To ask your biggest parenting fails to make me feel better about mine today

[GlummyMcGlummerson]

I feel so guilty I could vomit. I’ve been sobbing all day (I know, I need to get a grip).

Taking DS (2) to nursery, as usual I put my handbag on the passenger seat of my car (which has the keyless entry and a stop/start button rather than an ignition) then strapped him in behind the passenger seat. Then, as usual, shut his door to walk round to the drivers’ side. This has never been an issue - it’s easier than keeping hold of my key in my hand while I strap a wriggling toddler into a car seat - but today for some reason the car locked itself. Long story short, the fire brigade had to come out and smash a window. DS has been in the car for about 20 minutes at his point and was seriously distressed. He’s fine now, but I’m a mess. I wouldn’t usually call emergency service BTW I did initially call the AA but they said up to 60 minutes and they couldn’t get hold of the nearest mechanic. There’s no way I was letting him stay there for so long.

I told my mum and she was horrified, told me to expect social services on my doorstep ready to take him away in the meantime I have ordered a spare key (at £235, thank god for Christmas bonus) and a new car window comes Friday (Merry arsing Christmas to me)

In the vain hope of me feeling less shit please regale me with anything similar you’ve done, please say it’s not just me!

I rarely post here but feel I must admit my awful parenting fail

I shut the car door on my 3 year old's fingers - she was messing about and it was the only window bit but I still feel terrible about it (22 years later).

I won't say don't beat yourself up because you will. But it happens to allof us.

OP do you have a ford? This happened to me, but luckily I had only put stuff on the passenger seat and not my child, she sits on the same side as me, so hadn't got that far!

Had to find a passer by a 6.30 am to call my mum to come and help! Ever since then I put my keys on the roof (car won't start without them physically inside so no risk of driving off)

Not me but my ex SIL. She went in her porch to get shoes and her toddler pushed the door behind her and locked her in it. Fortunately she had a mobile in her pocket to call her parents who then drove the 10 miles with spare keys.

I can't fess up to my worst... would take me too long to choose what IS my worst.

Here's a corker: we (family) were walking in the desert (established path). I told DSs they could run ahead...

By the time we realised they were totally lost, It was getting dark & we were in mountain lion & coyote country. If they went the wrong way they could have run miles from any settlement. The rangers found the boys about 20 minutes before sunset.

Do you phone 999 for the fire brigade when this happens? Only I’m not entirely sure how you summon a fire engine without calling 999 google the fire station??

Strapped DS1 into his infant carrier, carried it to car. Placed on back seat. Drove away. Thankfully stopped at local shop and realised before driving any further.

Gave ds2 aged 2, Calpol in the dark. Only realised it wasn't Calpol but ibuprofen, when he said "what flavour is it mummy?" In a disgusted voice. So he had 3 x the dose.

An older child fail...facts of life chat..periods and i said the lining and ehh shed...she was quite ...looked at me and asked if it hurt. I said.my periods didnt but everyone is unique......"no mammy the egg coming out" ...she thought it was a hens egg.
I wanted a do over so badly

This happened to me a few months ago and my spare key had no battery!!! Luckily enough I managed find one an open the car but still... It was an accident, don't know why on earth your mum said what she did!!!

Just go have a bath atLeast he was safe and you've got a spare key on the way to prevent these happening ! Xxx

No ones coming to take your baby away. honest mistake and you got help as fast as you possibly could!!!! You’re not a horrible parent and the fact that you’re beating yourself up so much about it shows how much you care, horrible parents don’t do that. I’ve had social services involved in my child’s life, due to me being attacked in front of him and I thought they were coming to take my baby too! And all they actually said was “you’re doing everything you can to get out of the situation.” So leaning on that as advice, you did everything you could to get your child out of the car please don’t worry ❤️

1. My son was about 14 months when I popped outside to grab the washing off the line. He managed to turn the keys in the French windows and lock me out. I totally freaked out, grabbed a brick, smashed the window and had to climb through loads of broken glass to get to him. 2)Dropped my perfect newborn on our first night home while sleepily breast feeding, very luckily he landed softly straight in his moses basket.
2. Son was naked apart from a nappy in hospital with tonsilitis, husband handed me a cup of tea, U took a sip which was too hot amd promptly dribbled it all over my ill son.
3. Ignored a broken finger for a week thinking he was being over dramatic. I'm a total knob.

when DS was around 1 year old we lived in our old house which was literally like a hobbit home the ceilings were sooo low hence so were the light fittings I was flying DS round like a plane.. threw him up into the air smacked his head straight into the light fitting! I still feel horrendous about it and think god what if I got the spike in the middle of the chandelier and not the blunt curved bit

You Mum sounds like a knobber, what an awful thing to say to you.

