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Parenting

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Original poster

Do you never stop worrying about/imagining dreadful things happening to your DCs?

31 replies

minouminou · 07/04/2008 00:14

i'm asking because I'm going through a phase of worrying about abduction/bombs/low-flying wildebeest etc more than usual at the mo
usually i'm quite a sanguine person (except for when i'm angry!), but this phase is horrible.....dwelling on horrendous events coming out of nowhere
i'm not depressed atm, as it's something i've never suffered from....i'm a bit tired, maybe, but nothing out of the ordinary for a (part-time) working parent with a DC
DS is 18 months old, healthy, normal, we don't live in a rough/dangerous/croc-infested area
dunno what fer't' do?
is it a phase, or is this normal?

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

BibiThree · 07/04/2008 00:25

I've been like this since before dd was born, and am owrse now I've got 3 little ones. I think it's a mother thing...some mothers can ignore it/ not let it bother them, some (like me) can't and let it drive them a bit bonkers.

Natural I think, as long as it doesn't hamper your day to day life...

madamez · 07/04/2008 00:28

I'm getting better. I used to have an awful constant low-level fear of dropping dead somehow and DS screaming unfed and unassisted for days before anyone came to help...

pedilia · 07/04/2008 00:37

I do have days where I think of all the things that could happen to DC's especially DD who is currently the youngest.

As I suffer awful insomina I often check the Dc's at random times through the night, just in case, totally irrational I know..........

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SmugColditz · 07/04/2008 01:28

Oh madamez I get that. fear that nobody will come for weeks and and and..... ohhhhh it does not bear thinking about. I will be much happier when ds1 can be trusted to use the phone.

BetteNoir · 07/04/2008 01:37

pedilia, I often do the insomniac night checks too - although not so often now the DCs are older.

The wee small hours often lead me to ponder on things far more than I need to.

claribelle · 07/04/2008 06:16

I cope with an underlying fear of that, but what can you do? I try to ignore it. I reckon it probably is normal - our instinct to protect. After all, we've probably never loved anyone this much before, in this way. My ds is 16mo. I read that the fear is greater for mothers who lost their own mothers somehow.
Maybe its bad because you are tired? Anxious thoughts seem to be able to get a grip on you when you are tired.

Original poster

minouminou · 07/04/2008 09:36

The tiredness deffo doesn't help,
Madamez, and colditz...I think a lot of people have that worry, especially as people don't know their neighbours so much these days (thankfully, we live in a small block, with a fair few nosey (but helpful) types, so i don';t worry so much about your scenarios as random disasters/attacks)....i suppose you have to have a certain level of alertness and paranoia, and it doesn't INTERFERE with day to day life, but it certainly does form a backdrop at the mo.
Thanks for your replies.....i didn't thinki was going mad or anything, but i was worried i was getting a bit morbid, so your answers have put my feelings into perspective.

OP posts:

Loopymumsy · 07/04/2008 13:23

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

Dragonbutter · 07/04/2008 13:26

yes.
being malled by dogs
falling into rivers
falling off cliffs
choking to death

so far so good

Quattrocento · 07/04/2008 13:31

My DD is ten. We left her home alone for 15 minutes because of a nightmare set of circumstances. To put this into context - it was broad daylight, she knows every single one of our neighbours by name and they know her, her grandparents live a fifteen minute walk away, she is entirely sensible grown up and level-headed and absolutely nothing could have happened to her.

Except she was nervous about it. I think the reason she was nervous about it is that we've overcoddled her by having precisely the sort of anxieties you mention on this thread. She has never caught a bus/train/taxi on her own. I just wonder what we are doing to our children by over-protecting them.

BoysAreLikeDogs · 07/04/2008 13:32

I poked both of mine when they were sleeping babies, often.

Now, I am more [meh] about them when sleeping.

They are pretty sensible, and I refuse to get worked up about abduction.

But.....

Falling off cliffs/falling into rivers/mauled by dogs I totally get, along with cars not stopping at zebra crossings/falling from the train platform/being eaten by the escalator

bohemianbint · 07/04/2008 13:34

This is why I don't read the paper; there's always tales of lads being stabbed/battered/losing eyes in takeaway fights and I worry that in 14 years time it couls be my beautiful DS.

