# I dropped my baby on her head! D:



## amberskyfire (Sep 15, 2007)

I know everyone does it (or so I hear) but I feel like the most horrible mother in the world! I don't know exactly how it happened. I was holding my 5 month old and it was like she wanted to fly or something. She suddenly spread both arms like wings and thrust herself forward into the air. It was horrible! I managed to grab her by the leg, but not before her head hit the wood floor. Hard!







:

She screamed. Oh she screamed! She screamed for ten minutes. I checked her eyes with a flashlight to make sure they both are dilating properly (that's how you check for concussion, right?) and put a little ice on it. There's a goose egg.

Is there any way to prevent a bruise? I have to take her with me to the police station tomorrow to get my new license and I don't want them thinking that I hit my baby









I'm such a bad Mommy!

Please flame me all you want - I totally deserve it!


----------



## adamsfam07 (Sep 9, 2006)

Oh momma, don't be so hard on yourself. These things do happen and kids seem to get over these things quicker than we do. When I was 13 I dropped my baby brother on his face! He flung himself backwards out of my arms and landed on his nose, so yes, I'm blamed for his nose being flatter than the rest of ours. I tripped my DS when we was 1 on accident and he smacked his forehead on the handle to a cabinet, oh it was terrible. It swelled up instantly and turned deep purple, he would stop screaming. I cried all the way to the emergency room, the put ice on it and told me that if he has a goose egg on the outside that's a good thing because that mean that there's no swelling on the inside. Other than looking horrible for a week or so he was just fine. Your LO will be okay too.


----------



## Melly24 (Mar 30, 2008)

I'm sure she'll be ok mama. She's probably forgotten all about it already.


----------



## Dea (Sep 26, 2006)

Aww, she's okay... and I'm sure that the police officers are trained to notice real abuse, not just a little bump, 'cause babies get bumps!


----------



## *MamaJen* (Apr 24, 2007)

Bad, bad mama! I flame you!
Just kidding. It totally happens to the best of us. My baby rolled out the bed not too long ago and I still feel guilty about it. I'm such a klutz, personally. If he makes it to toddlerhood intact I'll be proud of myself.
Think of it this way: when she starts acting up around the age of 13, you can tell her about the time you dropped her on her head, and tell her that's the only explanation you can think of for her behavior.


----------



## amberskyfire (Sep 15, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by **MamaJen** 
Bad, bad mama! I flame you!
Just kidding. It totally happens to the best of us. My baby rolled out the bed not too long ago and I still feel guilty about it. I'm such a klutz, personally. If he makes it to toddlerhood intact I'll be proud of myself.
Think of it this way: when she starts acting up around the age of 13, you can tell her about the time you dropped her on her head, and tell her that's the only explanation you can think of for her behavior.

Heh, thanks for making me laugh









Actually, I called my mother crying when it happened and she laughed and told me that it's now a family tradition. Then she told me the story of how she dropped me on my head on a brick floor when I was 16 days old. She told me she'd been carrying it in her gut for the last 28 years and it felt so good to get it off her chest. I guess I don't have to feel so bad now. I sure hope I don't carry it around that long!

Oh, my poor little girl!


----------



## leanbh (Mar 22, 2007)

:

oh, the lunge phase! dd used to dive forward or arch her back at a moment's notice. like a heart attack in a jar. i always hated when she did it while we were walking through doorways.

beware, the lunge turns into throwing themselves backwards to go upside down. with no warning whatsoever.

you'll be hurt about this long after she is. you're not a bad mama and this is proved by the fact that you're so concerned for babe.


----------



## crosscat (Mar 18, 2008)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *leanbh* 







:

beware, the lunge turns into throwing themselves backwards to go upside down. with no warning whatsoever.

I've always been afraid of holding little bitty ones (guess I better get over that soon, see sig), and after much cajoling I was holding my niece and she did just that! She just missed the wall by inches and it scared me (and my poor SIL) to death! I don't think I held her again until she was about four!


----------



## 2swangirls (Feb 13, 2006)

hope your both feeling better today.


----------



## Krisis (May 29, 2008)

I dropped my DS on his head just last week







I tripped and fell on my knees and he flipped out of my arms onto the road. It was pretty tragic.

But he's fine. He cried for about 10 minutes, ate, and went to sleep. No worries.

(meanwhile my knees are STILL bruised and scabby)


----------



## Serenyd (Jan 6, 2008)

Caden took a nose-dive off the bed yesterday and has carpet burn on his forehead and I think he bruised his top gum too, there is a black and blue mark over where his front left tooth should be coming in.


----------



## KristyDi (Jun 5, 2007)

Oh Mama









My 5 month old DD did exactly the same thing yesterday! She just lunged right out of my hands. Thankfully I was sitting on a carpeted floor with her at the time. She face planted and scared me to death, but only cried for a second.


----------



## RiverMamma (Jul 21, 2008)

Wow... that is my biggest fear...dropping her. Well, I feel a little better about it now though. I hope I never do drop her, but if it does happen, maby I won't freak out quite so bad now.


----------



## mbravebird (May 9, 2005)

Arnica oil will help the bruise! And a craniosacral session is gentle enough for babies if you think her body needs help recovering from the fall. Her body is very resilient, though -- and her head is made to be flexible at this age. You're doing fine!


