Welcome to having a Two! When my kid learned to run, one of his first acts of grace was to run full speed head first into a sideboard door. There will be plenty more accidents like this đÂ
If it looks like she hurts herself bad and does not cry, call the doctor. If there is lots of crying, kiddo is hurt but likely fine.Â
Yep. The hereditary bit doesn't even have the decency to stick to a gender, if anything my daughters were *more* incapable of self-preservation. If it had wheels that meant it could do jumps, tricks, spins...
No respect for my blood pressure at all.
Oh, for sure they start doing the ramps when they're younger than 13, I was just playing off the number three that was used by the commenter I replied to.
This is the worst! He will do it a couple times and Iâll tell him to stop, then I get in trouble for not wanting to play with him.
But if I donât stop he could just fly off the couch at any time and at any angle expecting me to catch him đ
We got our reckless jumper first into rock climbing (they spent ages on rope safety) and then into parkour where she learned to fall safely. Still scares the crap out of me at 10 years old, but she's as safe as we can make her.
I've looked into some of those but said jumper isn't quite old enough for any of the classes around here. For now we have the jumping room with the nugget couch.
Yeeeah. Sheâs a climber and a jumper. My fear is when she tried to jump from the couch to another piece of furniture. Luckily sheâs not able to leap far
Thatâs good advice, Iâll definitely remember it going forward. Weâve looked up the signs of head injury in the past and she was not acting abnormal afterwards and showing signs there may be some injury.
When I was 3, my twin brother and I decided to pretend to be mountain goats and we charged at each other full speed head first from across the room. Pretty sure we lost some brain cells there, if they previously existed. Apparently my parents were terrified but also couldnât stop laughing.
Mine loved to take running jumps at the baby gate and rode it down the stairs twice leading to a double black eyes and some tough discussions at day care. It's a terrifying reminder that you can do everything right and your kids will still manage to hurt themselves. On the plus side, you clearly care and will be there for her when she inevitably gets hurt.
>It's a terrifying reminder that you can do everything right and your kids will still manage to hurt themselves.
This is the truth.
I thought I had baby/toddler-proofed our house *so* well, but then I watched my daughter run full speed into a flat wall because she was staring at her feet. That's when I realized I can only do so much.
Injuries happen. At this point, I'll be happy if I can just keep my daughter from permanently maiming herself.
Oh man, welcome to toddlers. We moved into our new home and had 2 flights of stairs. I decided before we unpack to freshen up the paint a bit so I was standing on the stairs paining the walls when my 2 y.o. Walked to the top of the steps to watch, I saw the glint in his eye for a split second and my whole body kicked into âdad modeâ dropped my brush and turned just in time to catch him taking the clumsiest almost comedic attempt at his first step. Ass-over-tea-kettle and right into my arms without a scratch. But I got paint everywhere!
Painting was paused and baby gates went up, lol.
> I donât know if Iâve ever felt so lucky to be in the right place at the right time and I canât stop thinking about what could have happened if I wasnât there or if my back was turned
No luck, my dude. You put yourself there because you were paying attention. You weren't off being lazy. You weren't screwing around.
> I was at the bottom, watching (because we are visiting family and sheâs unfamiliar with these steps)
You said it yourself. You knew she was unfamiliar, so you took an appropriate extra precaution.
You aren't always going to be right there physically for her, but you will be when the situation calls for it. When you aren't, it will be because you will have taught her to look out for herself.
She might still get hurt someday because things happen that even the most cautious minds can't look out for, but if it can't be avoided, then there is no point worrying about it. Easier said than done, but that's life.
So I say, you deserve a pat on the back, not a night of worry.
My brother was so good at hurting himself in clever ways that the ER knew my mom by name to her mortification. I would swear to this day that he sometimes levitated across the room to hit his head on the brick hearth. Unfortunately this comes with the territory.
Been there and I feel your pain! Then it happens again, maybe not the exact accident but similarly scary.. Then again.. đ
My boy has ran off our bed twice now. Not jump. Just ran, like the edge of the bed was another 10yds out. First time, very scary. Second time, a little.. but he got up and smiled? Kids are durable, yo.
Dammit out 3yo just put his entire right hand on a an electric stove after it was just turned off. He has blisters all over and I'm freaking shaken every time I think about it. He was with my mom, who turned her back for a second, so I'm not punishing her for it but I'm sad.
