6 month old nearly drowned in the bath

[Anxiety44]

This happened recently and my partner and I feel horrible. I was cooking dinner and making tea, she was watching the kids in the bath (6months and 2yrs). Wife then walks into the kitchen (which is next to the bathroom in our flat) and asks about the tea or something, I can't remember. I look up shocked because why isn't she in the bathroom? I mumble something like "needs milk" or whatever and half run to the bathroom whilst she goes in the fridge to get the milk. I'm still holding utensils at this point. I get to the bathroom and our 6 month old is submerged on her back and kicking eyes open, 2yr old is just playing. In a second I scream and snatch her from the water, she splutters a bit and cries, wife comes running in, I feel like I'm about to pass out so shove the baby at her and swaddle her in a towel. Daughter seems totally fine. This whole thing lasted only 10 seconds from my partner coming in the kitchen to me running in and grabbing our baby from the bath. We rang 111, went to A and E, got checked, all fine, we were worried about delayed drowning. Thank god though our baby is fine.
But now we both feel like crap I can't even explain. I thought I was scared when it happened but it seems as though the fear has gotten worse. I keep seeing her face underwater and thinking "what if". My wife is devastated, she was in floods of tears, then silent, then angry, then tearful again. She feels like the worst mother in the world. I feel like a horrible parent too. I've said to her she is not a horrible mother but that we sometimes make very bad decisions and I do mean that. But the feeling is stuck with us. I just cannot shake it and I know this failure is eating her up inside and she is torturing herself. I just don't know what to do to move past this and reassure her and ourselves. This has been the worst few days of our lives and I just don't know what to do. Our confidence as parents is destroyed. Her faith in herself as a mother is in shreds. We haven't told anyone else about this because we are ashamed. We now live under a cloud of dread I can't explain it any other way. Constant anxiety and worry and questioning ourselves all the time. How could this happen, how could we be so lax, how could we allow this, I dont know what to do. This is the only place I thought to ask this as I've had good support from here in the past when our kids were born and we were getting no sleep for weeks with cluster feeds. Also writing it out helped my realise how I feel a bit. Thanks if you read the whole thing.

Op, some posters are just being horrible.

What done is done and there is no changing it. What you need to do now is a risk assessment to make your children safer.

Sometimes writing things down can be helpful. Maybe if you book a first aid course designed for under five for both of you, it would make you feel better and most importantly keep your children safer.

Taking a proactive steps to make things safer should help.

Your immediate instinct was to run to the bathroom when she appeared in the kitchen. I think your wife made a bad decision and she, or maybe both of you, might benefit from some talking therapy to process this since it's hit you so hard.

My nephew's Mum once gave him a lollipop and let him run off and play when he was 2. He started choking it and was extremely lucky that the stick didn't detach. The same kid, aged 3, also fell face-first into a deep pond in the seconds that his Grandma turned her back on him for about 10 seconds. This stuff does happen.

This stuff happens yes, but surely most people know never to leave a small child unsupervised in the bath?

@mxjones why the hell are you placing blame on the op ? Why shouldn't they think their child would be safest with heir other parent ? Your attitude is getting typical of this place, being a dick just because the poster is assumed to be male. The op hasn't done a thing wrong. If it wasn't for the OP using their initiative at such a monumental fuck up their child could be dead.

I'm not surprised the op is struggling to get past this. I would too, it isn't just an accident. It was something that happened because of a lack of care.

Op I think you need to get things out in place, the main one being the DC aren't to be bathed when you aren't there. Don't let this define you, put things in place to make sure the DC are safe for your own piece of mind and to minimise the risk to their safety.

Was it a really bad judgement? Yes.

Was it done because you don't care about your baby? No.

This will probably make you much more conscientious going forwards.

It was a trauma. It may be that some counselling would help if you stay traumatised by it, but it is early days. You don't have to trust anyone straight away.

I am sure your wife knows that she made a mistake that could have had terrible repercussions and neither you nor her need that reinforcing. Fortunately both children were fine, so you do both need to try to learn from this experience and move on. I haven't read all the replies so apologies if I am repeating things that others have said.
I would say that the key thing that you need to discuss is why she did it. When people make mistakes there are often multiple small factors that in isolation aren't a problem, but when they all come together at the same time, that's when something goes wrong.
Is your wife getting enough sleep? A 6 month old and 2 year old sounds like hard work. I think I was in a sleep deprived haze for months when mine were a similar age and it is probably just luck that I didn't make any serious errors of judgement. Covid may not be helping as I guess it is limiting opportunities to get out of the house which could be stressful and result in poor concentration. Is there anything practical you can do to help if that's the case?
The layout of your flat may be a factor. Subconsciously it is possible that your wife was viewing the bathroom and the kitchen as the same space and therefore it felt as though she was still with the babies. If she had to walk downstairs from the bathroom into the kitchen I suspect it is far less likely she would have done it. Obviously you can't redesign your house but I wonder if there is anything you can do to provide a visual cue that separates the bathroom from the kitchen? Make a rule that the door must be shut when bathing the children, some kind of reminder on the door or put a stairgate across the door - anything really that emphasises the separation of the rooms and makes it harder to leave. I know that probably sounds daft, but the mind does weird things sometimes, especially when its tired, and some kind of visual or auditory cue can be useful to stop people making "absent minded" mistakes.
Obviously I am just guessing at what the factors might be, but talk to her and see if there are any practical steps you can take to prevent this happening again. That is likely to help you both feel better about things. And be honest about how you are feeling. Bottling things up rarely helps. Get things out in the open, talk about it, make any changes you can do and move on. You can't change what's happened but you can learn from it.