----------



## Furrow (May 17, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *RiverMamma* 
Wow... that is my biggest fear...dropping her. Well, I feel a little better about it now though. I hope I never do drop her, but if it does happen, maby I won't freak out quite so bad now.

I, too, keep waiting for the day when I drop DD, because it seems to be a requirement of babyhood. It happens to everyone.

However, just because I haven't dropped her doesn't mean I haven't inflicted my share of unintentional abuse. I have pinned her legs under the front of a rocking recliner (that had me shaken and angry with myself for days)







. and just the other day I kicked her in the head as I was getting up from playing with her on the floor. She's none the worse for wear, and in fact, she does much worse to herself on a daily basis.


----------



## Alicia P (Aug 15, 2008)

My DD was running down the hall in front of me, she tripped herself and fell face first into the bathroon doorjam, she screamed, swelled and bruised all at the same time... I felt horrible, I was right behind her, I felt like I should have been able to grab her or something. To top it off she had an appointment with an eye doc the next day. They all do things to get themselves hurt, I tell myself it's so they learn to stay safe.


----------



## Beppie (Oct 24, 2005)

My 8-mo. old dd also has a habit of all-of-the-sudden flinging her body backwards when we're holding her. We haven't dropped her yet but it's definitely come close. It's impossible to know when she's going to do it! I'm very afraid of dropping her.


----------



## *Jade* (Mar 13, 2007)

On the flipside, I was dropped on my head as a baby. My poor mum had me rushed to hospital, and ended up lying to the police about what happened!!







And now it's just a funny family story, and hopefully an excuse for me in case I ever committ a crime!







:

So don't worry, your LO won't ever hold it against you, it seems its a rite of passage.


----------



## AngelBee (Sep 8, 2004)




----------



## milkybean (Mar 19, 2008)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *mbravebird* 
Arnica oil will help the bruise! And a craniosacral session is gentle enough for babies if you think her body needs help recovering from the fall. Her body is very resilient, though -- and her head is made to be flexible at this age. You're doing fine!

I agree with both suggestions!


----------



## aaronsmom (Jan 22, 2007)

One day when DS was about 15 months he lunged right out of the grocery cart and landed head first on the floor of the store!! He was okay, though.







But I still felt horrible.


----------



## uccellina (Jan 26, 2006)

The other day, while carrying my daughter, I tripped up the stone steps in our courtyard. I managed to get myself onto the grass, where I landed on my knees and then did this weird tuck-and-roll maneuver to avoid squashing her. When I sat up and looked at her she was grinning, as if she were saying "Do it again, Mama!"


----------



## amberskyfire (Sep 15, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *uccellina* 
The other day, while carrying my daughter, I tripped up the stone steps in our courtyard. I managed to get myself onto the grass, where I landed on my knees and then did this weird tuck-and-roll maneuver to avoid squashing her. When I sat up and looked at her she was grinning, as if she were saying "Do it again, Mama!"

Ohhhh yes, I've done that already







I fell from trying to get up once when she was a newborn. I did a tuck-and roll type thing and landed on my elbow (ouch!) and she didn't even wake up.

There was also one time when she was about two weeks old that dropped her. I had her in the sling asleep and went to the bathroom. When you go to sit on the toilet, you kind of bend over forward without thinking about it. She rolled right out of the sling inward toward my body, but I cupped my arms under her and miraculously caught her about two inches above the floor. She never woke up that time, either and I jostled her quite a bit. I nearly had a heart attack that day!


----------



## Collinsky (Jul 7, 2004)

It's soooo hard. It's awful!! Believe me, your LO will be over this way faster than you will!

Yes, check the eyes with a light to make sure they are dilating equally, nothing weird. If there is no loss of consciousness, that's a really good sign. And a goose egg is also a good sign, it means that the bruise is on the outside of the skull - so even though they look nasty and awful, they're actually good. Some other things to check for - clear fluid from the nose or ears; lethargy; strange behavior; and (for older children) slurred speech and/or balance problems or clumsiness.

And just FYI, for any future bumps -- especially when LO is mobile: Cuts on the head bleed very freely, which can be alarming if you're not prepared for it. Also if your child has a convulsion after hitting their head, don't panic - it isn't necessarily serious. Not something to ignore, but if there was *no loss of consciousness* prior to the convulsion, it is probably not an emergency. And I might get flamed for saying that, but I think panicking is way worse than thinking: this is probably okay, but I'm going to call my dr to see what she says. Which is what I advise.


----------



## momtopea (May 7, 2007)

I tripped off of a concrete porch step when DD was a little over a month old. Had to do the midair flip- landing on my elbow then head and back on the concrete walkway. She was fine but i was hysterical for quite a while. Just the other day I stepped on DDs fingers by accident =(.


----------



## heidirk (Oct 19, 2007)

Oh, mamma, I feel your pain!

When DS was 11 mos old, we were packing to leave our hotel room for the airport (with a 7 hour plane ride ahead of us) and DS dived right over the edge of the hotel bed, and fell on his head on the floor. It happened in slow motion, I swear, and I watched his breathing, and his eyes. I was in quite a state of panic! He never swelled up or bruised or anything, but he still has a ridge in the center of his head and now he's 2! The worst thing was, it was close to naptime, and all he wanted to do was sleep, which terrified me. I kept him in arms the whole way home, and took him to the chiropractor the next day!

Absolute scariest thing that ever happened!


----------

