just made the worst mistake ever....

[bumbly]

...parents in law were ditracting me and i ended up putting baby in car seat without being strapped in....

arrived at destination to find 3 1/2 month lo all leaning forward in his seat!!! but asleep

oh my gosh i bet he bashed his head backwards and forwards several times

luckily i drive slowly but bumps and braking would have jogged him back and forth

argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FEEL SO SO SO SO BAD

but one thing - he wa asleep so perhaps all is well????

can't live with myself

how did it happen??

have i hurt lo???

well i tipped my 3mo old out of car seat, face down onto bare floor boards.

I'll put my hand up to doing the car seat thing once. Plus another time my DD told me her straps weren't buckled before we set off. The shame!!

I also dropped DD a few weeks ago, whilst she was in mid tantrum, my back just gave way. She was fine, but I had super-guilt for the next few days.

Mine & yours pale to insignificance though, my sister-in-law left her DS at the shops once. Went back for him 10 minutes later. There he was, happy as Larry, just where she left him.

You are not alone, my friend!

xH dropped the same DS (then 5 weeks!!) down the stairs when he was carrying him up in a moses basket.. because I'd left a small folded pile of washing on the stairs and he fell over it! DS flipped right over his shoulder and landed - plop! - on the the only WOODEN part of the floor at the bottom of the stairs!

He cried for 2 mins. xH and I cried for much longer! We called the doctor out! (The days when doctors used to come out! ) DS was absolutely fine.

Another time, I unclipped DD (now 8 then 3 months) from her carry seat in the car, then changed my mind and brought the whole seat in, was juggling the seat unlocking front door.. and dropped DD - PLOP - on the concrete!!! There was a little pile of pink baby laying there face down!!

She was fine!

Are you feeling better yet Bumbly?

And how many of us have had our "non rolling" babies roll off the edge of a double bed having been placed "safely" in the middle??! [raises hand again]!

Twice, I've realised half way through a journey my son wasn't strapped in. once we were on a dual carriageway when I realised . It's a horrible feeling, isn't it? Look on the positive side - it will make you extra vigilant in future.

I realised ds2 wasn't strapped in when I heard a thud and realised he was on the floor

Bumbly I was thinking about you today. Wondering how you were. Don't worry you haven't hurt him. We've all done stuff like that.

The first time we took DS1 out on a longish journey (30 miles/35 minutes) we arrived home to find him slumped forward in his seat, with his chin on his chest. The seat was put in properly, he was strapped in but he was so small I suppose it didn't make much difference. For a horrible couple of seconds, I thought he was dead but he was just asleep!

The only time I know DS1 was not properly strapped in was when we went on a long trip with the PIL. They insisted they didn't want to take 2 cars although I was not happy about them sharing the back seat with DS1. Turns out it was with good reason as DH got shunted from behind in a minor accident and DS1 and his seat went flying, DS landing in the footwell. Thankfully we weren't going very fast so apart from being frightened to death and possibly banging his nose he was fine. He was nearly 2 as well so not so tiny. It would seem, although she would never admit it, that whilst MIL had been fiddling around with the middle seat belt in the car she had undone DS's carseat. I was livid but I couldn't say anything as I will never know for sure that he was definitely strapped in. However, DH swears he strapped the carseat in properly that morning so I am inclined to believe him rather than her, who was making a big fuss of not being able to put her seatbelt in.

Might of forgotten to strap DS2 in once but I can't remember

However, DS1 has fallen off the bed (and DS2 ). DS1 also fell down the stairs in spectacular fashion when 2.5. It happens and on the whole, they do bounce!

I also tipped DS2 over in his pushchair when he was 18mths as well - I slipped going down a grassy slope and the pushchair fell forwards. Thankfully the handles stopped DS hitting the ground as he was strapped in at the time.

I know this was started with serious intentions but can't help pmsl at some of your stories. I planted a big egg bruise on DD's forehead recently after pulling her vest off while she stood at the side of the bath. I tugged, she pulled and crack she head butted the rim of the bath. Of course the bruise was there long enough to make me suffer guilt longer than she felt the pain.

DS2 used to have a McClaren Major (one of those large buggies) before he graduated to a wheelchair and he used to love to tip himself over in Tesco.. laying there on his back like a stranded beetle while my back was turned (getting loo roll or something). There would always be a throng of scandalised onlookers looking shocked as hell at my "poor disabled child" in his tipped over buggy! The little sod used to do it quite deliberately! He so loves the attention!

once i had strapped dd into her buggy. She was crying, i thought, oh not another day when she doesnt want to be strapped in. Went back into kitchen to get purse, still crying, tried to calm her, still crying, went back to get keys STILL crying, more kind words, mummy wont be long (assumed she was getting impatient), got my cot on, cries becoming scream like in volume and ferocity - THEN i realised i had pinched her leg into the buggy strap and left one of those awful pinch bruises and had broken the skin - i was too upset to go out after that

PMSL lucyellensmum at you wearing your cot.

