Being a parent is hard work and sometimes mistakes can definitely happen. We can only imagine how terrified these parents were at their mistakes.
A Brutal Fall
“1995, my wife is 7 months pregnant with our first, punches me awake at 3am crying because, well, hormones. She’s hysterical because we can’t be trusted with a baby, we’ll hurt it. When I tell her we’ll be fine she says “You’re a f—ing klutz, you’ll drop the baby down the stairs.”
2003, carrying our eight month old third child down the stairs, one of the other kids had left one of those fat crayons on like the second step down. Step on crayon, foot goes shooting straight forward, I land hard on my a–.
Baby gets dropped and lands two steps down from me.
I had landed oddly, with my left leg sort of tucked backwards (ended up with a sprained knee from it).
I try to free my leg so that I can reach forward and grab my daughter.
Leg pops forward…
And I managed to kick my daughter down another five steps.
For the record, she was scared as hell but completely unharmed. She stopped crying within 10 minutes and went on as if nothing had happened.
TL;DR I kicked my eight month old daughter down a flight of stairs” Source
One Last Lap
“No kids, but as a babysitter – During the summer, the parents would drop me off with the kids at a swim club they were members at. Oldest kid was maybe 7, youngest was 3. Since the youngest couldn’t swim yet, she had those inflatable arm floaty things to wear. Well, at the end of the day, I was packing everything up to get ready to leave, took her arm floaties off… turned to put them in the bag, turn back around, shes gone. (no more than 15 seconds with my back turned.) Apparently she decided to jump back in the pool for one last swim. There is nothing quite as heart-attack inducing as when I looked in the shallow end of the pool, and there she was just standing on the bottom with this shocked look on her face since she had expected to float. I jumped right in and pulled her out. Again, she was only out of sight for maybe 15 seconds, so no harm done. But still, scary as hell” Source
Unforgiving Bath Time
“I was giving my newborn son his first bath and I had him facedown over my arm lowered into the water while I washed his back, not realising I had completely submerged his face. He was probably under for about 10-15 seconds before I realised he was a bit quiet and the reason why. Still feel sick when I think that he could have drowned in my arms”
A Chilling Discovery
“I was driving to work one winter morning in South Dakota. It was very cold out.
My mind was elsewhere, and when I was turning into the parking lot, I heard my four-month old daughter cough in the backseat. I had forgotten she was in the car, and had forgotten to drop her off at daycare.
I was thisclose to parking the car and going into the office and leaving her there, in a South Dakota winter. She wouldn’t have made it to lunch.
Still gives me the creeps, 12 years later” Source
A Fumble
“Accidents absolutely can and DO happen to normal, responsible people.
When my son was 4 months old, his dad was carrying him downstairs. His dad sneezed, lost his footing and slid halfway down the stairs on his butt. In the meantime, my son, swaddled tightly in a blanket sound asleep, shot out of his arms like a football and landed head first on the wood landing of the stairs.
He ended up in PICU with a hematoma and two fractures on his skull. After a couple weeks of monitoring and healing, he was fine and is fine to this day. Although I worry about early head trauma affecting him later in life. But so far so good!
His dad on the other hand still tears up when he thinks or talks about it” Source
A Christmas Nightmare
“Caught my 14month old eating a glass christmas bulb.
I went over and slapped it out of her hand. Then I fish-hooked around in her mouth. I could feel the glass, but it was too fine to remove.
I yelled for my husband to hold down our daughter while I waterboarded her at the kitchen sink. He shot me a curious look, but he isnt really one to pass up a good time. Thankfully, it worked.
Tl;Dr: We are selling my kid to the carnival” Source
Sleeping Like A Champ
“My kiddo was / is a tummy sleeper through and through. I kept telling the doctor she wouldn’t sleep on her back, but he just kept telling us that she will die if she sleeps on her belly. So I had a sleep deprived, miserable crying child and I was sleep deprived and miserable from holding her while she took 3 naps a day. We couldn’t co-sleep so something had to give. If we put her on her belly she slept like a champ, so that’s what we did at night. Everything was great, though I felt guilty.