[quote WhatWouldYouDoWhatWouldJesusDo]@mxjones why the hell are you placing blame on the op ? Why shouldn't they think their child would be safest with heir other parent ? Your attitude is getting typical of this place, being a dick just because the poster is assumed to be male. The op hasn't done a thing wrong. If it wasn't for the OP using their initiative at such a monumental fuck up their child could be dead.

I'm not surprised the op is struggling to get past this. I would too, it isn't just an accident. It was something that happened because of a lack of care.

Op I think you need to get things out in place, the main one being the DC aren't to be bathed when you aren't there. Don't let this define you, put things in place to make sure the DC are safe for your own piece of mind and to minimise the risk to their safety.[/quote]
I'm not blaming the op, what I'm saying is that the assumption that a child is going to be safest especially with its mother is ridiculous, all parents make mistakes whether they are the mother or father. Having a uterus doesn't make people less likely to make mistakes just like having a dick doesn't make people a dick. You don't know if I am male, female or neither (see username) so quit with the conclusion that I am a male bashing female.

You need to discuss with her why she left the children alone. As one poster above said, it sounds like her mind just went blank. Is she getting enough sleep? Does she get a break from the children sometimes? When you're tired and overwhelmed, your decision-making becomes poor.

I've never done this, but I did almost nod off once when holding DS in the bath with me when he was a few months old. He was a poor sleeper and I was exhausted. Thankfully, I caught myself just as I was doing it and called for DH (who was meant to be keeping an eye on us but had wandered out) to take the baby.

I think the horror, anger, remorse and shock is going to stay with you both for months. Wouldn't be surprised if there are nightmares too. You are so, so lucky it didn't end with your baby's death, it is unimaginable but there you are, forced to imagine it. Awful. , neglectful, possibly even criminal if the baby had died.

n time, the bad feelings will subside and it will be less traumatic.

Keep an eye ok your wife, make sure she doesnt have PND.. it is a very odd thing to leave such a young baby in a bath alone, can't really explain or excuse it. Could be she is struggling more generally with two demanding kids, and taking her eye off them in the bath a symptom of deeper malaise?

Apart from the initial lapse in care, I'd say just accept how you're feeling as evolution in action. A child being in danger/at risk is meant to be the worst feeling for a parent ever. You're meant to feel so bad you change your behaviour. This is the result of (and the cause of) thousands of years of human survival.
I would also take heart from the fact that near misses can make people safer. People that have had one eg driving/in their profession are often then safer than those who haven't as they have increased awareness and change their behaviour to be safer and more risk averse.
You've had a nasty shock and it's a bitter lesson, guilt isn't helping but acknowledging the unpleasantness as part of parenting, as part of the long experience of caring for young, and that you are now actually probably safer and better parents than you were should see you through with time.
You'll both never do it again - you're better parents than you were this time last week so don't go down this 'I've failed' route that's just a bit self-indulgent at this point. You got lucky, everyone's ok, you are safer parents now and the unpleasant feelings you'll just have to accept and sit with until they ease. You're here because you ancestors cared enough to keep your ancestors safe and felt bad when they didn't. You're part of a long line of caring parents, take heart.

Just to scare you a little bit more. The information about your child's hospital admission will go to your local health visiting team.
They should be in contact regarding this.
If they have concerns for your children's welfare they have to tell you that they are raising a safeguarding.
You and your wife need to talk and ask why it happened and how it will not happen again (break from parenting ie stay with aunts and uncles) as these questions may be asked by the health visiting team.

You were lucky, you learned your lesson and still have the baby safe and sound.

Your wife is the one responsible here, not you. It's time to move on though for both of you, dwelling on it will do no good. Get some counselling if need be. I am going to presume that no such silly decision would be made ever again due to the way you are both feeling.

Put the energy in to being grateful rather than fearful and enjoy those little ones of yours while keeping them as safe as you can.