Makes me want to move to Greenland, or some freaky sect and keep him safe forever. (In my less grounded moments!)

Dragonbutter · 07/04/2008 13:37

BALD, i remember from another thread that we had similar experiences with baby in NICU. The baby poking and checking during the night went on for far too long and i think it was a direct result of actually experiencing something bad happening to them. I'm much less concerned with DS2.

madcol · 07/04/2008 13:38

When I had PND I imagined some really strange stuff. As soon as you mentioned a situation a weird image of something really horrible would pop into my head.

Like being shot ; and freak car swerving off pavement and hitting pram.

Still get it but not so often.

Never thought it was happening to other people - that's why Mumsnet so good.

Onlyaphase · 07/04/2008 13:38

My sister sails a lot and keeps talking about that film where there are friends on a yacht with a small baby, and they all get off to go swimming and forget to put the ladder down so they can't get back on the boat again ever, and the baby is still on the boat crying...this is a film I am never going to watch, and something I worry irrationally about in my darker moments.

claraquitetirednow · 07/04/2008 13:39

I worry about them constantly. One of my biggest fears is that I am somehow going to trip while carrying the baby and she is going to fall into the road and a passing car or bus will run over her head....

Or I will trip while carrying her downstairs and she will go crashing over the top of the bannisters to the ground two floors below...

I went upstairs to check just now that she hadn't somehow choked on her comfort blanket !

I do think tiredness/post-baby blues makes it all worse but I doubt if the fear ever goes completely away.

claraquitetirednow · 07/04/2008 13:41

Onlyaphase

I saw that - it was terrible!! HOWEVER the people in the film were SPECTACULARLY stupid and luckily they all died apart from the mum and the baby

toratora · 07/04/2008 13:41

I thought I was a freak because I worry about absolutely everything! None of my rl friends seem to worry like that - thank god for Mumsnet! I worry about me dying, something happening to the dd's and I still check them during the night aged 3 and 5. My mother said that she never really slept properly again once she had children!

BoysAreLikeDogs · 07/04/2008 13:42

Dragonbutter, I agree that having a sick baby does make you paranoid. All the wires and tubes, and poking and sticking. Eight years and I still freak if I smell Hibiscrub in the Surgery

throckenholt · 07/04/2008 13:43

I rarely worry about that sort of thing (especially not the wildebeest !).

Maybe I don't have the imagination - not sure.

TheDevilWearsPrimark · 07/04/2008 13:43

To be honest I don't, and I hope that doesn't make me a bad parent.
I of course am careful to make sure they are never in danger, but otherwise am very relaxed.
My DH has a fear of choking, so much so that he cannot eat at the table with the DC unless their food is pretty much mulch, or if I am there to supervise.

TheDevilWearsPrimark · 07/04/2008 13:45

Onlyaphase, I saw that film too but have no need to worry as I'm pretty sure I won't be going on a yacht trip anytime soon.

Dragonbutter · 07/04/2008 13:47

(apologies for the slight hijack) but yes, for me it's the smell of some peoples sterilisers, they smell like the ones in hospital.

OrmIrian · 07/04/2008 13:49

I don't worry. I think I have a failed imagination. I used to worry but I think tiredness and the sheer fact that nothing bad has ever happened to them has beaten it out of me. DH worries. But then he doesn;'t look after them day after day. I let DS#1 (11) take DS#2 (5) to the park on Sunday. When he roused himself from the Grand prix long enough to register what was going on he panicked. I could see 'abduction, traffic, falls from slide' all flashing through his head. So I told him to get a grip and get back to his fast cars.

meep · 07/04/2008 13:50

I am a night time checker - me and dh have got it down to about 2x between 7pm and us going to bed (used to be every half hour ) and dh still wakes about once a nigh and goes to check she's still breathing (she did stop breathing in his arms after she was born - so I think this has added to the normal post-birth paranoia!)

I try not to dwell on the dog-malling/karvol plug-in starting fires/wasp sting thoughts - but they do creep up on you.

Am so glad that there are others like me!

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