Can you tell me about a time when you screwed up and your child got hurt?

[Anonymous]

When DD was a toddler, she started sprinting away from me on the sidewalk. I ran after and tried to grab her and she stopped abruptly and I ended up pushing her down right onto her face. Her tooth went into her lip and she was bleeding everywhere, and a bystander was giving me the most evil looks like I had knocked her down on purpose.

[Anonymous]

Our doctor friend told us children’s bodies are resilient, and their bones are more flexible than ours. She told us this after we were telling her about how bad we felt after our kid’s bad fall

[Anonymous]

I took my 5 year old & 2 year old on a walk on the first really nice warm day we had after a brutal winter. I let my 5 yo ride his bike with training wheels and was not paying any attention to the route we took because I was enjoying being outside on such a lovely day.

I took us the way with the little downward hill. I didn't even realize it as we started down the hill. My 5 yo took off with a little wheeeee and before I knew it, was totally out of control. His legs couldn't keep up with the pedals, of course, and I couldn't catch him with the stroller. I ended up tripping and scrapping up my knees, tipping the stroller, and the 5 yo wrecked, but thankfully not in the road. He got a cut on his arm that required stitches and he still has a scar. The baby was totally fine. I was a total shaking and crying mess. The ER doctor even offered to give me something for later once I was home and no longer driving.

The 5 yo is now 20 and when he tells the story, omg, the hill in his mind is SO huge. He acts like he was some kind of 5 yo stunt bike rider prodigy still to this day. Your kid will be fine, I'm sure! You're a great mom!!!

[Anonymous]

My husband held my son up as a newborn and put his head right into a low ceiling beam.

My husband again dropped my daughter from standing height at 11 weeks old (she backflipped right out of his arms). She was totally fine at the checkup. Same daughter later climbed into the kitchen table, onto her highchair tray (which was halfway off the table) and fell off the table along with the tray onto the tile floor at about 17 months. She was fine aside from the bloody nose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did you forgive yourself?

My 2 yo DD had an accident this morning and fell and hurt her head because I was not watching carefully enough (I turned my back only for a matter of seconds to attend to my other child). We went straight to the ER, and they checked her out and she’s probably going to be fine, but I can’t stop hating myself for my negligence.

Please don’t berate me, I know I screwed up badly. I’ve never had something like this happen before. I was alone with my two children and overwhelmed and distracted.

You would fire a nanny for this. No excuse for your negligence.

You are a truly shitty person. I’m sure your family knows it.

[Anonymous]

Oh golly, I can give you lists. My two favorites are the time I wasn't paying attention and my 3 year old son got his arm stuck in the gap between the sliding doors going into the grocery store. Learned that you can just hip check the door if that happens and another time I shut my daughter's arm in the hatch back because I thought she was moving away so I slammed it down as i turned away. Both were are are fine. I felt sick about it but life happens. Every mother has these stories.

[Anonymous]

One time my toddler son threw the huge tub of diaper cream while I was changing my newborn on the ottoman and it hit him right on the forehead. She had a dent in her cranium for what seemed like weeks. The best thing was that it was then that I was sure I loved #2 as much as #1 because I could have throttled him (no I didn't throttle him).

[Anonymous]

My 3yo pushed my 1yo down a flight of stairs - I was trying to get them both down the stairs, turned for a second to grab something, and he got impatient and pushed. I honestly still haven’t forgotten the sound of my own scream. It was like being outside of myself.

That said- she’s fine! The nurse emergency line didn’t even tell us to go to the ER, so...

[Anonymous]

A kid had no friends because kid was mean. I encouraged to make friends with the kid, my kid was generally very friendly and liked to help kids who had no friends, they make friends with them, next thing I knew, the mean kid pushed my kid off the swing to the accord of two stiches.

[Anonymous]

When my son was 5 (he's now 10) we were taking care of his cousin while her parents were on a business trip, she was 3 at the time. They took a bath together in the evening and were ready to get out, so I left the room to get towels. As my son was climbing his cousin bit him really hard, she left a huge bruise on his butt. I'm not sure exactly what led her to bite him and she never did it again after that.

[Anonymous]

There is a thread like this on a FB group I follow - the one that keeps coming up over and over again is kids going down a slide with a parent and breaking a leg. I learned this on DCUM - we need more awareness about this!

[Anonymous]

I’m the pizza cheese mom up post.

When I was a kid my parents took us to a farm to feed animals. I was on my dad’s shoulders and every time he fed the animals an ear of corn apparently I screamed. My mom watched and realized that the corn was touching the fence, his hand was touching my metal buckle, and the fence was electric! I was getting shocked!

My brother (mid 40s) had his face bitten by family dog and needed stitches and on one horrible day crawled out a window onto the roof ledge and later fell down a flight of stairs and knocked himself out!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m the pizza cheese mom up post.

When I was a kid my parents took us to a farm to feed animals. I was on my dad’s shoulders and every time he fed the animals an ear of corn apparently I screamed. My mom watched and realized that the corn was touching the fence, his hand was touching my metal buckle, and the fence was electric! I was getting shocked!

My brother (mid 40s) had his face bitten by family dog and needed stitches and on one horrible day crawled out a window onto the roof ledge and later fell down a flight of stairs and knocked himself out!

You win. I had a smashed finger (broken bones, broken fingernail needing removal, cast for months) and 2 concussions before the age of 10. My mom didn't fret much and if I ask now probably won't even remember.

[Anonymous]

2 years old - fell off a 4 ft bulkhead in Washington state while I was trying to catch her brother. she lost consciousness, started vomiting 6 hours later so clearly sustained a concussion. She was pretty much fine the next day and 10 years later. I'll never forget the fear but accidents happen. I know it's hard but try not beat yourself up over it!

[Anonymous]

Reading through I feel like a totally negligent mother, but this is what comes to mind (my children are well into elementary school).

Between my two children: one very severe burn after we turned our backs on the wood burning stove, I don't know how many times they've both crawled out of their cribs and landed on the floor. One rolled off a high bed onto a cement floor when we were visiting fiends. One was standing on a chair, fell, landed on his head on the cement (hospital visit for that one). One tumbled all the way down the stairs. The older one tipped over a shopping cart with the younger one in it. I spilled my hot tea on one of them. I'm sure there were other changing table/bed incidents.

This doesn't even take into account the stitches and broken tooth (separate incidents) as they were not on my watch.