I accidentally hurt my nephew and now I feel terrible

[Barkermum2024]

I am currently 25 weeks pregnant with my first baby. Today I looked after my nephew for a few hours and accidentally bumped his knee when getting him out of a high chair, he cried instantly and it bruised. I haven’t stopped crying about it to the point where I’ve been dry heaving. I feel so terrible and now I am having all these doubts about whether or not I can really do this parenting thing.
does anyone have any words of advice. I literally feel so so low because of this.

It's the hormones. I thought it was something serious from the title. He's fine. It wasn't even a head bump.

It's so much easier said than done, but please try not to be so hard on yourself ❤️ I have a 3 month old boy, a few weeks ago my knee buckled and I fell to the floor with him. Luckily he was okay, but it just goes to show that no matter what you do, accidents will happen. The fact you're so affected by this shows that you will be a brilliant mama.

Aw don't beat yourself up. We have all done similar things and it wasn't serious.
I am sure you will be a great mum.

Every parent has done this. More than once.

Please be kind to yourself.

You're being utterly ridiculous, if very sweet. You'll do similar to your own baby more times than you'll remember, it's not a big deal.

When my DS was young I trapped his fingers in the car door and another time I burnt his nose with a sparkler! Your nephew will be fine and you will likely have accidents with your own. Don't beat yourself up about it, we are all human and it sounds like your nephews bump was unfortunate but no lasting damage. It's common to feel nervous about becoming a first time parent, but don't be too hard on yourself x

At least you didn't wallop his head on the door frame.

I've done that to both my babies a few times. Just misjudged the distance. They're fine. Kids are designed to take a bit of damage.

Please don't beat yourself over it. Bruises are a fact of life for little ones x

you are fine honestly. Please don’t worry. These type of things happen, regularly. On a daily basis. It’s not a big deal. No lasting damage was done and I’m sure your nephew has completely forgotten about it.

I dropped my phone straight onto the back of my sleeping babies head (she was asleep on my chest at the time, I'm pretty sure I was on Mumsnet holding my phone with one hand and let go). Lifted her up in the air like Simba whilst singing circle of life and hit her head on a low hanging light bulb. Can't tell you how many times I've bumped her head on the roof of the car trying to get her into her very high, very safe, very annoying car seat.
Oh and the most frequent one is sending her flying when I'm just walking from one end of the room to the other, she follows me around and just somehow bounces off my arse like it's a trampoline and sprawling onto the floor 😅

It will be the first of many little accidents and the only thing to learn from it is how to forgive yourself and move on. Being so stressed is no good for you or your baby.

Welcome to pregnancy hormones - congratulations by the way

But in the nicest possible way you will have to toughen up. It's never easy when you give your child a bruise but you will very soon have a little one who appears underneath you that you don't notice and will knocked over in all sorts of unimaginable ways!

I agree you are being over emotional due to the hormones.
It is not uncommon to have fears of how good or shit a parent you will be when pregnant with your first.
It is a scary time for many, especially if your own parents were not good role models.
It is true that all parents make mistakes and accidents do happen, you at no point hurt him deliberately or through lack of caring. Don’t be too harsh on yourself, you’ve learned to be more aware when lifting a child from a high chair and I am sure you comforted him. You’ve done the right things as a loving adult.

Oh OP please don't beat yourself up about it. A simple accident, children are always bumping and knocking into things. I sent my DGS home last week with a scratched nose and red mark on his chin after he face planted the floor when he tripped over as we were playing. Accidents happen.

Once my child was playing in a playground and some older boys were kicking a football around. I told them to stop but they didn't and, what do you know, one of them kicked it wildly and it hit my child's head. I rushed over, she started wailing, the boys apologised and slunk away shamefaced. What they didn't know is that when I rushed over, I snatched her up so fast I gave her nose a huge clonk with my chin, so she was crying because of that (the football actually hadn't hurt her at all!). Luckily all the other parents blamed the boys - no-one knew it was actually my fault 🙈🙈.
This is to say - we all hurt kids sometimes by mistake. They do worse to us though! Your nephew wont even remember it tomorrow. Please don't worry!

