What's your WORST parenting mistake?

[Convergent]

Just that, really! I have an 11 month old, and I constantly feel like I'm f*cking up one way or the other, so please 'fess up to your sins for the greater good and enlightenment of us poor beginners...

I was always telling my ds (4 at the time) off for ignoring me.
Turns out he was almost totally deaf as a result of glue ear, and had just got used to lip-reading!
He is fine now!

I left a bottle of Malibu and coke on the table minus the lid (I'd lost it). Told my partner not to let DD near it and went out. Got home and she'd drank some . We both fucked up there! Thankfully she was fine. We both learnt a good lesson there though, and have had no major fuck ups since.

DH once elbowed DD2 in the face when she was about 18 months, her nose started bleeding and she was crying so he picked her up to give her a cuddle and say sorry and cracked her head on the door frame. Cue even more crying.

I shout once a month. I'm working on the pmt. I try and play things down. Right now dd is asleep on the settee and I'm trying to work out whether the temperature and shivers are 1) too much sun
2) flu
3) something I need to take her to the doctors for

I feel like the worst mum in the world not knowing what's wrong. She's a tough little one and is hardly ever ill. I'm watching her breath to check she's breathing properly and it's not shallow.

One regret I have is not giving DD1 a dummy when she was a baby. I wish I hadn't listened to people saying how horrible they looked. Instead we listened to hours and hours of crying every night.

Oh, and once I didn't fasten ds (now 4yrs) into the pushchair at 24 months, just put him in there as he had been walking, swung the pushchair round in the supermarket to go up an aisle and he fell out!

Leaving dd one in the care of her dopey dad.

I went into a doctor appointment whilst he waiting in the van with her. For some daft reason he decide to take her out of her car seat and sit her in the passenger seat whilst he had a smoke stood beside her. She was eight months old and very active. Of course she fell out of the van and fractured her skull. Literally moments before I came out of the doctors. I hit the roof. I say it's my worst parenting mistake because I should have known better than to leave her with him as he was really pretty clueless. Thankfully despite her fracture she was okay but she fell about three foot onto concrete.

Mine are teenagers. I can't even count the number of times I have screwed up.

In fact, I'm not even going to try. I didn't break them and that's good enough for me.

Any major upbringing cock up is their future therapist's problem.

eatshit

You always make me laugh!! :o

The worst mistake I make is thinking I can trust dd2 for five mins! You would think Dora the explore would be enough to keep her happy while I sort washing? Come down to soaked kitchen floor

Being far too laissez faire with certain rules, like tidying up, when they were teeny. It's really hard to get a reluctant 6 year old to clear up a massive pile of Playmobil!

Also, I pandered to my children's food fussiness too… the ridiculous list of things they will and won't eat is getting longer by the day. I should have said they eat what is on their plate or get nothing from day one, but I was just too soft, or couldn't see how it was right to send a toddler to bed with no proper tea. I'm sure there's a way to do it properly, without starving them and without being too soft that you end up cooking separate meals for everyone, I'm yet to find it though.

cluffy we used to constantly moan at dss for being clumsy and not looking where he was going, and it turns out he could hardly see out of one eye .

After wearing a patch, and regular changes to his glasses he is almost completely fine now.

It was all of us btw, his dm, my dp, me, his dgm and dgf, I wasn't just some awful sm constantly screeching 'look where you're going'.

My worst was completely my fault, DD fell out of a trolley when she was 8mo. She was a Velcro baby and hated being put down. I was trying to do a big shop with both DC (DS would have been 2.4) so was very stressed, DD had cried every time I put her down in the baby seat (the reclined one, they didn't have a trolley with two toddler seats free), so was having to pick her up all the time. It was quite busy, so when the conveyor belt became free, I popped DD back in the seat and in my rush to get stuff on the belt, I forgot to do her straps up She fell out, it must be about 4 feet onto the supermarket floor. She was absolutely fine, got checked out at A&E, and I have been berating myself ever since She's 2.9 now and no ill effects, no thanks to me!
So that is my parenting lesson, ALWAYS DO THE STRAPS UP!!

Not finishing DD on the bottle by 18 months. Three fecking years old and still she has half a watery bottle at bed time. So over it, so over the tantrums.

Next kid is off them by 18 months, no ifs ands or buts.

Ah, Thomaslynn, my trick is to let them get to 2yrs then wait until they have a bad cold or flu, take milk off them and given them water just never give it back.

I meant their bedtime bottle, not milk in general.

Leaving soft play ( Heathrow) to get on a flight put 6 month old ds in his pram and turned around to check the gate - head first onto the floor nice lovely green bruise and very hysterical baby who I still had ro shove in the pram so I could get going. He seems fine though.

Haha Derek making me feel so much more normal. I'm struggling to remember or count my mistakes too.

Threw a snowball at eldest when he was 4 and smacked him right in the eye (cue big shiner and questions at nursery how he got it - mummy did it).

Sent him and his sister home in the rain to get a change of clothes and a coat (I don't normally lock my back door) only to go looking for them because they were taking ages and finding them shivering soaked through in the close because it was locked and they couldn't get in.

Putting DS2 out in the paddock not realising a one of the geese had decided to visit and it took me a good few minutes to go out when he was screaming pinned to the floor by the goose.

Crimped DD1s hair along with the tip of her ear in the crimpers before a wedding and shouted at her to shut up and stop being stupid when she was telling me I was hurting her.

Not letting DD and DS have dummies; now both of them are still constantly sucking their thumbs at the ages of 5 and 7 and DD will need orthodontic treatment when older because of it.

Not sticking to a routinely timed daytime nap. Didn't do this with all 3 and have the same problem now with DS2 in that he can last nearly all day with a nap until 5pm...cue a really grumpy toddler or one who naps for 5 minutes then is awake until 11pm!

My parenting fail was spoiling and giving into dd to much when she was a toddler turned her into a spoilt brat who had constant tantrums for about 10 months.

Shes grown out of it now thank god (so have I :) )

Dealing with bullying. I really have no idea what I am meant to do.

dh and i jointly dislocated our sons elbow when he was two.

Forgot to strap DD into her pushchair aged 11 months. She fell out head first onto the pavement. I didn't tell DH - thankfully her hair hid the bump My mum is a paediatric nurse and checked her over.

Continuing to send ds to school even when it was totally clear he wasn't coping (he has autism). I didn't listen to my instincts, which were to home educate him. It took him being assaulted by a teacher at school for me to finally do it and we have never looked back. Dd is doing well at school but if it goes tits up for her (also autism) then I will pull her out immediately.

Trying to get DD to follow the Gina sodding Ford routine when she clearly wasn't having it, and making us both frazzled in the process

Letting her play at the top of the stairs thinking she was old enough not to fall down not true. Luckily she was fine