The agony I feel when 17mo hurts himself - is this normal?

[ilovejonty]

I wonder if other mums feel like this. When my little boy has a tumble and cries, luckily has only happened twice where he had had a fairly 'hard' bump, I get quite panicky (I am an axious person anyway), and I also feel awful for him. I know I should stay calm not to make him more frightened, but I feel helpless as I just want to (a) turn back the clock and undo the pain and (b) make it go away but can no neither. I usually end up crying myself.

Sometimes I lay awake feeling scared about him hurting himself and all the bad things that could happen. Am I being too paranoid or is this a normal feeling when you become a parent?

I don't know what I will do to cope if he cuts himself as I am very sqeamish, it's not that I am scared of blood as such, but I just hate cuts. I obviously don't have sharp things around and since I hate knives, I only have one small very blunt one in the house, but still I worry.

Help / advice on how to cope please? TIA.

typo sorry, meant squeamish

I wouldn't beat yourself up. It's perfectly normal to want to protect your children. My little man is always banging himself on something, he's a complete lummox The first few times he hurt himself enough to cry i thought my heart would break, although i tried not to let him see this (i did cry when he couldn't see me though) And yes, i've done the lying in bed imagining all the horrible things that could happen and scaring myself to death. You feel vulnerable with a little one, you just want to wrap them up and protect them forever, but as my husband keeps telling me, you can't. Accidents do and will happen, as much as you try your best. Have you noticed that they seem to get over it a lot quicker than we do?

I can't really offer any advice, i'm a wreck when anything happens myself, i've even gone and done a chidrens first aid course to see if that makes me more secure, it didn't! Just try not to let them see you panicking, and don't keep imagining all the bad things that could happen, you'll drive yourself nuts.

I'm nuts already ... Thanks for your advice

my son ran between two big swings with big kids going really high on them. i couldnt get to him quick enough to stop him and he didnt hear me shouting.

luckily the swings missed him but i nearly threw up on the spot. I am still having nightmares about it and whenever i think about it i go cold. He could have been killed. My DP thinks im being ridiculous still being upset about it though.

you just have to remember they are tougher than they look....

Gosh that's awful, poor you. I can well imagine how you felt / feel. I guess being a parent is all about permanent worrying

I totally agree with Ruby.

I'm sure every bump DS1 had hurt me more!

He fell off the climbing frame in the park when he was 2, and was totally unhurt - but we had to go home becuause I felt physicaly sick.

I would probably say "Oh dear, jump up" to my 3rd child.

I am the opposite, DS can injure himself sitting quietly watching TV so I had to toughen up pretty early.

OT - how on earth do you cook? I would go MAD without my razor sharp knives.

Boy knows he is NOT under any circumstances to touch MY knives, hehe even DH has to use the "cheap" ones after an incident where he didn't wash/dry and put away one of my babies immediately after use.

Oh gosh I feel sick thinking about what nearly happened to ds1 once, it was the worst moment of my life - luckily he was fine. I'll never forget.

However I stopped and looked at that newspaper story about the tiny boy who was killed, today - I hadn't realised what had happened before - I was covering my mouth and wincing as i read it. It is something nobody can ever, ever get used to isn;t it, the idea of what he must have gone through. It's absolutely hideous.

It made me very protective towards my 17mo today.

i remember this from when i first stayed overnight without ds1. just lay in bed imagining all sorts of awful things happening to him. eventually i had to give myself a mental slap! i find visualising putting these thoughts in a box marked 'do not think about this' and putting it on an imaginary high shelf sometimes helps. [bonkers emoticon]

i can't read about the child abuse cases either in fact dp censored the newspaper the other day - he said 'i thought i wouldn't bring it home as it had all these upsetting stories in it about children' bless him.

I was very like this until I realised my ds was the child who can hurt himself on a pillow! Thankfully he is tough as nails and altohugh he will say it hurt he will only cry if it is REALLY bad. And even then a kiss makes it better, you're fine for feeling like that but try and hide it from your ds.

I think its normal. dd has to have unpleasant medical things done to her far too often and I hurt inside every single time. You'd think I'd get used to it!
asic - first time dd1 went on a sleepover I lay awake wondering if the mum had remembered to take off dd's necklace and agonised she would strangle to death while alseep. Even contemplated calling them at 2am!

NMC

It reminds me how I knew I loved someone, when I was with ds's dad I mean - he broke his arm one time and told me the next day

I physically hurt becasue I hadn't been there with him to help, the idea of him hurting just was so painful.

I never understood what love was till then.

Morloth - I manage with my one blunt implement. (I know it's better to have sharp knives for cooking but phobias are not rational things sadly, and it makes my skin crawl just to type the word euugh!!!)