Soham sleeplessness

[Evita]

Has anyone else found themselves unable to sleep with all the Soham stuff on the t.v. in the news so much? Before I was a mom I used to feel very sad about these things and hated the over-coverage the press gets into. But now I've found myself almost 'obsessed' with it and desperately sorry for the parents of Holly and Jessica. I feel annoyed that the media coverage is getting to me so much and that they've published such awful details. And yet I feel I need to KNOW what happened. Sorry if I sound like a loony. I've always been absolutely terrified of something happening to my little girl, since she was born I've fretted over it. I think I'm in danger of being the most over-protective mom of all time ...

I am in fear of being like you too, but thankfully some inner survival instinct of mine has kicked in and I read things and see things and my brain then puts them far away so I dont keep thinking about then. My kids get shouted at most for walking round a bend where i cant see them..how sad is that??? Havent any suggestions for you sadly, my coping mechanism just seems to have kicked in all by itself, thankfully.

How can parents ever recover if something so AWFUL happens to their child? We've only got my daughter as I'm a bit too old to think about any more now and if anything happened to her I feel like it would kill me and my partner. Especially if it was something so dreadful because you'd never get the thought of them being alone and afraid out of your mind. You'd never forgive yourself for not protecting them enough. Gosh, I'm in a right old state aren't i? Think I'd better go and lie down with my head under the duvet for an hour or so.

Nipped off to make lunch, get out from under the duvet and enjoy the lovely daughter you do have would be a better idea!

In the 'developped' world, The leading cause of death for people over 1 year & under 35 years is in car accidents -- and not as pedestrians, as passengers or drivers.

Worry about the crazies on the road, not the very rare stranger-weirdo snatcher.

I do lol, as a passenger, pedestrian, or even sitting on a train!

Do all you can to prevent anything happening to your kids, then relax and stop worrying. If something is going to befall them, what can you do? As long as we all take as much care as we can, everything else is a lottery, and we have to deal with whatever life throws at us.

If you have your kids and everything is good now, don't spoil what you do have by living in fear. Even if you one day become the unlucky one in a million, you will still have this time to look back on and cherish if you don't waste it being fraught with worry.

Evita i am the same as you! When my dd was born i used to look at her asleep and cry my eyes out thinking of Jamie Bulger. It just hit me what he and his family went through! I have also worked with kids in care and had horrble visions of abuse and the like! I am TERRIFIED of the day she has to go to school and i have to entrust her to strangers. However, i agree with whats been said here, i think you have to close this part of thinking off as much as you can, do everything in your power to keep her safe and ENJOY her! DP and i have also said that it would be awful if dd picked up on our fears and it gave her bad vibes about school! (and we're very careful not to worry around her). I do understand but please try to enjoy all the good things that are happening today rather than worry about what "could" happen oneday! I hope you are o.k++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It's also worht remembering how unbelievably rare stranger killings of children are. And they aren't getting any more common. Girl children of Holly and Jessica's age are statistically the least likely sector of the population to be victims of crime or to die even by accident.
I think parents of only children may well be more inclined to be afraid of losing their precious only one, butit helps to get risks in proportion, I think.

Totally agree, aloha. It's one of the reasons that these cases are so highly publicised - it just doesn't happen very often.

Yes, I know it's rare for such awful things to happen as did in Soham. I'm not really afraid of that happening to my daughter, I think I was trying to express how much more I feel for parents who suffer such tragedies than I used to. Because you don't know what you're losing if you've never had it. And of course I enjoy every single second of my daughter's existence, she's a precious gift that I thought we'd never have.

I know what you mean, Evita. Everything becomes much more personal now, doesn't it?

Yes, it does. You realise the value of life. I mean you realise that just by having a child without dreadful things happening to anyone else's child. Those dreadful things that happen just make you want to hold onto precious lives even more.