As in, I’m a mom. I’m human. And I make mistakes. Today, I made a big’un. And before I go any further into this story let me say: The boy is FINE.
Does turning your back on your baby long enough for him to flip over off the changing table pad and onto the floor, 2-plus feet below count as a milestone?
We have our pad attached to the vanity in the bathroom. We often strap the boy in on the pad in order to get a shower — keeping the curtain open and chatting with him meanwhile.
Today, for whatever reason, I didn’t strap him in. Making matters more dicey, I’d been up late last night, and he woke up around 4:45, which means we all did.
I turned away from him for a minute, didn’t realize I was lost in thought under the spray until I heard the thud.
Thud.
Turned around, baby face down on floor. Jump out of shower, scoop him up. That’s when he starts to cry.
He cries for a little while, calms down. I examine him. Not a scratch, bruise, or bump on him.
I, however, am in shock.
I call my husband, report in. We sort of laugh about how Jonah falls over six inches and ends up in the emergency room while under his (lack of) attention, and when I’m absent during Jonah’s first flying effort, he’s fine.
Soon after that, the phone rings. A friend with two older kids. I fill her in. She reminds me that she knew someone whose kid fell off the changing table, and now that girl is going to college. She asks me if I have an exersaucer I can put in the bathroom.
Yes. Yes.
I’m still not consoled. I want to call my friend who once told me her toddler son had fallen down the stairs, but she’s at work. I call another mom friend also whose kids are older. She tells me stories about her mother-in-law playing airplane with her then 2-year-old and accidentally flinging him across the room. Story of her own mother bending down with her in the backpack carrier, before they had safety straps, and dropping my friend on her head.
I feel a little better.
She asks me if I have an exersaucer. Yes. Yes. Yes.
I’m still tired, all day. Watchful. The boy shows no signs of distress or trauma. We play with toys, scooch around the living room floor, read books, take naps, visit our various exersaucer/jumper stations. We don’t leave the house all day.
Around 3-ish, I decide I probably should call the pediatrician, to report that it happened, and to make sure I’m clear on the signs to watch out for in case he has a concussion.
I’m embarrassed when I describe to the nurse what happened. She is kind as she takes the message, consoling.
The doctor (not my regular ped, but another woman in the office, no-nonsense, nice) calls me back around 5. I describe the event, and how he seems fine, but I’m still in shock.
She says, “Yeah, the first time that happens, it’s really scary.”
The first time. Ah. Welcome to motherhood.
She agrees that he sounds fine, tells me to watch out for any grogginess and/or vomiting, and says that if I’m at all worried, I can wake him every three hours during the night, to check and make sure he’s responsive.
Finally, I call my mom. Because I know I want to blog about it, and I know I’d better talk to her first, rather than having her read this and worry.
She tells me, “Oh yeah. That happened to one of you. You or your sister. I can’t remember which.”
O mom’s punchline made me laugh. “Can’t remember which….”
The young lady who fell off the changing table is *graduating* from a Seven Sisters school and landed a prestigious internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art last summer. She switched to art history from pre-med.
Exersaucers were invented so moms could have showers…
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I stand corrected. Perhaps the fall contributed to her success. Fearless?
Exersaucer. Yes, yes.
Used to be the bouncy seat. I’d seen it on TV when I was pregnant, a talk-show segment where they called the little chair “mama’s first shower.”
Our changing table arrangement worked well for a long time. He liked being able to look in the mirror, look at us, gaze up at the Hannukah lights hanging above him. It worked until it didn’t.
Even if he had been strapped in, he probably still would have flipped over, and taken the pad with him. It’s attached only on the front of the vanity.
Yeah. No more of that.
My story is the same as your mother’s. I know one of mine fell a long way off a changing table onto a very hard floor in IKEA once and I can’t remember for the life of me which it was! They were fine too but, like you, I kept looking at them and checking etc. Too cowardly to ring a doc though!!!
It was the only time it happened though – I was paranoid about changing tables after that!
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After more thought, I think it was your little sister who fell off the changing table resulting in a bit of crying but nothing else.
But you, you fell out of bed, at 4 yrs., in the night, and broke your collar bone, and it wasn’t a very high bed. Will never forget that one. Thank g-d it was nothing worse.
I feel guilty about it to this day.
You’re totally in the club now!
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Yeah been there, done that…. with my first. He took the dive on his 1st birthday. Welcome to the club.
Yeah mine have flown off the bed enough times. It’s shocking the first time. Each time you wondered how the heck did this happen, I barely lost sight of him for a second. You vow never to do it again, and weeks later, there they are on the floor again. We must have been thick or something, but eventually we learned it best to just throw the mat on the floor and torture our backs rather than his head.
I’ve stuck mine in the bouncy seat or jumper while I shower. I know some who have done the play pen thing. Now I just wait until daddy gets home. They’ve learned how to escape from all contraptions.
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It is most definitely a milestone, and it happens to the best of us, my dear. I would tell you not to beat yourself up but I know how pointless those words feel when you’re in the moment. It sucks, but they are resilient, and they always recover. And they never remember. Until they read it on a blog, I suppose. 😉
xoxo
Hasn’t happened yet, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. Our bed is REALLY tall (waist-high on me) and I’m terrified he’s going to go off of it head-first.
I use the bouncy so I can take showers. But we recently bought a big playyard fence. I would feel okay with having him in there while I shower, but would still set out the monitor just in case he topples over and hits his head.