Having too many "near misses" with my toddler

[WisdomOfCrowds]

In my defence I have a 3 month old and a 2 year old, neither of whom sleep. My partner has been working away for the last month and I'm single handedly packing up our entire house getting ready to move, so I'm exhausted, alone, and there's shit everywhere. Having said that, in the last month:

• I went into the utility room to put the washing machine on and heard a sound I couldn't place so came out to check and found 2 year old standing by the front door which he'd managed to open. The key now never gets left in the lock.

• took 2 year old down stairs in the morning and left him in the living room with his toys. Went upstairs, picked up baby, came back down stairs. 30 seconds max. Toddler had used a dining room chair to climb onto the breakfast bar and was holding a screw driver I'd left out after fixing his toy the day before.

• tonight I thought toddler was asleep, then later heard a noise. I went to check on him and found him in bed with a pair of nail scissors (blunt baby ones). I'd left them on the window sill and once again he'd moved a chair and climbed up. He'd cut a hole in his favourite toy :(

I'm feeling like a properly shit mum. I try so hard to be careful and attentive but it feels like it's never enough. The first two things could have seriously hurt him, and now he's damaged something precious. I'm afraid that one day he'll get hurt and it'll all be my fault.

Don't know really what I'm looking for here. A handhold? "We've all done it" anecdotes? Some tough love to make me be more careful? Not too tough though as I'm feeling really down right now. I told my partner who said "that's really worrying, you need to be more careful" but he's never had both children just by himself, and has only ever had the toddler by himself for a few hours max. It's not so easy when's you're doing it by yourself all day every day. Though I suppose lone parents manage, don't they.

Ok, I'll end my pity party now :(

It's easy enough to say you need to be more careful when you're getting a decent sleep every night and get to go the toilet in privacy. Ignore your DP.

Dont beat yourself up, we all try to be perfect parents but at the end of the day we are all human and mistakes happen. It's not easy at all, and I think every parent has days of feeling like this but you are not a bad parent. The fact that ypure worrying instead of just dismissing it shows how much you care. Deep breath, and tomorrow is another day

you're doing ok
My 19 month old took a knife out the dishwasher and was waving it around like a sword last week - I was in the same room cooking his dinner. My DH had him in the bedroom and forgot to close the window, we found him on top of a chair waving to his grandad about 30 seconds later. Today we took him to a country park and he got so excited he just about fell through a railing and rolled down a massive drop. Every incident my heart was in my mouth and I felt the world stop but it turned out ok. We've all had these moments. Add another baby and it must be 10 times harder You're not doing a bad job!

I discovered DS could open the dishwasher when I left him in the house, very briefly, while I went into the garden. Returned to find him purposefully brandishing a knife.

The thing to remember is that these have been near misses, not accidents, because you've been checking and he hasn't had a chance to get into more trouble. It takes a while to adapt to each new stage of development, starting moving, getting upright to reach higher and now moving chairs. We've all had moments when our children have surprised us by doing something they couldn't do yesterday, perfectly normal and it sounds like you're dealing with a lot more other stuff than normal, give yourself a break.

@cc4490 so glad my 20 month DD isn't the only one who finds that waving a knife around is a great jolly. To this day, I've no idea how she got her hands on it.
I once caught her happily munching on a deflatine she found in my bag, thank god it was nothing stronger!
Honestly op, it happens to the best of us

OP I am a childminder and a mother and my youngest has had some pretty bad accidents, 1 absolutely horrendous accident, that ended with us in hospital for a week, and trips back and forward for another 3 months. He had that accident with 3 adults in the house, who all thought one of the other adults was looking after him. I hear stories from my parents that I mind for all the time about their kids doing potentially dangerous thinks like that. You are not alone. Don't beat yourself up, these things happen and no one was hurt. We all learn from the things.

Thanks. That's the thing, he can't do it one day and then the next he can! I have to do laundry, change the babies nappy, wash up etc, I can't literally watch him every second. I can't even put him in the highchair to go do something as he manages to squirm his way out of the straps and climb down. He's like Houdini and Spider-Man rolled into one, with no fear and no concept of danger. It's relentless! I felt like I was on top of things before, but these last few weeks stuff like this feels like it's happening back to back.