Not many things mentioned on here that I can't confess to, too.

The worst was when an old lady knocked on the door to return toddler DS to me. He was found playing in the road out front, quiet country lane road, but no pavement, probably been out there for at least 10 minutes. He had learnt to undo two stiff latches on the side garden gate (we put an extra one on high out of his reach after that).

Recently I was in a hurry to feed DS tea (leftovers) so he could get to footie practice in time. I handed the food over even though it didn't smell right... had gone off... poor lad threw up for hours afterwards. .

well you know how it is doc when you are trying to get out the door with a screaming tot! Its a simple mistake to make

I think we've scared Bumbly off with our tales of incompetence. She's probably rocking in a corner in fear

oh dear i think her ds will be an only child...

SHIT SHIT SHIT, i think Bumbly is actually have a hard time of things just now - i wish i had bothered to look and register in my mind the OP name. I hope that what she does see here is that we are not taking the piss but that we ALL make mistakes and thankfully our DCs live to be told about it when they are older. That she is not a bad mother for doing this, i just think that we do so much on auto pilot that things do go awry sometimes. Bumbly, you are a great mum, you know that.

no, we are not taking the piss, I just hope bumbly is OK

hi i think we all make pretty much the same mistakes...
i have a few of my own guilt-trips for my DD to use against me when she is older (if i tell her...)

1. cutting a bit of skin off while trimming my 1 day old DD's nails (they were seriously talon like and she kept scratching herself so it was for the greater good...) and making her bleed a little bit
2. poking her in the eye in the semi-darkness trying to put her dummy in her mouth...
3. putting her in her pram for a sleep in the afternoon, not fastening her in, popping upstairs for a sec to put washing away, nearly dying of a heart attack when she strolls into the room after climbing our (super-steep!!) stairs holding her fave dolly in one of her hands...
4. telling my DD off for having (what i thought was...) a tantrum only hours ago only to discover on closer inspection that her little fingers were trapped in the folding part of her toy pram!!

and the moral of the story is... kids are made for the main purpose of making their mums panic at their mistakes even when they are the little devils making the lack of sleep factor come into play...
and we all have our stories and they are usually the same/similar ones!!!

Heavens no, we're not taking the p*ss. It's meant to be reassuring.

oh gosh bumbly sorry for facetiousness. it really does feel crap when you do these things that we all do, esp. when other things aren't great.

Sorry bumbly, don't worry about the car seat, it all ended fine.

Hope you don't think we're mocking your panic, we're all empathizing.

Oh Bumbly please don't worry.Little one will be fine.Over the past 3 years ds has:

Dived off picnic table headfirst onto concrete floor
At my mums done the same onto solid floor tiles
Fallen downstairs whilst I was changing dds nappy.

He is still here to tell the tale!!!

Worse,I once FORGOT to strap dd into her pushchair,she has hypotonia and I was in a queue in the supermarket,anyhow,I was negotiating pushing her pushchair and carrying the shopping and tipped dd forward,and she went whump out of her pushchair and ended up flat on her face(She couldn't put her arms out to break the fall).Blood everywhere,squished nose.

Oh and she fell off the sofa just before going to the childrens centre for tests.She looked a right mess with her poor little nose all swollen up.

So do not worry,we have all been there!!!

We continue to proove DS4's super human powers of indestructability by:

a) Letting go of bike when he is strapped in seat on back (ooh)

b) leaving him sitting on the beach to rescue friends DD from sea in Cornwall only for freak wave to wash DS4 over and tumble him along the shoreline persude by a stranger in a wetsuit (David Hasslehoff?)

c) Fail to catch him as his grandmother attempts to sit with him in a rickety deck chair which tips sideways and sends him sprawling into a flower border (erk)

Not meaninmg to be flippant, at the time these were all very frightening incidents although he emerged unscathed from alll of them, but I just wanted to emphasise that we have all been there (some more than most maybe

My MIL wins hands down though. DH grew up in Fiji and one day was spent at the beach where he and his sister used to play about in a little boat whilst his mum sat on the beach and painted. She was so engrossed with her painting she didn't see them get swept out over the reef, into shark territory, they were towed back in by fisherman and had had to plug the holes in the boat with chewing gum

Just yesterday, I was doing something on the computer (probably arsing around on here!) and I noticed DS (15m) chewing something. Fished a notice board pin out of his mouth and spent the rest of the day paranoid he might have already had chance to swallow one and waiting for signs of intestinal perforation.