitchen cupboard once and a can of tomatoes fell out which I managed to catch. DS was sat in a bouncy chair by the worktop and the tin would have landed on his head if I hadn't caught it. I never put his bouncy chair anywhere near the worktop again!

When I was about 10 I was walking along a busy high street with my Mum and younger brother. I was arguing with my younger brother which was quite unusual as we always got on well. He shoved me and I shoved him back very hard pushing him into the road. Mum managed to pull him back on to the pavement just before he got run over by a large lorry. I can still picture the wheels behind him now.

DS2 has had many near misses but the worst was on holiday, we were at beach with friends and their older children. I went to explore harbour wall with DS1 then age 5. Wall has vertical ladder bolted in which we carefully climbed then walked along rough, uneven top , about 6 feet wide with 15 ft drop to concrete harbour one side and 40 ft drop to crashing sea waves other side. Quite windy! Kept tight hold of hands and walked very carefully. At other end of wall we climbed cautiously down another vertical ladder, and, pleased with ourselves, turned to wave at DH and friends further back on the beach. They were waving back, and shouting something, but appeared a bit frantic. Then DH very uncharacteristically broke into a sprint and I realised something was very wrong.
DS2 age 3 had been playing with friends kids on beach, in plain sight but closer to me than DH. He decided to follow me and managed to climb up first vertical ladder and run along top of wall before I realised what was happening. I plonked DS1 down with back against wall and told him not to move and climbed up second ladder again, terrified, just to see a little pair of feet appear above me. I have never been so frightened.
We often return on holidays now and it is known as 'The Wall of Death'.

I dropped my DD down a ditch at the side of the road when she was 4 months old. Driving through France to visit my sister while suffering with morning sickness (yes morning sickness with a 4 month old). Had to stop the car to walk around and cool down. Tripped, she rolled out of my arms and down the ditch. Luckily, the patch at the bottom she fell to was grassy and mossy, but a couple of feet away there was a smashed bottle and a metal pipe that would/could have really hurt her.

My sister had to drive to meet us because I was a shaking, blubbering mess. There have been loads more honestly but I think I'm growing less sensitive to it now

While I was pregnant with my dd I accidently smashed a full length mirror I was about 8 1/2 months at time I cleaned it all up made sure there was no glass about 9 months later dd born crawling around as I look at her I notice she had something in her hand about to put in mouth I run to her and see its a very thin and long shard of glass I was horrified it must've got down the gab between the wall n carpet n not noticed it small hands n babies spot everything someone was defo watching over me that day she didn't have a scratch on her worst moment of my life

I think I remember you having a thread about your ds accident? It was a wall with invisible drop?

Be kind to yourself. As humans we risk assess but we are not fallible.

I've knocked my poor ds over more times than I care to remember he is like some ninja stealth spy and just appears (or rather isn't visible!) behind me.

When he was 2 he was running up and down like the Tasmanian devil on speed whilst I was in kitchen. I had hit pans and oven etc. No response the million times I tried to distract etc. I tried to grab him to remove him physically and was going to put in buggy. I didn't manage to get hold of him well, grabbed his t short and he fell flat on his face cutting his mouth open and damaging a tooth I then had to pin him down 2 years later to have removed. It then took 2.5 years for new tooth to come down.

I felt dreadful but have since managed to reason that a burn would have been far worse and probably been a far longer and possibly permanent injury.

Once when DS was a tiny baby and up v late cluster feeding I fell asleep and found him face down on my lap.

Twice we've had a misunderstanding about which way to walk round the car and DS has been on the wrong side just as a car came past.

Once DH and I both walked away thinking DS was with the other... oh and we were on a pier.

All ended well but the what ifs haunt me.

Wow. You lot make me feel slightly better about or many final destination moments. Lightning strikes above dd3 bed, falling trees, rolling down grass stopping just short of 'bushes' that turned out to be treetops at the bottom of the adjacent cliff, fell asleep on the tarmac in a car park empty space just lying on the floor, falling chest of drawers, and hair sucked into inlet of Jacuzzi pulling dd1's head under the water. Thank my lucky stars they are all OK.

DD (2YO) wandered out of the hall when we were packing up DS's party and no one noticed, she wandered out into the street towards the road and I only knew/noticed because the bouncy castle lady brought her in and told me where she'd been. I felt/still feel sick about it and can't believe I took my eye off the ball and assumed someone else was watching her. It haunts me that she could have been hit by a car or taken and I'd have had no idea.

Shortly after i had DD we were discussing co-sleeping & my MW told me that she fell asleep with her newborn DS one evening. She woke up really dazed & didn't recognise that it was her DS on her chest so she launched him away from her. Luckily he ended at the end of the bed unhurt. It made me feel better that even the professionals have OMG moments

My DS around 9 months at the time once somehow found the long thin red plastic freshness seal from a tub of cow and gate formula and decided to try and eat it. I hadn't noticed at all he didn't seem to be chewing anything or didn't even see him out anything near/in his mouth. We were going out, so I put him in car seat, strapped him in and drove to my mums to pick her up (around 10 Min journey) we then went to the supermarket (another approx 15 Min journey) my DS was babbling away in the car but then had fallen asleep on the first journey to my mums. When I woke him at the supermarket to get him out he moved his mouth a little and gave a tiny little splutter and this plastic seal just popped out from between his lips!!!

Then the what ifs hit me: what if he had swallowed it when he went to sleep? God it was awful. It was clearly just resting on his tongue and he fell asleep but it was heart stopping.

My DS has also rolled off the bed straight onto the floor on his back. Just lay there til I reacted then screamed for 2 mins!!

Youngest ds walked out of a book shop and disappeared. Shop faced busy road with many bus stops. Longest ten mins of my life. He reappeared happy as Larry with the two elderly ladies who had found him, I was on phone to police as were they. He also walked took off out of another shop while I was queuing and I stepped off the kerb behind a reversing car with his older brother (7 at time) watching frozen with fear. Still makes me nauseas.

Found dd2 who was about 18 months, after one of those ‘it’s too quiet’ moments, sitting in a pool of olive oil surrounded by the broken glass bottle.

I feel a bit sick reading some of these!
We bought a tall shoe cabinet, and for some stupid reason it wasn’t immeadiately secured to the wall. The cabinet was right next to a door. I just so happened to be coming through the door when I heard DS1 pulling the cabinet down. I managed to stick my hand around the door and steady before it fell on to DS. If it had fallen to the floor it would have blocked the doorway as well, so I would have been trapped in another room and unable to help DS. Can’t believe we didn’t secure it to the wall straight away.

Biggest one happened this week. Had taken DS to an outside retail park to get some new shoes. It was in the awful wind we've had this week, I'd put the brakes on his buggy whilst I opened the car up and popped bags in the boot but the brakes weren't enough and he was literally sent flying across the car park. Don't think I've ever ran so fast in my life. DS's response? "More mummy! So windy!". Seems like he enjoyed it a lot more than I did.

Twice I've got home and found DS not strapped in to his car seat. He's a bit of a daredevil and regularly causes me near heart attacks at some point in the day.