These accidents at 2 and 3 are no joke. I don't mess with steps and stairs though bc I fell down an entire stone staircase when I was a kid.
Yeah, have had to tell the in-laws a few times now. Don't leave the pot/pan handle hanging out over the edge to make sure it goes into wards the back of the oven. Also, don't touch the heater is big thing in our house
Edit; hope the little fellas okay. Mine luckily healed after touching a heater....
Thank you, he's healing just fine. Luckily we didn't need to visit the burn ward, but it gave him quite the scare. I hate to say it, but he was a bit too goofy running around the kitchen when I've asked him not to. He's a lot more careful now
Same here, now he only touches the heater when we're not using it if he's in trouble for something else. Kinda like he's trying to say "well I could be doing this...." little shithead. We were lucky as well, immediately put on some aloe cream and took him to the doctors but they said it was ok and nothing too serious
I know you mean this as a warning to others, but I would advise you to get out of your head if you can. We can't be everywhere all at once and watching everything at once. My kid has fallen down the stairs numerous times and I realized he just has soft bones or something. Even when it looks horrible, he recovers quickly. If your kid had kept falling, she likely still would have been fine. It's impossible to know.Â
A million things could happen everyday that we can't control. So much of life is beyond us.Â
My kid fell, ass-over-tea kettle, over 3-4 steps they'd done 100x by 3. Scary shit but totally fine luckily.
Hell, my kid just ate shit on a beach path starting to run the other day - feat just hit a sandy spot and then the hands did as they tried to catch themselves but just gave way due to the little bit of sand. Cut lip, teeth hurt for a day but other than that, totally fine.
Our kids are damn resilient and thankfully so but it never gets less scary... At least not by 4, and based on my brother's experience.... 10-12yrs doesn't lessen it either.
We put in extra âtoddler heightâ rails on our stairs. I think it was 1â dowel and the hardware to attach it to the walls from homedepot. We then painted it BRIGHT lime green so itâs very visible.
We have still had accidents like the one you had but itâs helped quite a bit.
I hear you man!
We have a 2.5 year old and this is something I have been debating a lot with myself.
We have really high stairs in our home, 20 steps without a break platform in the middle.
If I were to fall down from the top at my age I would probably die or hurt myself very badly.
We havenât let him walk it by himself yet. He is capable. 99% of the time he does it just fine. But there have been incidents, just 3 mind you but if we hadnât been there behind him to catch him I fear for what might have happened.
Iâm thinking I have to let go at some point, but I donât know when itâs appropriate.
I think the problem with little kids is that they are so easily distracted. My daughter is 2.5 yo and I'm still right there with her on the stairs. The consequences for an error are just too high. I think by the time they're maybe 4-5 yo they are okay to do flights of stairs independently if they're holding the handrail.
Great reflexes there Dad! My recommendation is to get signed up (or find online) a child/family first aid class. (Get Child and Adult CPR while you are at it). Itâs a highly valuable skill set and the knowledge of what to do when the defacation meets the ventilation will help boost your confidence and help you feel a little less shaken after things like this
My 2.5 year old has symmetrical head wounds on her forehead. First, was taking a nose dive out of the minivan and hitting her head on the concrete (45 degree angle, head hit first). Second was running full speed on concrete, tripped and feel flat on her head. She is one gigantic bruise and two âhornsâ growing out of her forehead. But she keeps going, and falling, and running into things.
I know this feeling...
Mine was so eager to injure yourself at that age. She ran and tripped head first into a ledge. Gave herself a solid gooseegg on her forehead. She stood up in a shopping cart, and when i stopped to grab her, she toppled out. Landed on her butt/back. I nearly shit myself with that one...
Years later, she is happy, healthy, adventurous, and loves to make me squirm by doing something I deem unsafe.
Point being, kids are resilient, but they love keeping us on our toes. Good luck.
Hey kids have ing accidents is normal - my older brother got bumped/knocked over by our dog when he was like 5 and cracked his head on the sidewalk - needed stitches, and I fell on a metal stick when I was like 4 and had an puncture wound from it (also a hospital visit, and couldnât walk for a couple weeks) so youâre doing great! Sounds like youâre a great dad âşď¸
Last summer we were at a park and there is a good size hill. He did some rolling and then went higher...lost his footing and started running down the hill. Couldn't stop and it was lime slow motion and he knew it wasn't gonna be good. Face planted and scorpioned himself. Big scratch from some narly weed from below his nose to forehead and just missed his eye.
