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 :(

Totally normal I'd say. I have 3 children and all have had lots of hairy moments as toddlers. I definitely remember wondering how I kept them alive through the toddler years. It's like all toddlers have an inbuilt suicide drive. Like lemmings. I remember finding my eldest stood on an upstairs windowsill with the window wide open... the type of window that opens out like a door. Lots of other things. I can't remember as many scary moments with my middle child but I know there was. My youngest is still a toddler so lots fresh in my mind. He is the worst climber and chair dragger of the lot. I caught him with a knife in the toaster the other week. He's taken sharp knives out of the dishwasher before now, he's climbed up every imaginable piece of furniture, bookcases the lot. We learned to be careful with the front door keys only after he escaped too. Everything is a learning curve and they are all different. Honestly, don't beat yourself up. Some people will tell you theirs never did this because of their amazing discipline, ignore them. Keep on swimming.

When my ds was around 20 months I ran upstairs to grab some dirty washing. During that time he climbed into the highchair, jumped it across the kitchen and opened the cutlery drawer with the knives.

I think we've all been there! You're doing great! My two are now 24m and 12m and it's firefighting quite regularly

At a wedding in Spain my 3 year took himself off to the play park. Across a road.

Parenting toddlers is nothing but a series of near misses, honestly!

We never especially child-proofed our house, but they were OK. Everyone finds their toddler brandishing something they shouldn't, especially if they are very active/curious, but in the vast majority of circumstances nothing bad happens as a result, and as people have said you learn - eg that they can reach that thing/open that door/climb out of the cot. It's all part of the process.

I think you are being too hard on yourself ( and your partner isn't helping). You are about to move house one of the most stressful times, you have a small baby and toddler ( ditto) and are massively sleep deprived. It is absolutely no surprise if you are feeling anxious.

Be kind to yourself... see if you can get more help to pack and or manage the kids to give you some down time, see your GP if you feel your anxiety is getting too much.

Ahh OP I remember that bit ,some of the anxiety comes from the sleep deprivation try where you can to be as nice as possible to yourself, when your mum can have them get some down time ...whatever helps you

I have the same list of stories the others do

Ds2 was standing at a locked baby gate literally watching DP and I walk past every few seconds whilst filling a van that was less than 50 yards from him (ground floor flat he was in the living room van was at front door) ...honest to god he was never more than 20 seconds from seeing us

All of a sudden giant bang and blood pouring down his face...our best guess is that he stepped back , tripped over his own feet and managed to somehow head but the baby gate so hard he cut his head open

Cue dash to hospital and me sobbing because I felt awful I couldn't even tell them what happened...the nurse glued him up and then fantastically gave me a big hug and told him we had all been there and it happens

Ds1 managed to learn to get out of his baby swing in the space of thirty seconds cue me coming In to find him doing the baby version of the flying scene from titanic in a surprisingly fast swing... that one nearly gave me a heart attack

We haven't even started on the time that he managed to leg it from me in B and Q which resulted in me sliding along the length of the vinyl flooring section and him being carried out like a rugby ball with him yelling " help she's hurting me " (I really wasn't he had just learnt the phrase for some reason and had previous form for telling it whilst eating porridge at the table contentedly watching paw patrol)

It's so hard OP all you can do is remember you caught them every time and I promise it gets better (mine are 6 and 3 and they haven't done something like bungee jump off the dining table for at least a week!!)

Our children's biggest injuries (and there have been some doozies!) always took place on our watch.

Welcome to parenting.

Hang in there. You're doing great.

Wow thanks for all the kind words everyone, it means a lot. Not feeling quite so sorry for myself this morning and glad to know I'm not alone :)

None of those are even that bad!!

I was hanging pictures last week while 3 year old and 1 year old were distracted by the TV. Turned my back for 4 seconds and DD's little voice said "me fix this wall" as she hammered the crap out of it. TBF she's got a really good hammer swing.

We're renovating an old cottage so I'm far too often heard uttering "put that screwdriver/saw/drill/fuse box/bag of plaster down" at present!

Op, you aren’t alone. Even making one room safe can be difficult.
When ds was 14 months old, I went to the loo & he tried to escape through the cat flap and got stuck.
You can only do your best

I'd say that those incidents spread over a month, under the circumstances you describe, you are doing pretty well. Sounds like a normal single day to me!S1 (who has survived to 13 now) tried to shave himself after I left my razor on the edge of the bath instead of on a shelf once. He had a nice pair of cuts down his cheek after that.

He also got in the cupboard where the washing powder lived and 'made it snow'. In his eyes.

I have blanked the memory of most near misses, because they were precisely that, misses. You are learning to parent, while your children are learning to child! They work stuff out all the time and until they show you, you don't know they have worked it out. It's a case of constantly upping your game, as they up theirs.

Don't beat yourself up op. We've all been there and many will be there again!

My DD is just over 2... Last week, she figured out how to open the kitchen baby gate, snuck in there, grabbed a carving knife left on the counter (note the kitchen was gated so there was supposed to be no danger) then came RUNNING towards me shouting "Look mummy!". My heart fell out of my arse. I nearly fainted.

This summer just gone, we were at my grandma's house, who has a HUGE garden, it's all enclosed, barring the gate to enter it, so I used to tie the gate to the gatepost using an old knee length sock, shut the house door, then let DD roam wild in there. I'd been sat having a cup of tea at the top of the garden with my nan and realised I'd not seen DD for five or so mins... Shouted her... Nothing... Went to look round the front and low and behold, the gate was off the latch. It was still tied up, but off the latch. Again, my heart dropped out of my arse and I was off, shoeless, running around the streets screaming my dds name, I searched a good 6 surrounding streets like a crazy woman then ran back to find my grandma stood holding DD at the gate.

Apparently she'd appeared from my grans neighbours garden after I sprinted past.

We've had loads of near misses with our two (4 and 1 year olds) but the best was my DH when he was about 3. My FIL has a ladder up against the side of the house to go up and fix some loose roof tiles. He nearly had heart failure when he heard DH behind him after climbing to the top of the ladder in his little red wellies. He'd escaped from MIL who hadn't yet noticed he had gone.