6 month baby fell out of car seat onto road

[Brokenpearl]

This for those of you who have ever accidentally dropped your babies (under 9 months) on the floor, or had your babies fall onto concrete ground/tarmac ground and/or hit their heads on tiled or hard floor..
The night before last, my 6 month old baby was in his car seat.. he is usually strapped up but this time i didnt realise i forgot to buckle the straps into the strap slot & didn’t notice as i had put a blanket over his body whilst he was in his car seat… Husband picked up the car seat and was turning the car seat around so he can have it facing the rear of the car before putting it into the car, but as it wasnt fully strapped, my baby fell straight out the seat, and landed face down on the tarmac road just beside the the car from the car seat he was holding at a height the sams height as the seats of a car (about 2.5 feet). I screamed and I am really heartbroken. He hurt his chin and grazed & bruised his chin & jaw and face. I don’t know how much of his head he hurt as he had a hat on so there are no visible grazes on the head. We took him to the A&E straightaway as we were just a stones throw away from the hospital. They checked him quickly (no scans), and said he is ok. But looking at the way he fell & the height fallen from and the hard surface he landed on.. I am concerned he might have got some internal head injury which is not visible. I know the signs to watch out for, but he’s too small to tell me if he has a headache but has been unsettled since. I want to know if any of you have had your babies fall in similar ways, or had babies with head injuries from hitting their heads especially at such young age. And for those of you whose babies are now older, has it had any effects on their cognitive ability, memory, thinking, social skills or in any other mental ability (please please be honest, don’t just say they are fine to make me feel better), I would rather know now and so can prepare myself mentally than to think it will be fine and then learn otherwise, years later. I have read of such injuries causes brain damage that impair cognitive and reasoning function and have heard it causing the babies to grow up with issues with short term memory loss. Detailed answers will be appreciated. Thank you

I have a dent in my forehead from falling over onto a tiles step when I was learning to walk at 9 months and then hitting the same spot on my head on a metal slide a few days later (1980s we're a bit lax on H&S). As far as I know it's caused zero issues and I got into mensa as a kid. Please forgive yourself for what was an accident and use it as a learning experience.

I'm sure he'll be absolutely fine

Keep an eye on him, if he's still fussy for the next couple of days, get him checked again to put your mind at rest

Most babies roll off something and bump their heads around that age

My dd rolled off the bed and hit her head on a steel bar at about 6 months and when she was around 1 years old she fell out the back door onto straight onto concrete. She's 4 now and bright as anything.

OP, it'll be ok. If the hospital have said your baby is fine then they'll be fine. I think most babies have had falls off settees, beds, out of car seats etc.

I know the worry, mine did it twice and I spent all night watching her in case she had concussion. Convinced myself that she was going to have brain damage. She's fine. Your own parents probably had a similar mishap with you when you were a baby!

I genuinely read it twice, dont know how I missed it 🙃need my eyes testing. Sorry OP!

Babies can tell us they are ill... they cry. If he is his normal self he won't be in pain.

Give him a couple of days as long as he is not sick or hard to rouse. Was he unconscious after the fall or awake?

It will have shaken your baby up but if he has a temp or seems unsettled after a few days I'd take him back to the gp or hospital. Check the ears as well for fluid.
That is a bad fall but babies are very hardy, it happened to me once my baby fell off the bed (high mattress) while I was adjusting the sheet in my sleep deprived state and landed flat on his back.
He let out a cry and I checked his head but he was ok thank god.
He's had several falls and whacks to the head since then and brushed them off.
It's always good to take them to be checked out though.

Kindly, this is a massive overreaction and suggests to me that you may not be coping quite as well as you think you are. Having full responsibility of a newborn is an incredibly anxiety-inducing experience and I developed PPA (post partum anxiety). I couldn’t see it myself - I thought I was being completely reasonable and a normal level of protective. My husband made me go to the GP who offered me CBT and it made a hell of a difference.

I slipped on a tiled floor when holding DD1 at about that age. We both went over, and she hit her head on the floor.

She’s 3.5 now and totally fine.