Until one morning I go to wake her up and she doesn’t move when I call her name. She doesn’t move when I lay a hand on her back. She is stiff when I yank her out of bed and proceed to run screaming bloody murder throughout the house “She’s dead, she’s dead OMG she’s dead” I don’t know whether to jump in the car and go to the hospital 2 seconds away or call 911 – so I’m frantically dancing back and forth in the front yard. My panicked husband finally yells “STOP FOR A SECOND”, walks over and kisses our super quiet, very confused and very alive child. I told you – she slept like a champ on her belly”
Ouch…
“When my brother was about 3, my dad was playing that game where you lift your kid above your head repeatedly over and over again. He didn’t realize that there was a ceiling fan directly above him, and put my brother’s head into a very fast moving ceiling fan. This resulted in a bunch of stitches and a very, very guilty father” Source
A Ping Pong Battle
“Once while playing toss the baby I bounced my child off the ceiling” Source
Like A Ragdoll
“My mum got into the shower with her newborn baby girl (my now 4 year old sister) who was about 6 months old at the time, tripped on the step into the bathroom and proceeded to throw the baby into the tiled shower like a ragdoll. She is fine now though, I think” Source
Eating Concrete
“My wife was just walking along a normal path. Tripped on a crack and threw our eldest (6 months old at the time) onto the concrete path.
One of the worst moments of our lives. He was fine. Not even a scratch.
A few weeks ago (now 11 years old) he smashed his teeth doing something stupid and faceplanting into concrete. It’s like the kid wants to eat concrete.
(His teeth have been reconstructed. However, even weeks later, I don’t think I am over the stress of THAT day. Our kids permanently hurting their teeth has long been one of my wife’s biggest parental phobias. The day itself was a nasty mix of horror and fear for his safety/future/physical well-being and all sorts of horrible ‘If only I had…’ constant replays. Any time your kid does something major like that, it hits hard. Even if they, themselves just shrug it off” Source
Listen To Me!
“I tripped with my 1 month old and her head hit a wall. Hard. 🙁
I called 911. The operator said, “Is that her screaming in the background? Yes? Then she’s probably okay.” GET ME AN AMBULANCE ANYWAY.
EMT said, “Oh, she looks like she’ll be fine. You probably don’t need to go to the hospital.” TAKE US TO THE HOSPITAL ANYWAY.
Nurse said, “She looks fine. You can probably just go home.” GET ME A DOCTOR ANYWAY.
Doctor said, “She’s fine. She probably doesn’t need a CT Scan.” GIVE HER A CT SCAN ANYWAY.
CT Scan Doctor, “Oh, she has a fractured skull, we will need to admit her.”
Parents may not be able to keep their kids out of harm’s way 100% of the time, but people need to listen to them when they know something is wrong with their kid” Source
It’s Feeding Time
“I don’t have children but my father almost killed me once. We were at Sea World when I was about 2 and I wanted a better view of “Shamu”. This was 25 years ago and safety precautions weren’t quite what they are now. My dad lifts me up high enough for me to see the whale over the edge and he starts swimming towards me. Alarms started going off and one of the workers is sprinting to my dad. He proceeds to snatch me from my father who was getting ready to physically harm the person that just tore his kid from his arms when the man explained that is how they feed the whale.
TL;DR My dad almost fed me to a whale and came close to punching the guy that stopped him” Source
A Hidden Secret
“Horrible story here:
So one night, when my son was about 3, I left him in the bedroom watching Blue’s Clues until he fell asleep. it was about 9pm, but he had napped all day so he wasn’t tired.
I had my step mother over, and we were having a beer in the kitchen, just yammering about the day and what not.
About 30 min later I go to check on him and…gone. Not in the bedroom, not in the kitchen, not anywhere. Looking under beds, frantically searching the basement, thinking he was maybe hiding or something.
Not. Anywhere. At. All.
As I pass by the front door I notice it’s open a bit. His coat is hanging up but his shoes are gone. What the F–K?! It’s February in northern Alberta so it’s about -37 degrees and fricken COLD outside at 10pm.
I’m thinking “nononononono” as I grab my coat and f–king dash out of the house. Im screaming his name hysterically, running up and down the street, thinking Im going to see a car pulling over and his f–king body pasted on the road.
My step ma yells and waves me over about a block up.
Turns out, he left the house, walked down the street, crossed the street. Some old guy almost nailed him with his van. He freaks out and takes him to the nearest house, about 2 blocks from us.
I go inside, crying and freaking out, and as I walk into this stranger’s house, the police arrive. I let my step ma deal with them while I attempt to grab my kid…..but he’s in his terrible 3’s…and there’s 2 other kids there watching tv with him…and the throws the f–king MONSTER of fits as Im trying to get his coat on. I mean, full tantrum, kicking and yelling, the works.