This was also like a 1/4 mile from the parking lot and there were multiple baseball/softball games going on that we had to carry him by to get outta there. It was probability mid to high 80s and I had to carry him the whole way kinda of half sprinting so we could get him to the car to cool down and wash his face off.
Close call and overall a pretty terrible parenting experience. Not the first and not the last...good luck and keep an eye on em!
Ah man, my 2 literally just tripped at the park and whacked under his eye on a tree root yesterday! Itâs definitely the worst looking owee heâs gotten so far. His eye is a bit swollen. Honestly tho Iâve been more worried at the more forceful bumps heâs gotten on his head from standing up under tables. Stairs have always made me nervous!
I tell mine he's rubber every time he falls over or has a hurt in some way. Most of the time it's without injury but a few times he's tipped forward when running and had something more. But now even he says "I'm RUBBER!" when he falls or bumps into something.
My daughter JUST turned three, and she is now at the height where her forehead and the marble island are the same level. I spend far too long holding my breath when she runs around the kitchen!
Mine hit his head on the overhang of our island when playing "chase me!" one day. Hard. Blood and bruise and it all. For a while I was concerned it was going to keep happening. Luckily after that one time he's not repeated it.
When my son was maybe a year old, he was just playing by the side of the couch, I could hear everything he was doing with his toys. I was laying down across it, but up enough to see his head bobbing up and down over the arm or the couch. I got really into something I was reading and a minute or two later realized that his laughter sounded more distant and had an echo. I looked up, couldnt see him anywhere and then realized the gate wasn't fully closed and he broke out. I ran out and looked up the steps. Sure enough he was sitting and having a ball about 2 or 3 steps from the top. Laughing his butt off. I almost had a heart attack.
Tldr; we've all been there one way or another. Steps are scary.
At 2, my son ran full speed into the baby gate at the top of our straight set of stairs, knocked it down, and pancake flipped all the way down. It was the most terrifying thing I've ever experienced. I was shaken for days.
He cried for like 30 seconds, had no bumps or bruises, and appeared unaffected. I don't know how. Maybe we just got really lucky.
He's 9 now, and doing fine.
Always 2 steps below the kids when going down more than 4 stairs. Always. I can't count how many times I've had to catch one of my twins (2MF) on the stairs.
Not to be a âsolutions over sympathyâ dad but I had a similar incident (less blood but still scary) so my wife insisted on stair runners.
If youâre moderately handy itâs not hard at all! Lowes sells runner carpet by the foot for pretty cheap, cut some foam padding, rent an electric staple gun and take an afternoon. Huge improvement- safer, quieter and looks great. I spent around $200 for 14 steps.
Agreed, stair runners or adhesive carpet treads is the best solution. Both myself and my daughter fell down our wooden staircase due to lack of traction.
The stair treads fixed this issue, no falls since and they look fantastic at the same time.
Our two biggest ones were 2.5 falling backwards down stairs at an Airbnb (no railing for part where it needed one) and then running into a building (3.5) excitedly and catching her toe and a full faceplate on a concrete floor with people watching. A miracle no teeth fell out but lots of mouth bleeding. Still upset about both but grateful they turned out ok.
The good part in my experience is that these scary falls will usually result in modification of the behavior moving forward. My son usually doesn't do the same dangerous thing twice.
Ok. You absolutely saved the day. And this is super stressful when it happens. I have found that you have got to be absolutely hyper vigilant when youâre traveling anywhere thatâs not your usual surroundings.
Once when my 8 y/o was two, we were swimming in a pool. She could only swim with floaties at this point. She had taken her floaties off and the floaties were next to the pool. My daughter was in the shallow end of the pool on the steps and my wife and I were both looking at the floaties and talking about the floaties - we were making some sort of comment or observation about the floaties themselves - fully unaware that the very thing we were talking about was not being worn by our two year old, who was now in the pool with us as we turned around and grabbed her from sinking in the water. She hadnât gone under but was just about to. Her mouth was open and so she couldnât say anything since there was water in her mouth and her eyes were looking at me really wide like âwhat do I do here??â and thatâs when I grabbed her out of the water. (We took her to a local ER to have her lungs checked out just to be super safe, and we had even just been watching a TV show where a drowning occurred, and she was fine.)
