Just back from A&E please come and tell me i'm not the worlds shittest mother, cos I feel like I am :(

[davidtennantsmistress]

ok, morning started really crappy - DS ran off from me so I ran after him picked him up then tripped and fell, dropping DS in the process and he banged his head on the concrete outside the door I banged me knee so hard it's all grazed and still hurts now. he was crying for a bit.

day went ok apart from that - got him his birthday stuff for next week, went to see some family and had a lovely time catching up - then I was outside putting his car seat in my car, he was running in mum and dad's hall way, tripped over, banged his head on their front door, smashed all of the glass which more or less shattered, he screamed, I ran in, mum screamed dad was trying to see what had happened.

I sat down wiht him and seemed to be ok - very little cut on the hair line but nothing in the way of glass etc, then an egg shaped came up between his eyes, so we rushed him to A&E, when a cut by his eye also came up (no idea why it took longer).

got messed about by an edgit in reception - who was clearly following their procedures - but me ebing PFB mother was getting anti. felt totally crap the whole time, DS is fully alert and happy, but then again I didn't medicate him - so he was prob in a lot of pain but as he wasn't crying I didn't give him calpol

just feel like total shite, that he has had such a bang today and I dropped him. has anyone else had anything remotely similar? I was expecting the dr in A&E to say sorry mrs DTM, but we think you're deliberatly hurting your son and you're a shite mother

and to cap it all off, we went up there at 5 pm, he had no coat on or shoes - can I get any worse - jsut rushed him up there!

I let DS into the kitchen with me when he was just over a year old. I took my eye off him for not even a minute and he reached into the spice rack and managed to find a small tea glass that I'd pushed right to the back where I thought he couldn't reach it. The glass smashed, cue screaming DS, cut finger, trip to A&E etc....I felt really shit as I'm deaf and didn't hear the glass clinking as he pulled it out, so I totally blamed myself and being deaf for it - was actually hysterical....

You are in good company m'dear and no, you aren't a shite mum

I think they hand out the guilt as you go through the door to A&E. You always end up feeling shite and thinking SS will be after you.

Try not to be so hard on yourself. It was an accident. I hope you and ds are feeling better soon. xxx

oh you poor soul
I remember once when I had to go to A&E and there were 3 separate toddlers with huge eggs on their foreheads. It seems to be a toddler trademark - certainly nothing to do with your parenting skills!

Once dd fell over shortly after she had learned to walk. It was her first attempt at running and she did it in a touristy cave. She tripped - I heard the cave echo with the sound of her head hitting the floor. Then the screams came, magnified and echoing. People must have thought there had been an attempted slaughter!

I reckon you deserve a good glass of wine to soothe your nerves.

Message withdrawn

I've dropped DS2 out of a car seat onto a pavement (not strapped in), dropped different DS1 onto grass (but he was only 2 weeks old), not noticed when a DD picked up a kitchen knife and decided to help me cut carrots (stitches in the hand), I've not noticed when DS3 sprayed kitchen cleaner with bleach into his eyes (now that's a way to get seen quickly at A&E ) - oh and once DD and I were swinging DS2 by his hands and I let go and he swung into a wall. The list could go on.
But I'm not a shite mum (OK, not most of the time) and neither are you - you can't watch him every second, accidents will always happen and he's learning to assess risks as he grows up.

have had a strong brew, but yes think the wine will be out in a minute.

I honestly did feel they'd be telling me I couldn't take my son home - the receptionist said

'we'll just call up his hospital records' I was mortified and promptly told him it was our first time there - do I look like the sort of mother who hurts their child - least that's how it felt - i'm sure it's just standard procedure. he's asleep now, after being dosed up.

(((hugs)) choos - it's horrid isn't it.

See how fast your DS recovers, then you may feel better once you can see he's ok.

Now you know the route to A and E that will be good knowledge for the future, so you have some experienced mother stripes now.

Look after your own sore knee too, I bet you didn't mention it to the docs.

has - oh I shouldn't laugh but lol. some of those - how do you cope with your nerves? i'm not normally a fussy mummy at all, think it's more the fact that I was out of the house when it happened and the fact i'd dropped him this morning (althou that was an accident and I missed my footing on the pavement)

no didn't mil - didn't even wash it down (yes it's all bloody etc gonna have a lovely bruise there as well) as long as boy is OK then I am ok.

well it's been an experince that's for sure - not one i'm keen to repeat thou any time soon.

I was in a state as well - sobbing to DH that they would think I was an unfit mother as didn't hear the glass chinking etc and then ring social....thankfully they were very nice and just handed me a box of tissues. DH did the explaining while I snivelled away!! Fat lot of good I was in a crisis....

It is a standard procedure to get existing notes for any patient - don't want to be giving them anything they're documented to be allergic to etc.