So here I am, dragging this screaming kid out of a stranger’s house at 10pm, smelling like beer, trying to explain to the police what had happened.
They let us go with no issues (thank CHRIST), and we went home. We never mentioned it to anyone. EVER” Source
An Escapee
“We were renting a two story house when my son was about 2 years old. All of the bedrooms were upstairs and the windows which, lead out to an overhang were the floor to sealing type and opened on the bottom. I thought I was being safe by putting child proof locks in the kids room windows. One day I’m downstairs while my son is napping and a neighbor comes over screaming “There’s a baby on your roof.” He had gone into my bedroom and climbed out a window that wasn’t locked”Source
She’s Out To Get Me
“My 14 month old has one goal in life, to make me look like a bad parent.
“I need a new bruise on my forehead, that coffee table will do just fine.”
“I want off the couch, better go face first.”
“The oven is perfect size for me.”
“This bookshelf would look better knocked over on top of me.”
“Chewing on these wires is great for my teeth.”
-My 14 month old, every day” Source
A Knitting Problem
“Grandma was visiting and doing some knitting. No sooner had the request “please make sure your (3 year old) grandson can’t get a hold of one of those” come out of my mouth when I see him racing around the sofa brandishing a knitting needle.
Time goes into slow motion. I can’t see him and my legs, strangely, won’t move fast enough. There is an odd silence. Then the crying. But it is a cry I’ve not heard before. It’s gargled somehow. Rounding the sofa, it’s a scene for which I have no context. My son is sprawled on the ground. My brain first registers the blood. And then the bloody knitting needle. I turn him over and blood begins spurting from his neck and hits the coffee table.
Grab pj top and apply pressure. Scream at Grandma to call 911. Grandma forgets how to use “this crazy telephone”. Husband runs in from garden. A blur of ambulance, attendants, neck brace, gurney, sirens, emergency room. There are ultrasounds, physical checks, stitches, monitors and finally an overnight stay in hospital for observation. All is well.
Arriving home, Grandma said she thought we “over reacted”. Much later she will be heard to wonder aloud why she is not allowed to babysit” Source
Look Both Ways
“Once while watching a three year old (my godson) we went to a local model train store that he loved. Everything went great, and he had a lot of fun. Walking back to the car, he was tugging at my hand, and said “I want to run!” We’d made it past the last car in the lot except ours, no visible moving cars anywhere ahead of us, and it looked like absolute clear, safe sailing all the way back to our parked car. So, I let go, and said, “Go ahead! Run!”
It all seems so predictable now. He ran about 5 feet forward into the completely empty parking lot, towards our car, then did a 180 degree turn with a speed and agility that would make a hummingbird proud, and took off back the way we came, back into the busy part of the parking lot. Trust me when I tell you that it is simply not possible for a 185 pound adult to change direction that quickly. Fortunately I still had the presence of mind to yell “Stop!” at the top of my lungs. He stopped himself just short of a big SUV with its backup lights on. I think the driver may have seen him. I don’t know.
Anyway, here’s what I learned about small kids.
Just because traveling in a certain direction is obvious and natural to you does not mean your toddler thinks the same thing. All directions of travel are “on the table.”
Toddlers can maneuver much more quickly than you can.
You need to be holding your toddlers hand firmly any place there are cars. Even cars that could never, ever be a source of danger. Because they still can be” Source
Scariest Moment Ever
“Single mom here…I had this fake fireplace the first place that we lived, and I didnt know I had to bolt it to the wall, I figured it was heavey enough it would be fine. My 2yr old son threw a ball and it went on top of the fire place, as he climbed up to get it the whole thing fell over. The only thing that saved his life, was the bean bag chair we had set in front for story time. The fire place weighted 200lbs or more. When it tilted he managed to get into the nook part so he wasnt getting completely crushed and the chair kept the weight off of him. I had to get neighbors to help me lift it up. Scariest moment so far”Source
A Close Call
“Not a parent but my sister took care of me a lot when I was a baby. One day I was playing in the laundry room and happened to get a hold of one of the silica packets from a shoe box. According to my sister, I somehow got it open and ate half the packet while she was in her room. After she found out, she was scared s—less and couldn’t tell my parents. So she didn’t and just watched me closely for the rest of the day, seeing if I did anything weird. Happy to say, I didn’t die.