If the doctors thought a scan was required, they would have ordered one. They don't take any chances with young babies

I think your guilt about making a mistake that led to the accident is causing you to think to deeply about the potential consequences to your child. Accidents and mistakes happen, it isn't like you were knowingly negligent, so don't beat yourself up too much. Children have bumps and knocks all the time and are quite resilient. You have had him checked at hospital, and been given the all clear. So I would give thanks to a lucky escape, and move on.

My 5 year old son accidentally tipped his 3 month old baby sister out of one of those sets of wheels that holds the car seat. It tipped to the side on some uneven ground and she fell out onto the hard pavement. I had undone the straps and forgotten to do them up again. She was checked by a doctor, we were given the signs to look out for and she was/has been fine ever since. It’s terrifying at the time I know, but he’s been checked out so he will absolutely certainly be fine.

My sister fell fully down the stairs, top to bottom, and banged her head when she had just turned 2 (on Christmas Eve, no less!) She had a good lump but has just graduated uni and got her first graduate job, so no lasting effects

How any of mine ever survived to adulthood I'll never know! (3 boys) my first fell from top to bottom of the stairs, I didn't realise he could get up them, I reached the bottom in time to watch him somersault down😱second one pulled the iron cord, I watched in slow motion it seemed as it shot down from the ironing board point first narrowly missing his head, I couldn't move fast enough to catch it. I could go on, there are many incidents and I was a very protective mother believe it or not........accidents happen! Try to forgive yourself but know that you will still be having flashbacks over 30 years later💐

I was thinking this. Of course you are right to be upset. That was a near miss, but fortunately it was a miss. Of course your baby will be out of sorts for a little while, while bumps and bruises take care of themselves.
Give yourself a bit of time. Don't let any anxiety spiral into illness.
Take care and forgive yourself.

I fell out my mums arms when I was 8 months old onto a concrete floor. I was immediately knocked out. I was monitored in hospital overnight but apart from rubbing my head the next day, I was fine. There was no lasting damage and I'm in my 30s now!

I can imagine you'll feel awful but it was an accident, please don't be too hard on yourself.

Please tell me you read the opening post?! 🙄

Two people have already said this, and the poster has responded and apologised, so perhaps you need to do some more thorough reading of the thread?

@NameChange30 yes I said sorry, you need glasses like me haha!

Ds went down 3 concrete steps in his buggy at a few months older op. A bad bump to the head but I dialled 999 as I genuinely expected him to be dead... No issues at nearly 15 now!

My dc had a fractured skull as a newborn due to a fall.

They are now a teenager, completely cognitively normal, no memory issues, top sets at school. No lasting damage whatsoever.

Withdrawn

When ds 1 was 7 months I picked him up, turned around and tripped over my shoes (that I'd just kicked off and left there so my fault). We both went down like a sack of spuds, hard.

I held onto him for dear life on the way down, desperate not to drop him and actually made it far worse. He cracked his head hard on the end of the coffee table whereas I missed it - and of course as I was still holding him, the extra weight /speed of me falling WITH him had a slingshot effect, he swung down into the table with huge force. It would actually have been far better if I'd let him go and dropped him.

Anyway, he had a huge egg sized bump and a very, very deep graze on the top of his head that bled a lot. He was screaming, I was crying, I rushed him to A&E.

I worried about hidden damage too, I think it's common op. But he's 15 now and doing very well so no long term damage (or even short term, he was fine in a couple of days).

It happens.

I dropped my son on a marble surface and he had a bash on his head. He was ok in long run just sad at the time it happened.

I know it is very frightening and upsetting but you did the right things and he is seemingly ok according to professionals so take comfort in that.
Most children will take a nasty bump to the head at some point, one of mine did when the pushchair tipped once, another fell more than 5 foot from a slide in a playground. Both events will be forever in my mind because it was awful at the time but you will move past it.

If you haven’t done so already a paediatric first aid course is always worth taking.

Ummmm helpful post, not.

Why bother to waste your time posting and being shitty to a distraught mother. Clearly the damage YOU caused to your kids with your unkindness was all on the inside.