You did nothing wrong, your wife on the other hand if she genuinely wasn't an incompetent fool seems like there might be a mental block causing such complacency, CS would have taken this very seriously based on your account if this had a bad outcome. Keep an eye

This isn’t one of those areas where someone made a judgement call and made the wrong decision. The most productive thing would be to figure out how it came that your wife walked out of the room in the first place. Is she depressed, sleep-deprived, etc? If you can calmly discuss what happened, you might be able to get to the root cause and prevent a recurrence. It won’t help to blame her. No rational mother would have walked out of that room so in that moment something had to be wrong.

Every parent will have a ‘why did I do that?’ moment. We all have done something which we regret because of lapses in judgement at some point. Don’t beat yourselves up about it. Do make sure it doesn’t happen again. You both sound anxious and you are both probably exhausted with having two little ones. Try to ensure both of you get enough sleep as sleep deprivation can lead to these types of lapses in judgement. Be kind to you’re selves.

There are parents who do this sort of thing and feel nothing. You guys are really shaken up by this. That's a sign that you know a mistake was made, that you are not happy (neither of you) and won't be likely to make it again.

This is normal and puts you in the big box of "normal people". You're not bad parents. You would be if you didn't care.

The situation wasn't good and I agree it's best to find out what happened - lapse of judgement when exhausted for example - but the bad parents are the ones who don't look at making things better. At the moment though you're both so wound up that you're not necessarily in the best place to discuss it. Can you agree not to discuss it for a week, try to focus on other things and then come back to it when you've both got some distance?

Your sorry it autocorrected.

So let me get this straight, your baby had been under water for a maximum of 10 seconds. She was kicking and had her eyes open. You screamed, grabbed her out of the water, called 111 and went to a&e.

My take? 1) Babies up to about 6 months have an automatic reflex called the brachycardiac response, which kicks in when submerged, which means they can hold their breath for short periods of time. www.livescience.com/20802-newborn-baby-skills.html. This starts to wane at 6 month but according to this study pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12022304/ remains past 6 months. 2) When children are drowning, they don’t kick or flail kick like in the movies, they are motionless and don’t show signs of distress. Sadly parents and caregivers not knowing this have let their children die right in front of their eyes. mom.com/kids/7973-what-drowning-looks/jumbo-gloss

This is the last sentence of the first article I linked. The survival response keeps babies alive a lot longer than adults would survive underwater. From what you’ve described, your baby was kicking and not showing the classic signs of distress as described in the last article. I’m actually thinking it is far more likely that the her brilliant body had protected her via the brachycardiac response and she was happily playing underwater for a few short seconds.

Of course if was a stupid mistake, understandably you presumed the worst, everyone freaked including your baby and you called 111.

As for why did you get told to go to A&E? Much as I appreciate that 111 will have told you to go to A&E, the person or people you spoke to could hardly say otherwise as they had no way of knowing without seeing your baby underwater what kind of state she was in and anything less than physically checking her over would have been negligent.

NB I say this as someone with no medical knowledge btw. But as a person, who has learnt through research and by experience how children react in and around water. My friend is life guard trained and I have had to get to know a lot about this subject due to my dds medical condition so I’ve asked a lot of questions on it.

I really do think you need to go and give your wife a big hug and tell her how sorry you are for freaking her out so much. I get why you reacted the way you did. But she’s feeling guilty for all sorts of reasons. And this is one reason she could strike from her guilt list. And if you both don’t get a grip on this situation now, she is a prime candidate for post natal depression (even if she didn’t give birth). PND would have a far far greater effect on your children than those 10 seconds and ensuing few hours ever had on them.

Bottom line. Lessons have been learned. We have all done stupid things and if either you, she or both of you cannot get over this now, I would urge you to seek some therapy to alleviate the anxiety.

You rescued your baby, you did nothing wrong. If the two of you can seek some counselling, they may be able to help you cope, and get past this. I know it is awful, and it is understandable that you are both in a state of anxiety. Maybe getting some anti-anxiety meds for a couple of days will help. Hang in there.