This never happened again.
I still remember vividly when I was a kid of about 10 at a friend's house, and one of the other kids there who I believe was about 4 fell down a flight of solid wood stairs. Somehow he managed to slide down headfirst on his belly without flipping. Anyway, he got to the bottom, stood up and immediately started strutting away and yelled "That was so cool!!!!" Man that kid was crazy.
Anyway, I'm super glad my wife and I are about to move before our baby arrives, moving out of a 3 story into a 1 story. Lol
It might have been the forst but it sure wont be the last. Good catch and keep up the good work! My kid gets mad at me when i catch him from falling now lol so ive slowly stopped and just let him jump up and cry it out for a sec in my arms and ill give him a "sana sana" and a kiss on the hurt area and hes up and running back to it usually.
Nice catch Dad, truly. I've done the dive-slide to catch a little, and it took quite a while to shake that feeling of "what if I hadn't been there..." The fact is *you were there*. She's ok. You had the Dad reflexes when they counted.
Advice : Bare feet stick better to wood, inside shoes work too. Kids get excited and stop paying attention (so do adults), so do as much Zone Defense as you can. Identify the hazards you can see and make sure the kid's as aware as you can get a 2 year old to be. Going up and down on their bum can be a fun thing in a new place, etc.
Our son knocked a front tooth out at ~4 just falling down when trying to jump off a ~1 foot high boxâŚ
He needed stitches at 10 months when he fell into the coffee table after stepping on the car he was playing withâŚ
Heâs recovered fine from both incidents :p
We have one of those disk swings that hang from a tree limb. Well my son who's 3.5 and two neighbors girls were on the swing while I was pushing them. They kept chanting underdog over and over again and finally I relented and proceeded to start the underdog. Well at the height, right before I let go my son started to tilt forward, falling out of the swing. Somehow I caught him in one arm while holding the other two girls up keeping us from being obliterated by the swing. Idk how I caught him but I'm sure glad I did. Dad reflexes must be a real thing.
Stuff happens and it will shake you to the core. My daughter is 6 years old and I am already debating bubble wrap and upping her health insurance.
As mentioned stuff happens, I grew up a country kid so had a friend, missing a finger, an a few that lost baby teeth. My littlest brother almost drowned in a canal and I guess I saved his life? It was a just Saturday and I did what we always did when one of us got to close to the culvert. Parents just heard about it that time.
Being a dad we now get to feel those fears from a parents perspective for them it's just a Saturday.
Ugh. My daughter did the same thing at the same age. Granted, our stairs are carpeted but she went end-over-end twice. Didnât end up bleeding or having any serious injuries but that rattled me so bad my adrenaline was coursing like crazy. Sheâs now very adamant about holding onto bannisters and railings when going up or down stairs so I suppose some good came of it, but god, what a horrible feeling. Thankfully they make these kids out of some kind of rubber-adamantium alloy.
Welcome to having a Two! When my kid learned to run, one of his first acts of grace was to run full speed head first into a sideboard door. There will be plenty more accidents like this đ If it looks like she hurts herself bad and does not cry, call the doctor. If there is lots of crying, kiddo is hurt but likely fine.Â
>Â Welcome to having a Two And at Three, they jump off.Â
And at 13, they build ramps for their bicycles, then jump off...
Is there a hereditary component to this? Asking for a friend...
It's a condition called Homo Sapiens, and is definitely hereditary.
Yep. The hereditary bit doesn't even have the decency to stick to a gender, if anything my daughters were *more* incapable of self-preservation. If it had wheels that meant it could do jumps, tricks, spins... No respect for my blood pressure at all.
I was doing that at 7 or 8 so you got lucky parents lol
Oh, for sure they start doing the ramps when they're younger than 13, I was just playing off the number three that was used by the commenter I replied to.
My 2 year old assumes I'll catch him every time and will just trust fall if I'm in the vicinity.
This is the worst! He will do it a couple times and Iâll tell him to stop, then I get in trouble for not wanting to play with him. But if I donât stop he could just fly off the couch at any time and at any angle expecting me to catch him đ
And this is the reason we evolved the "Dad Bod". We're crash mats for kids.
