Is this bonkers helicopter parenting

[Etherealhedgehog]

A couple of months ago, DD (then about 13 months) managed to fall out of a swing at the playground. It happened so quick I wasn't able to catch her. I thought she was going to land on her head and potentially do major damage but in fact she did a full somersault, landed on her back and was fine (tears obviously, but no damage).

It seems like it shouldn't be possible, but I think she's more top heavy than the average baby (DP and I both have short legs for our heights and she looks the same). Also, when in the swing she likes to enthusiastically fling herself around so the swing bucket is tipping backwards and forwards, on top of the arc of the swing IYSWIM. So it seems pretty likely to happen again. I'm concerned if it does, she could land on her head and do herself a serious injury. So I'm mega nervous putting her on the swings, hover close enough to be able to catch her and take her off as soon as she starts flinging herself around (she doesn't really get it if we tell her no and we don't want to make it into a giant discipline thing as swings are just meant to be fun!) I feel like I'm being the nuts helicopter parent and DP thinks I'm overreacting and should just push her on the swings normally like nothing ever happened and not hover/worry about the wriggling. I really don't want to be that hovering crazy lady (you should see the pitying looks I get from other parents) but I also don't want my child to break her neck. How do you think you would react to this? Am I being normal and reasonable or was it a total freak accident and I need to pretend it never happened?

we don't want to make it into a giant discipline thing as swings are just meant to be fun!

OK so I'd just point out two things.

Discipline doesn't need to be scary or overbearing, you can just have a boundary (no swinging unless holding on for example) without making it into a huge thing, in fact good boundaries are really important to allow you to have fun without constant battling or arguing. If you have an idea that discipline/boundaries are scary then I'd urge you to look up some stuff about gentle parenting/positive parenting/RIE/the whole brain child etc - loads of really awesome approaches these days to get mutual cooperation and understanding without huge battles.

But also I don't think at 13mo she is likely to be capable of understanding this. If she falls off swings I'd just either use them very carefully with lots of supervision (maybe stick to certain swings only) or stop using them until she is a bit older, more stable and able to understand holding on. Again if your discipline is based on an idea of telling her to do/not do something and then responding with positive/negative reinforcement based on whether or not she complies, that is too high an expectation for a toddler.

If one of my babies had managed to tip themselves out of a baby swing I'd stop putting them in the swing for a while!

Play on other stuff until she's a bit more reliable.