I put baby ds2 down for 1 minute while I went to the loo. I could see him on the floor on the carpet outside (think post-birth urgency bladder issues..) Then I heard ds1 say, "I Hoover ds2!" I didn't half move! It was only a pretend Dyson, but could have done a lot of damage. And, aged 3, and after dh's sudden death, ds2 brought me a (closed) Stanley knife on the first time I dared to get in the bath. It had been in a cupboard, left by dh, unbeknownst to me, when ds2 couldn't open that cupboard. Suddenly he could! I felt awful, but there was no way of knowing and life was a bit upside down.

I guess you could do a walk round with your health and safety hat on? Your ds1 has obviously reached a new level of development with his climbing and you need to respond to it, but you are living in incredibly challenging conditions, so try not to beat yourself up about it. You are obviously listening really carefully and responding quickly - the fact you are concerned makes you a good mum.

So sorry about your DH WontBeUsingPassMyParcelAgain . Definitely puts my challenges into perspective.

It happens, believe me! Dd, who had never showed any signs of even trying to roll over, one day rolled about three times from the middle of my (quite high) bed on to the floor in the 30 seconds my bacl was turned while putting clothes away.
They're like little magicians! I sobbed for a good half hour until my DP and DM consoled me by telling me they'd both previously dropped her but didn't tell me as they decided between themselves I'd go apeshit and that a family friend who is a nurse had checked her over.
I'd need a whole thread to document the stuff that Dd gets up to.
Now shes 20 months, every day is a learning curve. Finding her dipping a make up brush in the toilet and painting her face with it was certainly a highlight.

Op honestly my worst was when I used to smoke and DD2 age 2 found my lighter that was in my handbag on top of the washing machine and taken it with her for her nap! I nearly fainted when I saw it and it was the kick up the arse I needed to give up the cigs!!

Yes it's 24/7. You need eyes in the back of your head

Is there anyone who is around and able to help with a bit of childcare, while you get on with packing?

Can children be distracted by TV or Tablet? Not all the time clearly, but I similarly was alone trying to prepare to move back from USA to UK, with DS3 and DD1, and it was desperate.

High chair with harness & play doh used to help.

Your 3 year old sounds very similar to DS. Not to worry you, but more some things to watch out for:

1. DS loved Climbing. You and I might see a book case, but he would see "something to climb". Ladders had to be left on the floor in the garage, never propped up against the wall. We attached furniture to the wall with safety straps. We ended up with a Little Tykes plastic climbing frame INDOORS, and if he started trying to climb something, I'd take him away, say a clear "no", but then show him the Little Tykes frame that he could climb.

1. Your 3 year old opened the front door. DS was intrigued by locks, and by 3 1/2 could remember PIN numbers as well. Quite lethal.

Yeh my mums been helping out a bit, but I feel like I'm just moving stuff around half the time. I'll work through packing a pile, but something will get missed. That's how the nail clippers ended up on the window ledge tonight, I took them off him after he dug them out of a pile I was packing and just stuck them up there (out of reach) I thought while I plugged him into Curious George. Then I forgot I'd put them up there. Even though I knew he could climb/ move chairs, I still didn't connect that with those things now being in reach. Definitely need to do another childproofing walkthrough. We move next week so will have evening and weekend support from partner, but will still be doing this whole process in reverse during the day to unpack.

We learn quickly from our mistakes. Long time ago now but in one week after we moved our son was in the emergency department three times. I was convinced SS would turn up but, of course, they never did.
He’d climbed onto loo, whilst I bathed the baby. Then from moving onto the cistern he’d fallen and knocked himself out briefly.
Next trip was following screeching at 5 am that he’d got a nose up his nose. He’d managed to pull the nose of a toy granny had given him and decided to poke it up his nose. We waited for GP to open at 8:30 but we’re dispatched to the ED. The third time was cleaning spray my husband had left on the side of the bath. Toddler son decided to investigate what happened if you pointed it at your eyes and pulled the lever.
We weren’t bad parents but I was home alone with three children and accidents happen. They tend to survive. In fact, allowing a little adversity is key to them thriving. You have to be good enough not perfect to be a successful parent.

