To ask for your terrible parenting stories

[Spanglebangle]

DS just fell down the stairs. I just took the dinner plates into the kitchen. One minute he was watching TV the next I come back from the kitchen and there's a thud and a scream. He's fine a bump on the head but cheered up after a few minutes and was his usual self, I spent longer crying than he did! He wasn't more than one or two steps up I just feel like complete shit this evening.

So please show me I'm not tho only 'bad mummy' with your stories.

As a child, I was left behind on buses, trains, supermarkets, friends houses, the zoo, the pet shop, play ground, church, garden centre, and one funeral parlor. Those are just the ones I either remember or have been told about. We had a big family and I was quiet and had a habit of wandering off.

When I was older, this continued onto school trips. I was left at one arboretum, a sewage treatment plant, the Queen Street Mill Textile Museum and a service station on the M6.

By that point, it was much safer to get lost as my mum had attached an "If found, please return to..." dog tag to my coat with our phone number, address and my school on it. I think it was meant to be a bit of a joke but it was used several times.

@LegoPoliceman

As a child, I was left behind on buses, trains, supermarkets, friends houses, the zoo, the pet shop, play ground, church, garden centre, and one funeral parlor. Those are just the ones I either remember or have been told about. We had a big family and I was quiet and had a habit of wandering off.

When I was older, this continued onto school trips. I was left at one arboretum, a sewage treatment plant, the Queen Street Mill Textile Museum and a service station on the M6.

By that point, it was much safer to get lost as my mum had attached an "If found, please return to..." dog tag to my coat with our phone number, address and my school on it. I think it was meant to be a bit of a joke but it was used several times.

Either you're invisible or a lot of people really don't like you

I don't think (well I hope not anyway) that it's that. But I had seven siblings and quite absent minded parents. Why it happened with schools I don't know.

I left a wine glass on the side in reach of my son and he swiped it off and it smashed all around him. Luckily he didn't get cut.

He fell out his highchair when he was 7 months old because I didn't click the tray in correctly

This one is no fault of my own but he ran full pelt into the corner of the bannister and split his head. I now have padding on that corner!!!!

@GreyhoundG1rl that reads quite unkindly

[quote TaraR2020]@GreyhoundG1rl that reads quite unkindly[/quote]
It probably does. Apologies, LegoPoliceman
It's an odd problem to have, though...

When dd was about 6 she bit me in a rage (adhd and austim) I moved my arm to get away and pulled her tooth out. Made her rage even more. Felt so bad.

Eldest child-i snipped part of her toe off when I was cutting her nails. I was only 18 and very very nervous as a mum. I sat and cried for ages. Never cut her nails with clippers again.
Middle child fell down the stairs top to bottom when i forgot to shut stairgate.

Youngest child ate dry dog food whilst I was trying to wraggle middle child, dog and deal with the postman at the same time.

Middle child bounced on her bed, fell off and cut her forehead on the chest of drawers. 6 months later the youngest did exactly the same. I had been saying for months that I needed to buy corner protectors for it.

Just at the start of big lock down Middle child kept running in the house. She ran past the kitchen door just as dad came out of kitchen with freshly made cup of tea. We ended up in a&e and then transferred to a burn unit 2 counties over. She had the front part of her hair shaved off and had a mullet through lockdown. Thankfully no scaring but none of the kids have learnt their lesson and still bloody run in the house.

@ChateauMargaux I'm sorry to hear that.
It must be a very difficult and painful subject for you.

When DS1 was about 2 1/2 I was getting him out of his car seat and I stumbled. He went head first into the edge of a brick wall and hit his forehead open. Blood everywhere. We had to take him to A&E as the cut went right through to bone. He's still got the scar now but doesn't remember a thing. I will never forget it as long as I live.

This makes me horrified to think about. My husband, me, toddler daughter and baby son arrived at a busy beach after a 2 hour frazzled car journey and started to unpack our things. I needed to get us all some lunch as for some reason I didn’t bring any with us. I told my husband I was going to the cafe nearby to pick up some snacks and left him to look after the children. Unfortunately there was a huge queue at the cafe and I was waiting there for quite a while when my husband rang me to tell me he had just seen a little girl who looked just like our daughter playing on her own in the sea. He then looked more closely and saw it actually was our daughter! She was waist deep on her own in the sea aged 2. He thought I had taken her with me and I thought he was looking after her. She is now 16 and still alive xx

So many accidents happen that way, two people each thinking the other is looking after the child. It's terrifying.

The ones that stand out for me:

1. had DS in the sling as a baby (maybe 6 months?) thought I was super mum, collecting an item, declined an offer of help from the person I was buying from, promptly went flying, and banged DS’s head off a fence!

2. let DS walk down the stairs on his own, he tripped off the last step and smacked his head off the baby gate that’s on the living room door! It was the part screwed to the wall and he had a huge lump on his head, I was hysterical. 12 months later he did the exact same thing so I’ve ditched the gate!

3. when DS was again 6 months or so, he rolled all the way into the kitchen and upended the cat water bowl - he was splashing in it and licking the floor laughing his head off!

There have also been incidents with cat food, cat biscuits and cat litter, so all cat related stuff is well out the way now!