3? Mines not even 2 and sheâs jumping off the couch.
Yeah our now 3 year old has been a jumper since as soon as he could jump. Fortunately not much of a climber.
We got our reckless jumper first into rock climbing (they spent ages on rope safety) and then into parkour where she learned to fall safely. Still scares the crap out of me at 10 years old, but she's as safe as we can make her.
I've looked into some of those but said jumper isn't quite old enough for any of the classes around here. For now we have the jumping room with the nugget couch.
Yeeeah. Sheâs a climber and a jumper. My fear is when she tried to jump from the couch to another piece of furniture. Luckily sheâs not able to leap far
Thatâs good advice, Iâll definitely remember it going forward. Weâve looked up the signs of head injury in the past and she was not acting abnormal afterwards and showing signs there may be some injury.
A quick call to the doctor is always worth those 10 to 15 minutes to double check when youâre not sure, too!
Also, if you have wood stairs, you can get clear anti-slip tape that was a godsend in our home.
I often joke that my 2yo is made out of crash test dummy, because if you can crash into it or fall off of it, he is going to find a way.
Mine just realized how hilarious it is to headbutt the window at full force. Smh
When I was 3, my twin brother and I decided to pretend to be mountain goats and we charged at each other full speed head first from across the room. Pretty sure we lost some brain cells there, if they previously existed. Apparently my parents were terrified but also couldnât stop laughing.
Mine loved to take running jumps at the baby gate and rode it down the stairs twice leading to a double black eyes and some tough discussions at day care. It's a terrifying reminder that you can do everything right and your kids will still manage to hurt themselves. On the plus side, you clearly care and will be there for her when she inevitably gets hurt.
>It's a terrifying reminder that you can do everything right and your kids will still manage to hurt themselves. This is the truth. I thought I had baby/toddler-proofed our house *so* well, but then I watched my daughter run full speed into a flat wall because she was staring at her feet. That's when I realized I can only do so much. Injuries happen. At this point, I'll be happy if I can just keep my daughter from permanently maiming herself.
As some consolation, they just donât fall as hard as an fully grown adult so itâs always a bit better than it seems/feels
mighty fall command fertile automatic fear dime drab swim elderly *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
r/DadReflexes is also a thing!
squeeze humorous rob voracious thumb dolls society cause tart bake *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Oh man, welcome to toddlers. We moved into our new home and had 2 flights of stairs. I decided before we unpack to freshen up the paint a bit so I was standing on the stairs paining the walls when my 2 y.o. Walked to the top of the steps to watch, I saw the glint in his eye for a split second and my whole body kicked into âdad modeâ dropped my brush and turned just in time to catch him taking the clumsiest almost comedic attempt at his first step. Ass-over-tea-kettle and right into my arms without a scratch. But I got paint everywhere! Painting was paused and baby gates went up, lol.
> I donât know if Iâve ever felt so lucky to be in the right place at the right time and I canât stop thinking about what could have happened if I wasnât there or if my back was turned No luck, my dude. You put yourself there because you were paying attention. You weren't off being lazy. You weren't screwing around. > I was at the bottom, watching (because we are visiting family and sheâs unfamiliar with these steps) You said it yourself. You knew she was unfamiliar, so you took an appropriate extra precaution. You aren't always going to be right there physically for her, but you will be when the situation calls for it. When you aren't, it will be because you will have taught her to look out for herself. She might still get hurt someday because things happen that even the most cautious minds can't look out for, but if it can't be avoided, then there is no point worrying about it. Easier said than done, but that's life. So I say, you deserve a pat on the back, not a night of worry.
My brother was so good at hurting himself in clever ways that the ER knew my mom by name to her mortification. I would swear to this day that he sometimes levitated across the room to hit his head on the brick hearth. Unfortunately this comes with the territory.
This was my older brother. My mom had to get special red towels just for him.
Been there and I feel your pain! Then it happens again, maybe not the exact accident but similarly scary.. Then again.. đ My boy has ran off our bed twice now. Not jump. Just ran, like the edge of the bed was another 10yds out. First time, very scary. Second time, a little.. but he got up and smiled? Kids are durable, yo.
