Bad mummy?

[chinchilla]

I feel miserable. Today, I took my eyes off ds for a split second, and he dived off the edge of the bed, head first onto the floor, narrowly missing a chest of drawers. Poor sausage cried a lot (although not as much as for other times, with lesser warranted reasons), and proceeded to be a bit sorry for himself for the next hour or so.

He perked up later and was his old self, so I am sure that he is fine, but I feel so awful. I know that bumps happen to most babies in some way, but I can't help feeling that I am the worst mummy in the world.

To top it off, later he found a penny on the floor of mum's house, and put it in his mouth. Luckily, I saw something as he did it, and mum and I got it out, but it could have been terrible if he had swallowed it.

Am I just the worst mummy, or has this happened to alot of you out there? I can't wrap ds in bubble wrap!!

Well, if you did wrap him in bubble wrap he would probably spend the next hour shredding and eating it as my son did this morning (I didn't actually wrap him in it...my husband gave it to him to play with).
I think there has been a thread about this before, but babies have bumps and toddlers have bigger bumps and children have even bigger ones and teenagers.....
If your child has an exploring personality, you just have to try and keep the most dangerous things out of his way and kiss all the bumps and bruises from the rest. You would be the worst mummy if you locked your ds in a closet and never let him discover the world.
Although I give my son (18 mo.) lots of freedom to explore I won't leave him in a room alone even for a few minutes. He can invent ways to hurt himself that I couldn't even conceive of. His latest passions are swinging from the edge of the bathroom sink (luckily it was installed by dh and is strong), climbing up the ladder to the stepkids bunkbed and running back and forth full speed on the top bunk, putting his rocking horse on the sofa and trying to climb on it, trying to stand up on his little horse on wheels, sticking his head in the oven (luckily not while it's on), trying to climb up the chimney...
If I say no, it only makes him do it more, so I just try to distract him with less self-destructive activities.
So far he has a chipped tooth (on his first one) and bruises on every limb...
And it probably wouldn't have been really so terrible if your ds had swallowed the penny...it would have come out the other end I suppose.

SofiaAmes - that post made me laugh. I distinctly remember my daughter putting her car, or dog on wheels on the settee to ride it! I remember leaving her in her high chair whilst I was in the kitchen, to find her perched on the tray ( at about 10 months).

chincilla - of course, you're not a bad mummy. You're little boy is just an inquistive child.

My ds has found a penny on the floor a few different times and did put one in his mouth once. Luckily I too was able to retrieve it. I am always after my 2 older ones about leaving small things on the floor. Dont feel like the worst mummy because every parent deals or will deal with an accident one time or another. My son was in his highchair once and fell out because I did not put the lid on tight enough. He was about a year. They always bounce back unless its something serious.

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chinchilla, please don't be too hard on yourself. You haven't said how old ds is, but I'm sorry to say that you're going to have plenty of moments like these!
My ds also did a head first dive off the bed, at 6 months, onto a hard wooden floor. I also mentally beat myself up about it and felt so guilty and careless. He's done loads of other things too. And he's constantly picking up and chewing everything he can (unfortunately so does dh, so I have little hope of cracking that one).

He is going to have accidents, you'll probably still feel guilty, but the bad mummy part is just nonesence, otherwise 99.9% of parents would also have that title.

You're not a bad mummy at all but that's just how i felt the othr night and i wasn't even there!
I was getting DS's bottle and Dh lay him on the chair as he fixed the cushions on the couch Ds did a massive kick and launched himself off the chair onto the floor (laminate) he screamed + screamed but he was ok didn't even have a bump or bruise.He spent the following day vomiting so we took him to A+E but coincidently(sp?) he had a slight case of gastroenteritis(sp)+the poor little mite has got a terrible cough+cold but i am sure it's the first bump of many!

Chinchilla

You are not the worst mummy at all. It definitely happens to everyone. My dd fell off her changing mat a month or so ago and dh was standing right with her but couldn't grab her in time, also she has fallen on our wooden floors a couple of times when she was learning to sit and I have been right there next to her just not quick enough to catch her. 90% of the time I avert accidents but sometimes it's impossible.

It is a terrible feeling though because you feel as though you have physically pushed them.

I am sure there will be plenty more bumps for ds in the next couple of years.

Don't feel bad. It's not your fault xx

Chinchilla, whatever accident your child has, I promise I will be able to better it and mine isn't yet three. I am far too embarassed to go into the catalogue of disasters that have happened under my supervision although I will say that him appearing by my bedside with a safety razor in his mouth (having fished it out of the bathroom bin) was the worst.

chinchilla I swallowed a threepenny bit when I was little, showing my age again, and as I remember doing it I was obviously old enough to know better. Don't know if it came out the other end, never occurred to me to check at a young age, might still be inside for all I know. However I don't set off airport alarms.