My sister ate a huge pick and mix container of lollies (like 1kg worth) in a morning then had a terrible tummy ache and was really really unwell that afternoon.
Mum wasn’t particularly sympathetic (she was a nurse) as she ate so many sweets.
Turns out my sisters appendix was about to burst and she had to rush her to hospital in the middle of the night.

when DS was again 6 months or so, he rolled all the way into the kitchen and upended the cat water bowl - he was splashing in it and licking the floor laughing his head off!
Haha, I love this 😂😂😂

Ds1 once got stuck in the cat flap. I’d gone to the loo, leaving him safely downstairs (or so I thought) - he only had access to the hall, dining room and kitchen, and it was all child proofed.

From the loo, I could hear a child crying outside - but I was sure it couldn’t be ds1. I was wrong. He had crawled into the kitchen and tried to get out through the cat flap, and was stuck - his feet weren’t touching the floor any more, and there was nothing for him to grab to pull himself out, so there he was.

I had to open the door, very carefully, and then deliver him into the garden!

I was once washing up and my DD about 1 at the time was playing around in the low down kitchen cupboards. She picked up a glass mixing bowl and dropped it on her foot. It smashed. It cut her toe. That is very tame compared to my son who was into everything. Apart from the time he got into the fridge and egged my kitchen...somehow he once managed to open the forbidden cupboard which did have child locks on. He emptied washing powder all over the floor and somehow managed to open the child safety bleach! Rolled around in it. I put him straight in the bath. He was seemingly fine but I had a proper heart attack. I turned by back for 5 minutes! It is amazing the distraction a child can do in such a short space of time. He is now 12 and no harm done.

I have 4 kids so when they were all little things were chaotic. my ds3 fell from the top of the stairs to the bottom when the older boys left the top stairgate open. DD when she was about 3, climbed into the bathroom sink and somehow managed to get hold of a calpol bottle on the highest shelf and undo the child lock so had to go to A & E and have Paracetamol levels done. Ds2 was toddling at the side of me when he was about two and a half and almost got run over by a woman reversing who I had watched park and leave the car but must have returned really quickly and I'd taken my eye off my son for a split second. It was only when a lorry driver opposite saw the nightmare unfurling and beeped his horn solidly, and I turned and saw the reversing lights on and grabbed him. Scary stuff. They are all teens/ young adults now, but these things happen when you are distracted for a split second.

I managed to give mine three disabilities, one potential to pass on a disability to a granddaughter and three medical conditions between them...

...Fucking genetics.

Dd2 was obsessed with eating felt tipped pens when she was 18 months.
We used to have to hide her sisters from her and watch her like a hawk.

I was tidying the kitchen and though she was playing quietly with her back to me but what she was actually doing was sucking the shit out of a navy blue felt.
She turned around and smiled and I saw the navy teeth, lips, chin, neck, navy drools down the front of her shirt.

The pen was non toxic but that whole wash off claim was bullshit it took about a week till her face was less smurffy and honestly she shat navy for about 3 days.

I have too many to count. A couple of recent ones,

Outside gardening and haven't seen 3yo DS3 for a while. Popped inside to look for him, he'd run his own bath and got in. Luckily he didn't burn himself or drown. When I asked why he just did he felt like having a bath.

Let 8yo Ds1 stay up a bit later the other night, myself DH and DS1 caught in an epic uno battle. DH and I having a discussion about rules when DS says ooo mum your pop is really yummy, looked round and he'd downed a third of a pint of passionfruit cider.

I had 4 children under the age of 5...
Coming home from hospital with no 3, (7 hours old) we popped into Tesco. DH had no 1 and 2 in a double trolley. I had brand new no 3 in her car seat in another trolley.
I promptly left her in the nappies isle and wandered off!! Came back when Dh appeared and found a gaggle of shop assistants cooing over her!

Dislocated DD2's elbow swinging her between us. Dislocated it again on New Years Eve at a party. Dislocated again.. Paed taught us how to put it back (later diagnosed with EDS)

DH threw 7 month old DS1 in the air... and forgot to catch him...

DD1 (18m) managed to split the huge beanbag and had a mouthful of polystyrene balls when I spotted her (call to poisons department!)

DS1 aged 4 managed to open the car door while doing 60mph.. no idea why the child lock wasn't working but that was terrifying

I tipped DS1 out of his pushchair going down steps having failed to strap him in.

There are many more. Amazingly they all have made it to adulthood with no stitches or broken bones until this year!!! (DS1 managed to break his foot in a soft play room at work and then broke his arm and elbow at a skate park... he's 28!!)

I was cooking and we had an electric hob. Took my eye off DD who was 3 at the time and she put her fingers flat on it burning the underside of her fingers on one hand. She was hysterical as was I, felt terrible for weeks. She was fine but it was not my finest parenting moment.

Same pen eater Dd loved the swings at the park but always threw herself forward a random times so she’d swing upside down for a few swings before slithering through the chain swing closing to flop onto the ground and get a wallop on the back of the head from the still moving swing laughing the whole time. (She’s got this almost sobbing giggly laugh)
Cue horror of other parents in the park worse if I was off saving her older sister from her climbing adventures.

She did it every bloody time for about 2 years. She’s now 4 and still occasionally does it.
I asked her why and she grinned and said she likes it. Bloody weirdo.

I had my son in a baby chair on the dining table he liked to be on eye level while I lunch. He waznt strapped in as id never knows him able to move but he extended his body up and out of the seat while id not been watching. I heard him cry he fell off the table snd neatly into a full washing basket. Never agiain!