Oh wow please don’t beat yourself up over this! Accidents happen. ❤️

When Ds was a newborn / tiny baby dh swaddled him and put him in the Moses basket and went to pull the basket closer to us and Ds fell out the side and rolled across the floor 😱😱 we were horrified and dh cried and felt terrible - Ds was fine. He’s now 12 and it’s one of the stories we laugh about now.

You’ll have lots of things like this happen as a parent / aunt etc. It’s an accident, it’s okay.

It happens to all parents! It’s completely normal and doesn’t mean you’ll be a bad parent at all

from the other side, my lovely sister in law was looking after my DS for a few minutes when he was a toddler and somehow he managed to run right into a doorframe. He had a huge egg on his head and she was completely mortified about it.

Honestly I don’t blame her at all. I know how easy it is to do and that she would never harm him intentionally. I trust her to care for him and felt bad that she was so upset about an accident.

Every time I bend down, without realising my toddler has walked up behind me, I send him flying to the floor with my big bum, or sometimes head first into a doorframe! 😂
Always accidental and he's always fine. It happens. It's fine...

When I read this i assumed you had done something like spilt a boiling drink on him and scarred him. It's the hormones. All children get bumps and bruises. The fact that you care so much shows what a great mum you'll be.

When my nephew was 18 months I had him for the day and took him to see the dinosaurs in Crystal Palace Park. He got his head stuck in the railings and yelled his head off. After a few minutes an army of mums converged, thinking he was being murdered! It took me about 20 minutes to get him free (hot tip: run your lip balm all over their ears).

It upset me so much more than all the myriad times I later inadvertently damaged my own children. They tend to survive!

LOOOL seriously don’t beat yourself up about this.
Two days ago I thought my toddler was getting a bit close to the edge of the bed, but she gets up and down by herself quite happily normally. A second later she dives head-first off the side… saw it happen in slow motion. But she’s fine and decided to climb on an unstable box today and fell straight off.
Young children and toddlers are walking calamities and much hardier than they seem. You do your best to baby proof or chase them around stopping them from doing something dangerous, but accidents do very much happen.
There isn’t a mum alive who doesn’t have a story about accidentally snipping their finger when cutting their nails for the first time or a fall from the bed or down the stairs, dropping them, dropping something on them, tripping over them…. the list is endless. The first time you feel terrible! But then others tell you their stories and you realise this is just one of many things that will happen and it makes you human, not a bad mum.

Oh wow this made me chuckle!! Dd did something very similar there - she somehow managed to get her leg stuck through some railings as a toddler. My Mum had to go and ask if anyone had some sun cream and then we rubbed loads of it all over dds leg and it slid out! 🤣🤣 until then I was thinking we’d have to call the fire brigade!

I once stupidly put 18 month old DD on the bed a little too close to one side and 💥 fell off and cut her lip! I was absolutely distraught!!! Took her A&E and was so distressed that the Nurse contacted my health visitor to check on me a few days later.... She reassured me that every single mother has had one moment where the baby has got hurt and you suddenly realise how delicate they are. I genuinely believe it happens for a reason, I really do! It just happened to you a little earlier, that's all.

You're a good mother already. A bad mother (auntie in your case) would've not cared.... Clearly you cared as much as humanly possible.
Go easy on yourself OP

Your reaction is a bit over the top.

All we can do is to be as careful as we can be.

OP pregnant or not, it is not good for you to get this hysterical over an accident. Dry heaving? Sorry but no. Any parent worth their salt would know it was an accident, and you have not harmed the child for life. All children, including your own, will get bumps and scrapes, under your supervision, under your partner's, at nursery and in life. Your intentions were good and the kid is fine. If his parents sulk over this, they need to get a grip.