My eldest son is now six and his catalogue of disasters include him falling down stairs (not even a full set) at 13 mths and breaking his right leg,then at 2 he tripped into the door frame and bit a hole from one side through to the other of his mouth and had to rushed away for a plastic surgery repair to his mouth,at four he fell out of my bed of a normal height onto a carpeted floor and broke his collar bone,then in sept last year he fell out his bunkbeds and an hour later besame very disorientated and quickly fell unconcious then had to be intubated and given an emergency brain scan at 2 am,fortunately it was only concusion and he was fine but then 7 weeks later he fell of the sofa and smashed both the bones in his lower arm till they poked through the skin and low and behold he needed more surgery to repair this as well.So chinchilla be rest assured that accidents do happen from the simplest circumstances and there's nothing we can do about,you will eventually feel less guilt, i think it came to me after ds collarbone

Accidents happen to them all. I know the worst I felt was when dd was going through a stage of refusing to sit in the bath. I was trying to wash her hair and rinse it while she stood and she fell forwards and hit her mouth off the side of the bath and chipped her from tooth (she only had about 4 teeth at the time). I was half crying while trying to console her as the thought of her having a chipped tooth until maybe 5 or 6 really made me feel guilty. Another time when she was really small (3 mths) I had her propped up leaning into the back of the settee and dh sat on her claiming he never saw her. I felt sick then also thinking she had been crushed. Cheer up as they will have many mishaps over the years and this doesn't make us bad mummies..

Chinchilla-don't feel miserable or guilty. It will be the first of many bumps and prangs along your childs road of discovery. I felt absolutely horrendous when ds1 fell down a flight of stairs (a short flight, but 5 steps all the same). I was watching and encouraging him from the top as I was vastly pg and didn't have the puff to carry him up.(3 flights up to his bedroom) He'd reached the top, I stepped back, crouching down to catch him up in a congratulatory cuddle and he stepped backwards and fell. I then dived down them (rugby tackle style, I used to play!!) without thinking. He was screaming, I was panicing about him and my bump and we both ended up in tears. Horrendous. He's now 19mo and done it twice more! You'd have thought I would have learnt, but I believe you have to give them some independence and allow them to believe in themselves and their abilities. It hasn't put ds1 off climbing in the slightest either.
Does this make me sound like a bad mum? I hope not.

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Thanks guys. Had a giggle about your tales! I can now look at yesterday's mishaps as the lucky escapes that they were. My ds is still really inquisitive, so I don't think he was mentally scarred by the fall...although I think I was!

He is currently in his cot sleeping peacefully (and wrapped in bubble wrap!!!)

not cotton wool?

Among many other mishaps, ds tumbled from the top to the bottom of our stairs when he was about 20mths. Unfortunately I was on the phone at the time, to dh who was in Japan. Ds started screaming, I yelled "oh no, he's fallen down the stairs, call me back in 5 minutes" and slammed the phone down, leaving poor old dh sitting helplessly on the other side of the world wondering if he was no longer a father!

Worse thing so far was ds falling and knocking one of his front teeth out almost completely - that first sight as he opened his mouth to scream and all I could see was a big gap and blood streaming everywhere will remain with me forever - I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach even now when I think of it. Luckily as he stuck his fingers in his mouth to feel what had happened, he pushed the tooth back into place, so still has it 12 months later. Not a nice experience for either of us,though.

My ds has fallen out of bed a few times. One time while I was upstairs and dh was playing with ds downstairs I heard this shout of Oh No and lots of screaming and crying. I went dashing downstairs to find ds with a nice big bump in the middle of his head and a nice crease across his nose. Dh had pulled his nappy up from the back, something he does all the time, while supporting him across his belly with his other hand. Well instead of the normal, ds had pivoted over his arm and bashed his face on the kitchen floor bending the end of his nose back at the same time. Dh felt so guilty and it took him all day to get over it, thinking about I could probably still make him feel guilty today.

has anyone seen the Piriton adverts with the kids in bubble wrap and the wee boy walking to school in a huge bubble, now thats what we could be doing with for our kids.

Last week we were camping and I don't know how many stones 8 month old DD put in her mouth and nearly swallowed.

On top of that... DS kept running off into the drivers' lane down the middle of the caravan sites. What a nightmare!

Sometimes I live one of my kids screaming while I deal with the other child. I get funny looks for it, but all I can think is, "Yes, but since she's so upset she can't concentrate to stick anything horrible in her mouth/he can't climb the ladder into the neighbour's garden"

So I guess I'm a horrible mum, too. -j

Is it horrible to laugh like a drain at this thread?

I don't think it is being horrible laughing - it is just the feeling of familiarity and relief, knowing that there are other mothers out there who can only be in one place at once, only have one pair of hands and can only deal with one such situation at a time. We've all been there and if we couldn't laugh at it we would probably sit and cry (or hit the bottle)

I AM that bad mother! I've just found DD playing in a bag of toiletries that I had got out ready to go into our caravan and she actually had DH's twin blade razor in her mouth. She wasn't hurt, fortunately and got very upset because I was so shocked.

That reminds me of the day I thought 'ah bless, dd's playing nicely while I get dressed' then found her in the shower, blood dribbling down one leg from trying to shave her legs with the razor I'd dropped and forgotten to pick up..
How bad did I feel ??! Still, on the plus side it made me far more aware of how much she copies what I do so can now anticipate what might happen.

Well, today, my husband picked up ds (18 mo.) from the childminder. He had a black eye and swollen cheek from having fallen up the step into the doorway and whacked himself on the radiator. That added to the 2" vertical bruise on his forehead from 2 days ago when he opened the door into his head and the 2" diameter bruise/scrape on his forehead from yesterday when he tripped chasing girls (always the pretty ones) in the park. Not to mention the numerous blackandblue marks on his legs from undetermined origin and the scrape on his elbow also from undetermined origin. Wow, I dread to think what will happen when I actually start letting him do dangerous things!