My son got into situations where he could've died so many times from about 1 to 3. Once when he had just turned 3 he one day randomly decided to get up before us at about 5am and creep downstairs and try and make himself breakfast. Cooked breakfast. Cooked breakfast involving eggs. So he broke all the eggs we had inti a bowl then climbed up and somehow dismantled the hob.... put bits of the job on the kitchen floor then came and woke us up holding this bowl of raw eggs saying he couldn't turn the cooker on. The cooker wasn't actually switched off. He could've set himself on fire it's a miracle he didnt.
Needless to say we went out and got a lock for the kitchen door that day so it never happened again.

Much more aware of the dangers now with our second. But when it's your first it sometimes just doesn't occur to you what your doing. And like pp have said they learn new skills seemingly overnight that you haven't factored in to your safety plan.

How do you cope with the anxiety though? I'm a nervous wreck thinking of all the things that could have happened to him and still could in the future. It only takes one mistake for the worst to happen. I used to take meds for anxiety and sometimes wonder if I should start again but I feel too anxious that reducing my anxiety will make an accident more likely to happen. Is that the stupidest thing ever? What's a normal level of stress and anxiety to feel about this stuff? I feel like I've aged about 10 years this last month.

Don't feel bad, we're all the same. My DS2 is like Spider-Man too. Climbed out of the cot, high chair, over baby gate and found him climbing out the ground floor window. Don't be hard on yourself. My brothers were always up to something and never out of the hospital. You're doing great to manage when your partners away with a 3 month old baby too.

I felt like a bad parent today was at a soft play area and went to lift my son to check if he had pooped knocked over another kid who whacked her head on the floor all I heard was the thud kid screaming crying mum ran over I was so apologetic and my son was going 'uh oh' and tried to say sorry bless him totally not his fault was mine but same wee one was playing 10mins later thank god

You're moving house though aren't you? That's one of the most stressful things you can do in your life so of course you are anxious.... coupled with the lack if sleep as well!

Don’t beat yourself up. With DS1 I used to quietly judge parents whose children had these kind of accidents - were they not paying attention?

Roll on DS2 who doesn’t have the benefit of my undivided attention and is an absolute unstoppable force. He has near-misses on a regular basis. I don’t judge anymore!

I totally empathise! They are so bloody creative in thinking up new ways to potentially injure themselves.

I'm sure that you've got the door locks, plug sockets covered and detergents safely away. The rest is down to not taking your eyes off them (but everyone has to pee sometimes) and luck.

I think after all these things, you'll just be more careful anyway. I trained myself to put anything sharp/hot/dangerous/pharmaceutical on certain shelves. That's just where they lived and I never left them anywhere else (I have asd and developed ocd after my second though, so basically spent all my time panicking about my kids getting hurt... )

Tip for the future - have a new place for pens, scissors, glue etc, and keep them there... Unless you like sharpie on the curtains.

We also had one room downstairs, and one room upstairs (their bedroom) that was completely child safe, with stair gates. Yeah, constant supervision is obviously the best thing, but you need to pee/answer the door/etc. Having what's basically a giant play pen helps a lot. Downstairs was totally safe, and when I was ill and sleep deprived and couldn't help dozing off for a few minutes, ds was completely safe.

The level of sleep deprivation with my eldest meant I needed this set up. Not saying it's like this for everybody, but it was essential for me

Near misses not accidents. We learn from them.

DS2 is a fucking nightmare. He literally needs watching 24/7 and he's almost 3! I judge no one.

Oh god, I've just remembered an awful one.

Was at toys r us with ds, he was almost 3yo. Crossing over a quiet bit between buildings (always quiet, I'd never seen anything drive up there), and suddenly a big lorry thundered right in front of ds. I was an inch out of reach and if he stepped forward he'd have been killed.. Pure luck that he stood still.
I've been going to this place most of my life - I'd never seen a truck go that way, it's not even a proper road, it's just a route behind the shop..

Most terrifying moment of my life (and he had surgery as a newborn, so I'm used to horror). Total freak unexpected thing