How can I tell if my toddler has broken his toe?

[IlanaK]

My 15 month old pulled an extremely heavy speaker off a shelf and onto his foot today. His big toe swelled up and looked quite bad. Once he was calm, I pressed on it and moved it around and he did not scream, though it was obviously uncomfortable. This happened about 2 and a half hours ago and I just checked it again before putting him to bed and it is still swollen and red. And it feels hard across the middle where I think it took the full brunt of the speaker.

So, how can I tell if it is broken and do I need to do anything about it?

Oh poor lamb

However AFAIK they do nothing about broken toes anyway, they just have to heal themselves. If it is painful i would rub in some arnica and maybe give him some ibuprofen

get it xrayed?

If he can bend it and walk on it then it's probably ok - having hair line fractured my big toe, neither were possible! Elevating the foot, ice compress & ibuprofen will all reduce the swelling.

Ok, he can definately walk on it so it must be just badly bruised.

Thanks.

Btw, they did nothing to it, had to heal itself, and I did end up wearing DMs for about 8m afterwards!