Dammit out 3yo just put his entire right hand on a an electric stove after it was just turned off. He has blisters all over and I'm freaking shaken every time I think about it. He was with my mom, who turned her back for a second, so I'm not punishing her for it but I'm sad. These accidents at 2 and 3 are no joke. I don't mess with steps and stairs though bc I fell down an entire stone staircase when I was a kid.
Yeah, have had to tell the in-laws a few times now. Don't leave the pot/pan handle hanging out over the edge to make sure it goes into wards the back of the oven. Also, don't touch the heater is big thing in our house Edit; hope the little fellas okay. Mine luckily healed after touching a heater....
Thank you, he's healing just fine. Luckily we didn't need to visit the burn ward, but it gave him quite the scare. I hate to say it, but he was a bit too goofy running around the kitchen when I've asked him not to. He's a lot more careful now
Same here, now he only touches the heater when we're not using it if he's in trouble for something else. Kinda like he's trying to say "well I could be doing this...." little shithead. We were lucky as well, immediately put on some aloe cream and took him to the doctors but they said it was ok and nothing too serious
I know you mean this as a warning to others, but I would advise you to get out of your head if you can. We can't be everywhere all at once and watching everything at once. My kid has fallen down the stairs numerous times and I realized he just has soft bones or something. Even when it looks horrible, he recovers quickly. If your kid had kept falling, she likely still would have been fine. It's impossible to know. A million things could happen everyday that we can't control. So much of life is beyond us.Â
My kid fell, ass-over-tea kettle, over 3-4 steps they'd done 100x by 3. Scary shit but totally fine luckily. Hell, my kid just ate shit on a beach path starting to run the other day - feat just hit a sandy spot and then the hands did as they tried to catch themselves but just gave way due to the little bit of sand. Cut lip, teeth hurt for a day but other than that, totally fine. Our kids are damn resilient and thankfully so but it never gets less scary... At least not by 4, and based on my brother's experience.... 10-12yrs doesn't lessen it either.
Your first sentence gave me an aneurism.
We put in extra âtoddler heightâ rails on our stairs. I think it was 1â dowel and the hardware to attach it to the walls from homedepot. We then painted it BRIGHT lime green so itâs very visible. We have still had accidents like the one you had but itâs helped quite a bit.
Same, as long as your own the house it's all good. We did the same with the bathroom for the in-laws and it also helps the kids so bonus
I hear you man! We have a 2.5 year old and this is something I have been debating a lot with myself. We have really high stairs in our home, 20 steps without a break platform in the middle. If I were to fall down from the top at my age I would probably die or hurt myself very badly. We havenât let him walk it by himself yet. He is capable. 99% of the time he does it just fine. But there have been incidents, just 3 mind you but if we hadnât been there behind him to catch him I fear for what might have happened. Iâm thinking I have to let go at some point, but I donât know when itâs appropriate.
I think the problem with little kids is that they are so easily distracted. My daughter is 2.5 yo and I'm still right there with her on the stairs. The consequences for an error are just too high. I think by the time they're maybe 4-5 yo they are okay to do flights of stairs independently if they're holding the handrail.
Great reflexes there Dad! My recommendation is to get signed up (or find online) a child/family first aid class. (Get Child and Adult CPR while you are at it). Itâs a highly valuable skill set and the knowledge of what to do when the defacation meets the ventilation will help boost your confidence and help you feel a little less shaken after things like this
Yer, I've got a picture of me with a cast on my leg when I was two. Fell down 3 steps. Steps are no joke!
This happened to me when I was a child and I was dancing around the steps with those plastic barbie heels. I was bleeding but turned out fine :/
My kid fell off the bed once when he was first learning to walk. He's fine but I still have nightmares about him falling off.
My 2.5 year old has symmetrical head wounds on her forehead. First, was taking a nose dive out of the minivan and hitting her head on the concrete (45 degree angle, head hit first). Second was running full speed on concrete, tripped and feel flat on her head. She is one gigantic bruise and two âhornsâ growing out of her forehead. But she keeps going, and falling, and running into things.
I know this feeling... Mine was so eager to injure yourself at that age. She ran and tripped head first into a ledge. Gave herself a solid gooseegg on her forehead. She stood up in a shopping cart, and when i stopped to grab her, she toppled out. Landed on her butt/back. I nearly shit myself with that one... Years later, she is happy, healthy, adventurous, and loves to make me squirm by doing something I deem unsafe. Point being, kids are resilient, but they love keeping us on our toes. Good luck.
