I’m a failure. Please help. I feel sick.

[ToffeeKrisp]

I love my DD she’s my entire life I cannot imagine life without her. I cannot stop feeling like I’m failing her and my partner. She’s had an accident when she was staring to crawl when she hit her head and it left a permanent mark, then she had an accident where she hit her head on the concrete and today she hit her cheek at swimming. I honestly feel like from morning to night all I’m thinking about are these accident and the more I think about them the more they happen. I watch her like a hawk but these accidents just seem to be coming. She’s so 16 months and walking and is into everything. Im
worried because despite me watching her every move she’s still getting hurt. I must be an I believably rubbish mum and she deserves better than me. I can’t stop crying and feeling guilty.

My friends DD fell headfirst from his highchair ,Hit the stone flooring! quite fine now 6ft and a Teacher .My own DD fell back from a seat hit the paving stones . Also quite well and now early 20s .I reckon they bounce

@Aria999 i feel as thought we could make a book full of stories about toddlers and it could serve very well to all mums who feel mum guilt over their toddlers bumps and bruises because this has certainly made me feel like I’m definitely not the only one that has a toddler that appears to sport a new bruise each month 🤭

DD had a chicken pox scab on her forehead. We were really careful but it came off when DH pulled her jumper off. He was mortified.
Does she have a scar? Well, yes. Is she ok and happy many years later? Of course.

OP you can’t really search because there’s nothing specific enough to search for, but I hand on heart Promise you, these threads appear about every week on MN, with someone feeling utterly awful because their child has fallen off/over/into something. They’re not awful. You’re not awful. Your DP is clearly not spending enough time watching your child if he doesn’t know how easy it is for these things to happen.

And honestly, would you want them to never stand up in case they fall over? Learning to crawl and walk is a risky process, bumps happen. You take sensible precautions (like stair gates) and then you accept that you’re not God and you can’t prevent every scrape.

When DS was in reception, DH and I joked that we should buy the teachers a new accident book as an end of year gift, because surely he’d used up a whole one…

All toddlers hit their heads - yours was just a bit more unlucky with it than some others. It has nothing to do with your parenting.

@ToffeeKrisp yes we could!

It's even more embarrassing at the moment because DD (2.5) has become obsessed with band-aids and is often to be seen wearing several as fashion accessories with no actual injury under them.

Here immediate teachers are aware but goodness knows what everyone else thinks I do to her!

If it help, I have one of those bumps that leave a slight dent, got as a toddler (30 years ago) by running into a table when I'd just grown to big to be able to run under it. I didn't even notice until I was a teen and asked mum about it, it's had no impact on my life, and at no point have I held it against my mum.

My two toddlers both broke a limb within 2 months of each other. Closely followed by another 3 A&E trips for one of them - I literally have X-rays of every one of his limbs. I felt terrible but all of the accidents were just incredibly bad luck. Children can be really injury prone when they aren’t that steady on their feet and when they make unfathomably bad split second decisions (yes DS I am looking at you 🤦‍♀️). I was terrified that social services were going to think I wasn’t looking after them properly and take them away. I feel better about it now they’re older but it was awful at the time. Don’t beat yourself up. Accidents happen. My children were so closely watched and I was within arms length every single time they hurt themselves. Sometimes the unforeseen just happens - it’s not your fault.

When I was a kid Social Services came out because my mum had been to A&E with several kids' accidents in a short period and it triggered a referral! She was not a neglectful parent, we were just accident prone. Even the social worker laughed and told her it was totally normal.

When DS was in reception, DH and I joked that we should buy the teachers a new accident book as an end of year gift, because surely he’d used up a whole one…

Mine’s the same. And the fact that schools and nurseries have entire books dedicated to just recording minor accidents says it all really. Kids have accidents on a daily basis, that’s just life.

My toddler raised a massive egg on her head age 1 and two days. My brother was on the phone and asked how it had happened, as everything we had in our house was soft! I had to tell him that it was from falling onto a beautiful wooden toy she’d been given for her first birthday… she’d been given it by him 😂

He's a shit.

I bet this isnt the only way he makes you doubt yourself! You need to have a serious think about leaving him before you're unable to.

Just to make you smile. My good friend was always on at her lovely DH who was the SAHD to their kids. Always saying he didn't watch them carefully enough (he did) let them do dangerous things (he didn't) etc etc etc. nothing he did was good enough, everything she did was perfect (love her like a sister, but god she's hard work!!). Their DD has a nasty scar on her face & their DS a nasty one on his back, both teens now. Both incurred in my friends watch.

her saintly DH has never said a thing about them (in regards to her care)

I fell off one of those toddler tables onto my forehead as a toddler.

I was fine.

I was in my 20's when we suddenly realised in certain lights you can see my forehead has a slight dent 🤣🤣🤣

These things happen. Accidents happen.

I also have a scar between my eyes and my chin from accidents when I was 8 and 11!

Ds has a bald patch on the back of his head from falling and hitting it!!