When I dropped dd1 (well tripped and fell whilst holding her and she banged her head on a chair) - I was in such state by the time I got to A&E all the receptionist said was'what can we do for you' and I burst into uncontrollable tears. dd1 was fine and played happily whilst the staff mopped me up!

we had to take ds1 to a&e when he was 9 months adter banging his head on the cot side and had a massive egg on his forehead, then when he was about 2.5 years he pulled the stairgate down (it was a crap one that wedges between walls) and fell down the stairs. they gave me a letter telling me that they would pass his notes on to the hv ans she woulc come round to check up on him. i lived in fear for months that she was going to come round and take him away, but i later found out it was a standard letter, and the hv only comes round if she was genuinely worried. so she obvioulsy wasnt.

ds2 has fell over and cut him slef on a bit of pyrex jug that i had missed when the bowl smashed. has fell off the chair (several times as keeps climbing up and i dont get to him in time) so im bideing my time before i end up taking him to a&e also.

im a radiographer and see lots of children who's parnets just pick them up and rush them in. i saw a little girl last week in just a tshirt and knickers, poor little girl she was about 7 so must have been a little embarressed!!

lol. not yet lap - i've got my voucher thou and mum keeps telling me to go - it just seems a shame to waste it and not use it during the day then get whisked off out on a night (but i'm working on that bit! lol)

feeling bit better today - DS was up once in the night has been dosed again today - and I think we're going to have one of those days today, already everythings the end of the world, (apart from him eating coco pops - serious bad mummy alert! - shows you how bad I| feel as he NEVER has them - those are mine lol)

thanks for the reassurance last night. best go he's currently shouting 'mumma boon' at me to get the last dregs from the bowl! lol.

Don't be too hard on yourself-I think sooner or later most parents end up at A&E! Accidents will happen- unless you wrap your DCs in cottonwool and don't let them take risks. The one that I felt worst about was when eldest DS was about 2, I was mowing the lawn and he was playing (well away from the lawn mower). He was so far away from it that when he started screaming I didn't connect it with cutting the grass. The lawnmower had hit a stone flint and shot it across the garden hitting him on the face-luckily above the eye.He had to have stitches. With 3 DSs we have had several visits over the years.

We were having renovation work done to the house and because we didn't have electric we had a long cable running the length of the house from the generator. DD (6yo) ran down the hall tripped on it and flipped in mid air to smash her back against the corner of the wall. We called the ambulance and found inhospital that she had fractured her spine. She became a qualified life guard last year.

I actually don't have any real sympathy with your sack cloth and ashes approach, all children will end up in A & E at one time or another. You would have had my sympathy if he had a fractured skull, or if was suffering from cancer etc. but to come on here ecpecting lavish sympathy for a couple of bumps is a bit pathetic.

I think it can be a huge shock when you first have to go to A&E with your child.
I rang NHS direct when DD fell off the bed when she was about 5 months old. As she'd thrown up twice they told me I must "take her to A&E immediately, if she stops breathing, pull over and call for an ambulance".
I was terrified from that line, the hospital were nice enough but I was scared they'd say I couldn't take her home. We had a follow up from the HV afterwards to check if "was just an accident" so it was a pretty stressful experience at the time.
Of course, I look back at it now thinking "blimming heck, she only fell a small distance off the bed onto bloody chipboard flooring" but it can take a while to get to that point!
It didn't help that DD rolled off the changing table a few weeks later, luckily DH caught her by her thigh (which then was bruised with his finger marks) which made him really shaky for ages - now he just grins and says "I caught her, didn't I?"

oh dtm, its horrid isnt it.

i've had two accidents with ds just recently.
The first one he nose dived off the sofa but at the time he was between me and dh. It was like slow motion when it happened but neither dh or i could get to him in time. Admittedly i was expressing ds2 but it still doesnt make you feel any better.
The second he hit the floor i just thought, he's cracked his head open. Luckily he hadn't but dh watched this golf ball size lump just grow and grow on his head.
I cried for ages afterwards.

The second was when i was changing his nappy. As i was pulling it up he lent forward and instead of me holding him up i just let him belly flop resulting in a ni\ce indentation from the skirting.
Again you could see it go in and come back out into a lump.

Horrid.

Oh and he's also managed to launch himself out of his pushchair when he was younger. We'd just done some shopping and there was some tins on the floor.
He landed head first onto them then the tiles.

And actually this week he's managed to pull our shoe cuboard on top of himself, causing yet another lump.

Your really not on your own

dl - well I tell you what then after every thing i've been thru over the last year when you've been thru it come back here and tell me you're not bloody bothered - i'm not asking for lavish sympathy never did, only that I wasn't the only mum to have gone thru the same thing. ffs but seriosuly back off. if my child had had a fractured skull the very last thing i'd be doing is coming on the internet to tell a load of random women (no offence to the rest of you) about it. i'd be beside myself at his bed side.

he's now sleeping soundly (put him down a little earlier than normal but seems to be bright enough)

DTM, I hope you've had time to calm down now!

Many parents have been there. Most, I think!

FWIW I think it might re-assure you to know that often, not always, but often, it is easy to distinguish between accidental injury and that which is non accidental. There are normal sites for injury....foreheads, noses, back of head, - in fact all the places that people have mentioned on here.

Alarm bells with practitioners CAN start ringing if the injury is to an area that isn't naturally one you fall on like say, a bruise to the tummy or neck, that sort of thing. Even then of course there can be and are many normal explanations for all injuries even on those sites, so no-one should feel worried when they go to A and E. No-one jumps to conclusions and as I say all of those injuries here are in 'normal' injury sites

Any child who doesn't end up in a+e at some point is vvvvv lucky! You are not a shite mum.

I can sort of see dl's point - i know you aren't looking for lavish sympathy, but many children end up with more serious injuries than bumped heads (my ds included). but as it was the first time and you felt like it was your fault i can see why you feel so guilty and need MN reassurance!

Glad he's ok today btw