DH grabbed DDs arm to stop her running into the road once, and in the process dislocated her elbow. It was awful.

I went to the bathroom and left my three month old in his bouncy chair, heard him crying but I finished my business and walked into the living room to him lying face down on the floor screaming his head off.
No idea how I did it and was panicking in a&e that they'd take him away. They haven't it was an accident and everyone I know has left their baby unattended in a bouncy seat.
He was absolutely fine but I was a wreck for a week and now can't relax doing a number 2 unless my husbands home to make sure my son doesn't get up to anything mischievous.
And that bouncy chair got sent back because it was faulty.

*how he did it not me.

Also accidentally tripped my nephew up and gave him a black eye.

Your a super star. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise! Your mum is being an arse!

Swimming with two year old and not quite one year old at Center Parcs, me, my husband and my parents in attendance. 2:1 ratio, all good - until all four of us are distracted by the baby being cute and I turn back to the eldest to see him face down and still in the water. I grabbed him immediately and he was absolutely fine, I don't think it had even registered with him. But it really brought home to me how quickly things can go wrong - that was a crowded pool, with four adults in attendance and he still went underwater without us noticing.

Which is to say, we all lapse occasionally and most of us are lucky enough to get away with it. You're doing a grand job and did absolutely the right thing.

Similar thing happened to my youngest sister who was about 3 at the time, it was back when the little button on the drivers side door locked all the doors of you pushed it down....which obviously she did!!! Spent a good 20 mins trying from outside the car to convince her to pull the little button back up.....which obviously she didn't 😂 so had to smash the window!!

She's well into her 20's now and that story occasionally comes out and we all laugh about it!! So don't worry he won't be scarred for life

I've done quite a few of these my kids are now 12 and 14 and still trust me AFAIK!!

One year we had loads of snow. I pushed my son down a slope on a sledge in the local country park and after I let go it veered into a tree and all the snow fell off the branches and on to his head!! We all thought it was hilarious and all the kids were trying to re-enact the fail !! 😂

Pfffffft and your mum is a proper bumeyes!

I am still here and yet..

My mum lost me on a beach in france, I was 4, and stark naked. Her reaction to being unable to find smol naked child was to go with my dad and sister to a crepery above the beach that gave her a good view across the sand and wait as the beach cleared of people, to spot the wailing abandoned child.

My response to was to scream and yabber at people 'ou est maman' (my french is little better now!)

She slammed my thumb in the back door of our Renault Espace... she was outside, I was in it and the rear doors had child locks on... I got told to stick it in my mouth and suck it til it stopped bleeding.

She left me in her Renault 4 outside the shops, car on a very slight slope - I climbed out of the back seat into the front and knocked off the handbrake and the car started to roll.... she came out of the shops screaaaaaaaaaming. I got a smacked bum.

In a cave..... she told me to jump down a small waterfall and land on her steel toecapped booted foot which was placed on a submerged rock, so that I didn't go plunging into the pool beneath.. trust me, I'll catch you..

I did. She didn't, that plunge pool was about 30ft deep, I thought I was never going to surface.

I failed to learn from that lesson about parents acting as stepping stones and promising they will catch me and a few years later fell in a river in wales in similar circumstances onlyt hat time I had no spare clothes so spent the rest of the afternoon wearing nothing but my waterproof overtrousers and kagoule, and being shouted at to KEEP MOVING...

These are all the very tip of the iceberg, kids are very resiliant, accidents do happen (less so if you avoid the extreme sports!) and I did eventually learn NOT to trust people who say 'yeah ill catch you'....

Oh man. I locked my baby in my car when she was 3 months old. It happens. Unfortunately, my phone was in the car too. Luckily (?) I was visiting my work so I ran to my office, had my manager and colleagues on the phone to the RAC who arrived in record time. DD slept through the whole thing while I wanted to be swallowed up by the ground. Oddly the RAC guy - who sprinted across the carpark, not all hero's wear capes - had come to fix the car the other week when the battery died. I must have looked like I locked her in the car all time when I squealed his name!