You aren't a bad parent. Your a good parent who's allowing your child the opportunity to explore and grow and this is part and parcel of that.

DD fell at nursery age 18 months and hit her chin on the sand pit. Her tooth went all the way through her lower lip. Now 15 the scar is only noticeable if you stretch her lip and look for it.
DS has a faint scar between his eyebrows where he cut his head open on the corner of the skirting board at 16 months. Again, you’d only notice if you knew it was there.
Accidents happen. It’s normal, and part of learning to use their bodies. If they don’t happen with your partner id guess he either has much less 1:1 time with her or gives her much less opportunity to play and explore. Children need time to play and explore.

Kids fall over. Kids get scars, it will fade and look tiny when she is grown.

I spent Xmas eve 3 years ago in a&e with then 1 year old ds as he fell out of his pushchair onto the concrete. Dp thought he'd have time to pick his shopping bags up before fastening him in,he won't be doing that again.
He's now ridiculously accident prone and I'm actually glad that he does a lot of them at nursery or they'd probably be suspicious of me with the amount of injuries/bruises he has.

We used to attend our local A and E so much we were going to sponsor a cubicle!

With 5 DC's we've had trapped fingers , separated elbows , 3 broken ankles , 3 broken wrists ( fell off bikes) , one week where the same child ran into the same door frame from different directions resulting in HUGE egg shaped lumps on each temple , and a visit from an air ambulance 6 days after moving house when 2 year old threw himself backwards onto concrete in sheer fury and cracked his head open . Which was one way to meet the neighbours . They've all made it to adulthood .

By the time my youngest DD was 18 months old they knew her name at minor injuries unit......almost had our own parking spot 😂

I have a dent on my forehead for the reason you described, from falling off the changing mat and bashing my head on the bath on the way down. Mum felt incredibly guilty but I'm totally fine and she is a brilliant mother

Both my DSs have managed to end up in A&E on my watch. It happens.

I’m 40 and have two faint permanent scars from when I was little. One near my eye caused by me falling onto the dining table (corner cut my skin near my eye) and one on my cheek was caused by me falling over a loose slab on the patio. I’ve never considered these scars to be my parents fault or that they failed me. Things just happen!

Lots of people have scars/dents where they hurt themselves as toddlers. I know my sister does. She fell and hit her forehead on my parents' marble fireplace surround. It isn't something that is noticeable at all - I've only ever seen it when the story has been told and it's been pointed out. She was the first child - my parents were probably more aware of the dangers with my brother and then me after that.
My DH spilled hot tea over himself when he'd just started learning to walk along furniture (again, first child😄). These accidents happen!
I can totally empathise with how you feel though. My LB is only 6 months and I'm already feeling anxious about when he's on the move. I'm already a very anxious person.

I wish I'd let my dcs be more adventurouss instead of wrapping them in cotton wool. You always suffer some guilt as a parent, blame yourself for thigs that are beyond your control. You're not a bad mum, you're normal. If you were a bad mum you wouldn't give it a secind thought. As yr dc gets older and she gets bigger the scar/dent won't look si significant and besides it'll be a case of "yeah this is where I fell off such and such when I was however old".
You're doing ok. Don't beat yourself up. Talk to other mums in rl. You'll soon see they have their own worries. 💐

Funny to be reading this thread today, earlier my 5 year old asked me to take photos of all his scars and show them to him (he's a bit weird!). Most are on his face/head.

There was a period of 18 months when he went to A&E seven times. I was convinced social work would be called but we were reassured that some kids are just accident prone. It's was mainly falling and bashing his head, splitting his lip, that kind of thing. I've got loads of photos of him around age three with a black eye or some sort of injury. Two of the times were at nursery and I was actually quite relieved it wasn't just on our watch.

I have two other children who have never ever been to A&E (actually maybe this saved us from the social worker?) so it's not that I'm a terrible parent, I don't think, he's just really accident prone.

Some kids are like that, my brother was the same actually, it's honestly just one of those things. Mostly there is nothing you could have done about these kinds of accidents.

My DD fell and hit the corner of her eye on a cushioned ottoman when she was around 15 months old because she was running, she managed to catch the one tiny sharp corner and cut her eye so badly it needed stitches, she now has a tiny scar. I felt awful for months but it's just what toddlers do they have accidents they are still learning and don't have the visual perception or balance adults do, and their limbs are also still growing which makes them a bit clumsy. She also burnt her arm on a faulty slow cooker when she was two because I didn't notice her climbing the counter! That was a parenting low. I was in the room with her, I was focusing on the food on the hob and I will never forget that scream. You are not a failure, every single one of us parents have accidents. There have been countless other accidents between my two children as well but thankfully touch wood nothing quite as serious so far.

My first DD bounced on the bed as a toddler, tripped and her front teeth went straight into the wooden footboard 😭 they went grey from nerve death but thankfully it didn’t affect her adult teeth, accidents happen.