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...

at manky tasting water!

I also put DD on the kitchen floor in her Bumbo when she was about 5 months old. Turned hob on and put ceramic lasagne dish down on it. Why I thought this would be okay I don't know! Got up on a chair to get something out of the cupboard just as the dish exploded with a giant bang. A chunk of boiling pottery bigger than DD's head flew past her face. She was completely untouched despite being surrounded by bits of broken ceramic. I, on the other hand, was a nervous wreck and couldn't stop shaking for an hour.

Working too much

Granted, I didn't have much choice but when I got a phone call to say my three year old DD had let herself out the house and went up the road calling for mummy it really broke my heart.

Six years later, it still does

When I fell down the stairs holding my DS, on one occasion I bounced down half the steps on my butt, finally coming to rest on the metal bar of the stairgate (which luckily was open). My coccyx still aches to this day (seven years later), at the time I couldn't sit down for two weeks without crying. Naturally I didn't bother going to hospital.

The second time I did it, I stumbled on the last steps, landing on the wooden floor on one knee. Twisting so as not to drop DS, promptly landed top half of body on to my elbow and smashed my hand (which was protecting his head) on the same floor. I properly sobbed. DS was unscathed on both occasions, I was not.

And DS1 has eaten dog treats, he really liked them....went back for a few more.

Ds1 ate an entire cigarette that I had carelessly left on the tray of his babywalker

I found him with yellow foam and tobacco dribbling down his chin? King's poison unit said not to worry - it would take at least 10 to do any recognisable harm

Long story dd1 playing dizzy ducklings, told her to stop or she would break something, turned around and bam. First green stick fracture. DD1 falling downstairs so took her to a&e with an egg on her head. Looking back didn't need to take her. DD2 was screaming after I fed her and was bright red, took her to a&e who obviously thought due to prev j was doing something to the kids. Que a 3 night stay, blood tests, lumber puncture for meningitis and a cat scan. Diagnosis after all that, gastric reflux and gavin con which helped. DD2 as a toddler spilt juice I didn't see then slipped on it, second green stick fracture . How I dreaded going to a&e. A year to the day later they were at GPS sleeping over. Que a call, Meet us at A&e dd1 pushed dd2 off bed into a set of draws. Another green stick fracture. Locked in, questioned, treat like shit and S'S called. Signed of by SS. That's when I decided I would never take them to a&e unless an emergency. DD3 born a few hrs later never set foot in a docs and seemed to bounce luckily. 8 years later she's sitting with a cast on after breaking her elbow running downstairs with a loose shoe lace. I Am in panic mode but everything appears to be fine.

Maybe they have my bones. I broke my left arm 3 times in primary, had it broken and rest in surgery then went to the roller rink and chipped the elbow bone

• DD3 born a few years later

Put 4 week old DS2 on the edge of the sofa so I could slip behind him to BF him, he fell off onto his face on carpet.

DS1 has done a horrible poo which was up his back, I stood him on the table to take off his vest. Pulled his vest over his head, he lost his footing and fell backwards off of it. He couldn't walk straight and his legs went blue. Ambulance came and said that he was fine but I relive the horror everyday.

Developing a habit if shouting as in good telling off style shouting - Ive had a bad day today parenting wise - yes you cloth head DS(8)

Recently DD (2) wandered into the living room proudly waving an 8 inch cooks knife - how the chuff she got that off the bench..but fact is she did

Allowing Minecraft to seep into every pore of the house DS (8)

There is an infamous story in my family of one of my Dads parenting failures. He took me out on his own one day for a short trip to a DIY store, putting me on the back seat of his car. I was about 2 at the time and it was before seat belts were compulsory. He says he was driving along, chatting away to me when he suddenly realised that I had gone very quiet (I've always been a chatterbox ). When he looked round to see why, he realised that I had fallen off the seat head first and was upside down in the footwell, feet dangling in the air! Apparently I hadn't made a sound so he wasn't immediately alerted to my predicament My Mum was not impressed when he got home and told her, so it was quite a few years later when he took me out on his own again!

I left DD to play with the older children at a first communion party whilst I was chatting to someone I hadn't seen in a while, she was about 3, I turned round to discover DD had been going round finishing off peoples champagne and was stood with my brother, the priest and some of the more respected members of the parish (including 2 doctors and the headmistress of DSs primary school) giggling her head off at everything they said. Passed it off as there being lots of cakes and fizzy drinks around and her not being used to sugar.

Hearing my then 2 year old dd saying "oh fucks sake". Fucking preschool, can't believe she picked that up from them...
Not doing anything about ds shit sleep pattern. He's now one and still doesn't self settle. Wish we'd given him a dummy.
Shouting and ranting
Banging dd's head on car door at about 3, was dropping her off at childminders and was holding her and bent down to get bags out of car. Massive shiner came out immediately, both of us in tears.
Dropped phone on ds countless times.
Locked dd and car keys in car when she was 3.