@Anxiety44

This happened recently and my partner and I feel horrible. I was cooking dinner and making tea, she was watching the kids in the bath (6months and 2yrs). Wife then walks into the kitchen (which is next to the bathroom in our flat) and asks about the tea or something, I can't remember. I look up shocked because why isn't she in the bathroom? I mumble something like "needs milk" or whatever and half run to the bathroom whilst she goes in the fridge to get the milk. I'm still holding utensils at this point. I get to the bathroom and our 6 month old is submerged on her back and kicking eyes open, 2yr old is just playing. In a second I scream and snatch her from the water, she splutters a bit and cries, wife comes running in, I feel like I'm about to pass out so shove the baby at her and swaddle her in a towel. Daughter seems totally fine. This whole thing lasted only 10 seconds from my partner coming in the kitchen to me running in and grabbing our baby from the bath. We rang 111, went to A and E, got checked, all fine, we were worried about delayed drowning. Thank god though our baby is fine. But now we both feel like crap I can't even explain. I thought I was scared when it happened but it seems as though the fear has gotten worse. I keep seeing her face underwater and thinking "what if". My wife is devastated, she was in floods of tears, then silent, then angry, then tearful again. She feels like the worst mother in the world. I feel like a horrible parent too. I've said to her she is not a horrible mother but that we sometimes make very bad decisions and I do mean that. But the feeling is stuck with us. I just cannot shake it and I know this failure is eating her up inside and she is torturing herself. I just don't know what to do to move past this and reassure her and ourselves. This has been the worst few days of our lives and I just don't know what to do. Our confidence as parents is destroyed. Her faith in herself as a mother is in shreds. We haven't told anyone else about this because we are ashamed. We now live under a cloud of dread I can't explain it any other way. Constant anxiety and worry and questioning ourselves all the time. How could this happen, how could we be so lax, how could we allow this, I dont know what to do. This is the only place I thought to ask this as I've had good support from here in the past when our kids were born and we were getting no sleep for weeks with cluster feeds. Also writing it out helped my realise how I feel a bit. Thanks if you read the whole thing.

Honestly she is a bad mother. She left a 2 yo and a 6mo alone in a bath. You are lucky both your kids didn’t drown. I would be having stern words with her and not let her manipulate me with tears.

@justasking111

Being dog tired is when mind blankness can kick in, perhaps this is what happened to your wife. That exhaustion can lead to accidents which is why you really need to be aware of your shortcomings. My DS was a toddler early morning I had made a cup of tea which I put in the middle of the kitchen table on a magazine. He pulled the magazine and tipped the tea over himself. I threw him in the shower dialling 999, they talked to me and made me keep a screaming baby in a tepid shower until the paramedics arrived. 18 years later I feel bad about that. I was sooo tired I just did not register the risk.

I don’t mean to cause offence but ALL mothers of babies / young toddlers are dog tired. These types of things are caused by carelessless

I wouldn’t be as zen as you are about this incident. Not saying that’s preferable, but until I knew for certain what was behind my partner’s momentary impairment I would be stuck watching her like a hawk.

I’ve known drunk, passed out teenagers who could be shaken awake and still able to hold an infant upright in a bath the whole way through washing. Ditto an elderly person with severe dementia. Not saying that would be ideal, but just saying.

Somehow, she rationalised leaving the room. That’s the bit to focus on.

I get you want to help her, help yourself, and move on. I’d suggest booking a couple of counselling sessions to let someone experienced lead you both (and maybe also separately?) through the incident. There are likely helpful insights to be had, on both sides. Without this, I fear there’ll be a fair bit of unhelpful hand-wringing, bottled resentment and maybe even some PTSD-related behaviours that would negatively impact the parenting (& relationship) for years to come. For sure you are in line for some mega hyper-vigilance, which is a no-joke impact on your mental health. It’s exhausting.

Trying to go with ‘these things happen’ wouldn’t cut it for me in this instance- on either side. I think the test for this is, imagine telling the story in 10 years, in the vein of ‘Silly mummy, she was so tired and early parenthood is so draining, she... walked away and left you to drown.’ ??!!

It won’t be funny or cute ever. EVER ever.

Sorry but what a lot of hysterical responses to a hysterical thread title. Your child didn’t ‘nearly’ drown. Your child could ‘potentially’ have drowned.

It was a lapse, it’s over now. The chest beating and wailing isn’t necessary. The children are ok and I really doubt it will happen again.

@Rachie1973

Sorry but what a lot of hysterical responses to a hysterical thread title. Your child didn’t ‘nearly’ drown. Your child could ‘potentially’ have drowned.

It was a lapse, it’s over now. The chest beating and wailing isn’t necessary. The children are ok and I really doubt it will happen again.

Rachie Yes I totally agree. It’s horrible to read. As I said in my post, I don’t think the baby nearly drowned at all. The thread title is click bait for anyone wanting to grind their teeth.

SavingShoes
I did wonder if this incident would reach any kind of threshold. Op definitely needs to give her / his wife support in case it does trigger some kind of investigation.

Did she think the baby was ok for a minute? Or did she just space out?

The other day I ran a red light. I have no idea why. I was tired and distracted and I just lost concentration. It can happen to the best of us and it was totally out of character for me as I'm usually such a careful driver.

I think the fact that you are both upset about this shows that you care. So many babies in the world are being "raised" by parents who just don't give a shit if they are cold or hungry or unsafe. As long as this isn't the sort of thing that happens every day, all you can do is try and be kind to yourselves and move on.