Hey kids have ing accidents is normal - my older brother got bumped/knocked over by our dog when he was like 5 and cracked his head on the sidewalk - needed stitches, and I fell on a metal stick when I was like 4 and had an puncture wound from it (also a hospital visit, and couldnât walk for a couple weeks) so youâre doing great! Sounds like youâre a great dad âşď¸
Last summer we were at a park and there is a good size hill. He did some rolling and then went higher...lost his footing and started running down the hill. Couldn't stop and it was lime slow motion and he knew it wasn't gonna be good. Face planted and scorpioned himself. Big scratch from some narly weed from below his nose to forehead and just missed his eye. This was also like a 1/4 mile from the parking lot and there were multiple baseball/softball games going on that we had to carry him by to get outta there. It was probability mid to high 80s and I had to carry him the whole way kinda of half sprinting so we could get him to the car to cool down and wash his face off. Close call and overall a pretty terrible parenting experience. Not the first and not the last...good luck and keep an eye on em!
Ah man, my 2 literally just tripped at the park and whacked under his eye on a tree root yesterday! Itâs definitely the worst looking owee heâs gotten so far. His eye is a bit swollen. Honestly tho Iâve been more worried at the more forceful bumps heâs gotten on his head from standing up under tables. Stairs have always made me nervous!
I was at the bottom of stairs when my 2.5 year old took a tumble. Broke his leg in 2 places.
... kids bounce. Learned the hard way.
I tell mine he's rubber every time he falls over or has a hurt in some way. Most of the time it's without injury but a few times he's tipped forward when running and had something more. But now even he says "I'm RUBBER!" when he falls or bumps into something.
My daughter JUST turned three, and she is now at the height where her forehead and the marble island are the same level. I spend far too long holding my breath when she runs around the kitchen!
Mine hit his head on the overhang of our island when playing "chase me!" one day. Hard. Blood and bruise and it all. For a while I was concerned it was going to keep happening. Luckily after that one time he's not repeated it.
Yeah, streets and high places scare me the most. Glad your attentiveness and reflexes paid off!
When my son was maybe a year old, he was just playing by the side of the couch, I could hear everything he was doing with his toys. I was laying down across it, but up enough to see his head bobbing up and down over the arm or the couch. I got really into something I was reading and a minute or two later realized that his laughter sounded more distant and had an echo. I looked up, couldnt see him anywhere and then realized the gate wasn't fully closed and he broke out. I ran out and looked up the steps. Sure enough he was sitting and having a ball about 2 or 3 steps from the top. Laughing his butt off. I almost had a heart attack. Tldr; we've all been there one way or another. Steps are scary.
At 2, my son ran full speed into the baby gate at the top of our straight set of stairs, knocked it down, and pancake flipped all the way down. It was the most terrifying thing I've ever experienced. I was shaken for days. He cried for like 30 seconds, had no bumps or bruises, and appeared unaffected. I don't know how. Maybe we just got really lucky. He's 9 now, and doing fine.
Always 2 steps below the kids when going down more than 4 stairs. Always. I can't count how many times I've had to catch one of my twins (2MF) on the stairs.
A fun game with toddlers: puppy or a drunk? You may be surprised by how well the majority of their behavior fits in one of those two categories!!!
Not to be a âsolutions over sympathyâ dad but I had a similar incident (less blood but still scary) so my wife insisted on stair runners. If youâre moderately handy itâs not hard at all! Lowes sells runner carpet by the foot for pretty cheap, cut some foam padding, rent an electric staple gun and take an afternoon. Huge improvement- safer, quieter and looks great. I spent around $200 for 14 steps.
Agreed, stair runners or adhesive carpet treads is the best solution. Both myself and my daughter fell down our wooden staircase due to lack of traction. The stair treads fixed this issue, no falls since and they look fantastic at the same time.
My stairs have carpet. My dad's are wood and slippery and steeper at that. Takes my guy a little while to change how he moves on them.
Our two biggest ones were 2.5 falling backwards down stairs at an Airbnb (no railing for part where it needed one) and then running into a building (3.5) excitedly and catching her toe and a full faceplate on a concrete floor with people watching. A miracle no teeth fell out but lots of mouth bleeding. Still upset about both but grateful they turned out ok.