TLDR: Baby eats silica packet, sister too scared to tell anyone so waits it out” Source
Grandma’s Fault
“The closest my son has ever come to danger was with my Mom (I was there – this was Mom’s fault). We were loading purchases into the back of the car outside a department store. He was a little over a year old and was strapped into the seat of the shopping cart. I went around to turn on the car and get the AC going. My Mom let go of the shopping cart to put her purse in and close the trunk. I stand up to see my son in the shopping cart rolling at a pretty good clip down the hill, through the parking lot towards the 4 lane highway. He saw me looking, lifted a hand and did that cute bending your fingers wave kids do. You have never seen two women take off running so fast. He is a teenager now and anytime my Mom criticizes me, I remind her of the time she sent him careening towards traffic” Source
A Little Daredevil
“I’m not a parent, but once, driving a 5 year old around, in the middle of the road he unbuckled his seat belt and climbed out of the window, I noticed when his body was dangling halfway out of the car, was barely able to grab him by the leg and pull him back in.
My heart had stopped, you avert your eyes for a split second and these kids find a way to lemming themselves” Source
I Sometimes Wonder
“Story time!
I was with my uncle leaving Walmart and I was sitting in the backseat with his son, who I say was around 3-4 at the time. Well when he makes a hard big turn, I realize that there’s this strong draft of wind and my window isn’t down, but out the corner of my eye, I see a more spacious view of everything outside. Then it hit me, my little cousin unbuckled his seat belt and cracked his door open but didn’t shut it. So as my uncle was turning, I feel the air, look and see the door swing wide open and almost witness my little cousin FLY out the door. MY. GOD. I’ve never reacted so fast in my life…I leaned over and grabbed my cousin by his FOOT just as he starts to slide out, with this car door swinging wide open. And my uncle didn’t even know it…
I sometimes wonder what would’ve happened if I wasn’t sitting in that backseat. Something terrible for sure” Source
Steaming Like A Lobster
“My son is only eight months old, and I’ve already got one.
First, you should know that our house is about 100 years old and still has a boiler and radiators(steam) to provide heat. Since the house has settled, not all of the radiator pipes are angled as they should be; this can cause cold air to get trapped in the pipe, preventing certain radiators from heating up. The way to fix this is to remove the pressure regulator from the end of the radiator until steam comes out, this can take up to 10 minutes, depending on how long the boiler has been running, and the distance between said radiator and boiler.
One day, the radiator in my son’s room wasn’t warming. It was night-time and cold as hell outside, so I snuck into his room and unscrewed the regulator. Not wanting to wake him, I snuck back out, planning to return momentarily and put the regulator back on.
Well, I forgot. For about half an hour. All of a sudden, as I’m doing who-knows-what downstairs, I’m wondering what the high-pitched whistling noise coming from upstairs is. I quickly realize my mistake, and dash to his room, only to find a cloud of steam so dense that I can’t see anything. I feel my way to his crib and give him the scare of his very short life as I jerk him up out of a dead sleep and run out of the room.
He was no worse for wear, just generally damp from the ridiculous amount of water in the air. After tending to him, I had to manually shut off the boiler and wait for the radiator to cool down before I could put the regulator back on, then towel-dry everything in his room, even the walls and ceiling.
TL;DR: almost steamed my four month old like a lobster” Source
A Dang Near Heart Attack
“Best story happened to me, I was in my walker dad left the garage door open. Bam down a flight of concrete stairs. Ambulance and fire truck come and I am off to the hospital. Well parents were in the middle of cooking dinner. Grandma came over to finish dinner. Started a oil fire and caught house on fire. Which took out about a 1/3 of the house. Bam, Same fire truck and ambulance. Then after they leave grandma has a heart attack, and you guessed it same fire truck and ambulance 3 trips to my house in less than 5 hours.
Ps grandma made it. Well she is dead now but made it through the heart attack”Source
A Shifty Driver
“When i was only 6 months old, my mom was running errands and had me in the car seat in back of the Jeep Wrangler we had. She buckled me into my car seat, but she was absent minded/distracted and forgot to strap the car seat to the backseat. She’s driving along and takes a turn to fast and i shift from rightside up on the passenger side to upside down in between the back of the driver’s seat and the back seat driver’s side. She notices right away, pulls over to get me right side up again, and she notices that my soft spot was about an inch from a protruding bolt. I don’t think she forgot to secure the car seat after that…
TL:DR- Almost got my soft spot penetrated” Source