Oh dear that's quite a list :(

Try the school and or youth service. Loads of anti bullying websites about too.

Giving birth.

making him wave to nanny so he slipped i caught him he didn't want to be caught and wriggled again i caught him again in full tantrum mode he lashes out and slips a THIRD time i caught him again and he ended up upside down one inch away from some rather sharp bricks

DH forgot to strap our eldest son in after a trip to hospital he announced it while dh was driving round the corner cue panic he slings the car to the side of the road and slams the brakes on he fell out of the car seat i wonder why

ive taken my eldest two to school when its a TED day and tried to on saturday and ive missed the first day back to school with my middle child they rang me to see if he is ill i was confused its not open today is it? they must really think im daft ive also been late to collect for an appointment due to locking ourselves out of the car and chatting too long and the car not starting

My DH lost our 2.5yr old son on a beach. In italy, near a junction. He just presumed that he would follow him. We didn't find him for 15 minutes and I was hysterical. I'd run up the road, into the sea and generally in circles. The police were lovely, everyone was lovely, and poor DH was wracked with guilt. DS was rather proud that he had found a playpark in a restaurant.

Forgot a couple of absolute classics.
Dropped a glass of wine all over DS while doing a late feed. Full glass all over his head. I bathed him twice and he still smelled like a brewery.
Lost DD1 in Matalan. I thought she was with DH, he thought she was with me. Neither of us noticed until I got a call to go to the customer service desk to pick up a very tearful 6 year old who was having a cuddle with the lovely shop assistant.
Forgot to pick DD up from school. In my defence I was pg and exhausted, dozed off while on Mat leave and woke up 15 minutes after the bell had gone.

Dozing off with DD in my arms when she was a couple of hours old, after a 30+ hour labour.
I woke to a screaming newborn on the floor and was terrified for days that she'd be taken off me. It was a few years before I could admit to anyone that it had happened.

On a lighter note, thinking that DD's ability to hold a spanner aged 18 months was really cute and not thinking ahead to what she might do with it. The stairgate was mysteriously dismantled a week or two later and two cupboard doors came off in the kitchen..

My mum let the dentist's wife teach me how to undo screw-cap bottles when I was about 2. I got hold of the second tube of Araldite (you know, the 2-phase stuff, the part that sets the glue) and squirted it all over the stair carpet, my clothes, my hair...I have no memory of it, but my mum says scrubbing that gunk out of an eczema-prone toddler at bathtime is not a heap of fun, either for parent or child.

Mine crawled off the bed (where I had been changing his nappy) this weekend and landed, yes you guessed it, on his head. With a huge thud, at my MIL's house with her in the room below. I could've cried 1st for allowing such a stupid mistake to happen and 2nd because MIL and SIL heard!! He is 1 next week! Thank god it's quite a low bed. He seems fine

I also had my LO on my front in a baby carrier in the supermarket carpark. There weren't any buggy spaces so I had to go in a regular space and when I got back it was a right squeeze bar tween mine and the next car. Really bonked LO's head on the corner of the window when I opened the door (door with no frame around the window so just glass and looked invisible!). He was about 6 months then!

Done the car seat and iPhone on head!

LO is 17 mo. He recently figured out how to unload the dishwasher. I was watching thinking "Hey, this is fantastic..." when -doh!- he drops a china bowl and it smashes into a hundred sharp pieces... He has bare feet...

DH was not impressed with me.

My mum still berates my dad for, 33 years ago, when she went to the toilet when our plane had a stopover in Bombay airport and gave my infant brother to him, he was concentrating so hard on looking after the baby that he failed to notice 4yo me slip past him and disembark! A panicked 10 mins later they found me at the bottom of the stairs on the Tarmac having a long chat with the cabin crew.

When my DS1 was about 11 I cut his hair with the trimmers after a boozy Sunday lunch. Only I forget to put the length guide thing on and cut a two inch wide bald stripe from his forehead, over the top of head to the collar, right in the middle. I was mortified. Couldn't touch him again with them even though he was begging me to even it up. Made him go to school like it the next day too. Did find a friendly hairdresser to sort of hide it....when she stopped laughing.

3 year old DS fell off the couch. Cried for a bit but we thought he was grand. Flew out on Holiday for the week , the next morning.
Back and in Creche for a week when one of the ladies said his arm has a bit of a bump!
Turned out to be a broken arm ! Arggh! Everytime I look at those holidays pics I can see him holding his arm but not at the time ! Arggh!!!