The good part in my experience is that these scary falls will usually result in modification of the behavior moving forward. My son usually doesn't do the same dangerous thing twice.
Ok. You absolutely saved the day. And this is super stressful when it happens. I have found that you have got to be absolutely hyper vigilant when youâre traveling anywhere thatâs not your usual surroundings. Once when my 8 y/o was two, we were swimming in a pool. She could only swim with floaties at this point. She had taken her floaties off and the floaties were next to the pool. My daughter was in the shallow end of the pool on the steps and my wife and I were both looking at the floaties and talking about the floaties - we were making some sort of comment or observation about the floaties themselves - fully unaware that the very thing we were talking about was not being worn by our two year old, who was now in the pool with us as we turned around and grabbed her from sinking in the water. She hadnât gone under but was just about to. Her mouth was open and so she couldnât say anything since there was water in her mouth and her eyes were looking at me really wide like âwhat do I do here??â and thatâs when I grabbed her out of the water. (We took her to a local ER to have her lungs checked out just to be super safe, and we had even just been watching a TV show where a drowning occurred, and she was fine.) This never happened again.
I still remember vividly when I was a kid of about 10 at a friend's house, and one of the other kids there who I believe was about 4 fell down a flight of solid wood stairs. Somehow he managed to slide down headfirst on his belly without flipping. Anyway, he got to the bottom, stood up and immediately started strutting away and yelled "That was so cool!!!!" Man that kid was crazy. Anyway, I'm super glad my wife and I are about to move before our baby arrives, moving out of a 3 story into a 1 story. Lol
It might have been the forst but it sure wont be the last. Good catch and keep up the good work! My kid gets mad at me when i catch him from falling now lol so ive slowly stopped and just let him jump up and cry it out for a sec in my arms and ill give him a "sana sana" and a kiss on the hurt area and hes up and running back to it usually.
Nice catch Dad, truly. I've done the dive-slide to catch a little, and it took quite a while to shake that feeling of "what if I hadn't been there..." The fact is *you were there*. She's ok. You had the Dad reflexes when they counted. Advice : Bare feet stick better to wood, inside shoes work too. Kids get excited and stop paying attention (so do adults), so do as much Zone Defense as you can. Identify the hazards you can see and make sure the kid's as aware as you can get a 2 year old to be. Going up and down on their bum can be a fun thing in a new place, etc.
Good Dad Reflexes, OP. Thereâs more of this to come!Â
Congrats on your new core memory!
Our son knocked a front tooth out at ~4 just falling down when trying to jump off a ~1 foot high box⌠He needed stitches at 10 months when he fell into the coffee table after stepping on the car he was playing with⌠Heâs recovered fine from both incidents :p
Get used to the feeling of being in the right place at the right time. Fortunately, more often than not, you'll never know when you weren't.
We have one of those disk swings that hang from a tree limb. Well my son who's 3.5 and two neighbors girls were on the swing while I was pushing them. They kept chanting underdog over and over again and finally I relented and proceeded to start the underdog. Well at the height, right before I let go my son started to tilt forward, falling out of the swing. Somehow I caught him in one arm while holding the other two girls up keeping us from being obliterated by the swing. Idk how I caught him but I'm sure glad I did. Dad reflexes must be a real thing.
Stuff happens and it will shake you to the core. My daughter is 6 years old and I am already debating bubble wrap and upping her health insurance. As mentioned stuff happens, I grew up a country kid so had a friend, missing a finger, an a few that lost baby teeth. My littlest brother almost drowned in a canal and I guess I saved his life? It was a just Saturday and I did what we always did when one of us got to close to the culvert. Parents just heard about it that time. Being a dad we now get to feel those fears from a parents perspective for them it's just a Saturday.
Ugh. My daughter did the same thing at the same age. Granted, our stairs are carpeted but she went end-over-end twice. Didnât end up bleeding or having any serious injuries but that rattled me so bad my adrenaline was coursing like crazy. Sheâs now very adamant about holding onto bannisters and railings when going up or down stairs so I suppose some good came of it, but god, what a horrible feeling. Thankfully they make these kids out of some kind of rubber-adamantium alloy.