OMFGak!! Baby's slung, all advice desired

BIG ACCIDENT LAST NIGHT
I have to email my long-distance 'rents and sisters to tell them baaaaad news that their baby relative fractured her arm last night after falling off our new bunkbed. I was in the other room when it happened and boom, she just does this nasty tumble and I should never have been letting her climb up there in the first place! I don't know how I'm going to put a positive spin on this one. Poor thing is actually in good spirits, but she's going to be one-handed for about a month because when she landed she put her hands out and as the doctor said got a "minor fracture" in her wrist. I don't know if that sounds any better than the other plain truth that she broke her wrist because either way she's off and on in pain, has to keep her arm elevated, will need to go to the doctor once a week, and can only use one arm, and has this big chunk on her right arm, the one she's used to using!!
Oh, any advice appreciated, since I am not sure what things I can do to raise a one-armed baby. I'm going to go get her little pick-up foods since I don't think she can use a spoon with her left hand, and I'm otherwise babying her so far, I hope that is OK, right now she's having chocolate milk in a sippy cup propped up with like ten pillows and two blankets. Her brother is sticking with her well so far, though he tried to get her to chase him last night. I don't want to punish him indirectly with all the new rules so I don't know how to handle that exactly. Here let me post a pic, and please tell me your thoughts!
Oh, and being a hippie where I live people at the hospital were definitely scanning me in case of neglect or whatever, I hope I don't get that everywhere.
Sigh
Becca

 

awww poor thing.

 

Poor Baby She will be fine, bad things happen to good parents. My son has been to the emergency room 4 time already and he's 11. They have never accused us of neglect or anything, sometimes kids get hurt. His last was a scary wreck on a friends dirtbike ( i didn't even know he was on it ) he ripped a hole in his leg as big as my fist, they were talking about surgery and skin grafts it was scary. Just baby her and try to keep her comfy and entertained. It's so hard to be down when your little.

 

I wouldn't worry too much about child abuse allegations. My stepson is a total spaz. He has been to the emergency room too many times to count. As far as I know, no one has been accused of child abuse. He has had broken bones, burns (he had a skin graft on his hand after he put his fist into a mug of hot tea), cuts, concussions, you name it. As Michael said, the CPS and such folks can be creeps, but not always. They do good things too.
Hope your baby is feeling better soon.

 

People are going to look, but i would guess that's mostly because she's so little; my aunt (very typical-looking, upper-middle class woman in her 30s) had to take one kid or the other to the emergency room 3 separate times in one month when the girl was 1 and the boy was 3; she got plenty of looks too.

The thing with people at the hospital is that they are under ALOT of pressure; a couple of years ago, there was a 2-year-old foster kid near here that was brought to the hospital for a broken arm or something, and a couple of days later, his foster-dad apparently beat the crap out of him, and he died. One nurse who saw him briefly (something like 5 minutes; and she wasn't there when he was examined) was blamed for not reporting the incident as abuse, and she's been in and out of court since.

 

I am so sorry your baby got hurt, Becca. Kids DO get hurt, you did nothing wrong, you can't hang on toddler's every moment. If you are afraid your relatives will call DCFS, I need to ask you a question: Are they going to SEE the baby while she is in the cast? If not, and if they really might call Protective Services, without even knowing what happened, I wouldn't even tell them.

 

Yeah and fuck people giving you looks by the way....Peopel who give peopel looks have things to hide themselves.

 

Thanks all, ... (((hugs))) ... now, maybe I should go back to my "tough love' self because she has taken no nap yet today and demanding completely unreasonable things, like ALL the toothbrushes and all the blankets in the living room. LOL I'm just glad she's taking this so well.
As for my 'rents they are stodgy and Bushites but they would never do anything like call services, they'd just lecture me and imply that my husband's a bum like when ANYTHING is not like they had it when I was a baby, even though they have never admitted to me personally (to my 1 sis yes) that they snuck out of the house to go to Woodstock and collected Beatles and Three Dog Night albums before they had kids. They think kids = three jobs (2 for hubby & 1 for wife), buying a house and 2 cars, complaining to the city about parking and pressuring school-aged kids into being #1.
And I could tell, in my own pretend psychic way, that I "passed" the hospital's DCFS "inspection", but suspected I was getting an extra eye for my tie-dye and hubby's long hair.
I had to tell my parent's because I'm taking the grandkid's for a Thanksgiving visit! Otherwise I might have omitted. And I'm learning to treat them as I'd like to be treated when a grandmother, despite the collisions we tend to have.
Now she's just being adorable again, eating cereal with her left hand, so happy I'm not pushing the spoon on her so she can splash in the milk...
My baby!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Hey, our kids match. Dakota broke his right arm last Thursday. Actually the day care broke two bones in his arm and dislocated his elbow. At the hospital they kept yelling at us not to pull him by his arm. I kept telling them that he got hurt at day care. But they still kept telling us not to ever pull him by his arm.

On Friday I let him watch all kinds of videos, now he thinks he can watch them all the time. He's becoming a bit spoiled by this whole thing I'm afraid.

Hope your little one feels better soon. Dakota hasn't taken any pain meds since Saturday so maybe by tomorrow your little one will be feeling better too.

Kathi

 

yeah, my nephew is the same way and the only reason my sis doesn't stress too much is because our doctor knows what a little freak he is (he once walked in on nat being buzz lightyear off that bed/table thing in the office when my sis was distracted with my niece)

 

Hey, Becca, don't feel too badly, kids fall down all the time.

When Daniel fell off the bunkbed when he was two and fractured his skull (it was terrible!) the hospital staff checked him for abuse too. They have to treat any child injury like it was potential abuse because sometimes they DO see abused kids. They're just trying to protect them.
Daniel also had a big blue mongolian birthmark on his butt, looked like a big bruise, so he was checked over and over. Finally a nurse said, "That's a birthmark, you idiots! It's not a bruise!"

I swear if Maya was in the states when she was little she would have gotten taken away from me. That girl fell down and injured herslef so many times, it was scary. She had stitches 6 times in less than 2 years, plus a fractured cheekbone from getting hit in the face with a cricket ball.

Kids are resilient, though, and heal quick. Give her lots of vitamin C and comfrey root tea. Comfrey is called "knit bone" by the Native Americans because it heals bones so fast.

Hope Baby Girl (and you!) feel better soon!

 

Aww, I'm sorry to hear that. Don't be too hard on yourself hon, accidents do happen, sometimes no matter what you do. You obviously care a lot about this little one, so anyone can see it wasn't neglect or anything like that!

I'm glad to hear she's doing well though, and I hope you're feeling better too!

Big hugs.

 

((hugs)) to you and your precious baby. She'll be fine!! A few months ago, my baby sister fell off some playground equipment at daycare (she's 3) straight on her face. My poor mom got the evil looks at the store and whatnot because little Zoe looked like she was pummelled in the face.


Some friends of mine have a little girl and when she was @ 2, she fell out of a chair...a child sized chair, and fractured her collar bone. Little ones are fearless and get hurt all the time. You did nothing wrong!!

 

Ouch! Poor thing! Give her hugs from me.

Up until this past may I was working as a nanny for some friends of mine, and was always afraid that Haley-who turned 2 in July-would get hurt. She didn't get hurt but one day I did. I usually watched her at my place because she loves cats and we have 4. Well, one day they had me watch her at their place because they had just moved into a new place and I said I'd help them unpack. I went to walk around the corner to the bathroom and hit my elbow HARD on this wall that came out of nowhere. It dislocated my elbow. It hurt so bad I threw up. When they got me to the hospital it had to be popped back into place and that hurt worse than anything. I passed out! Haley's parents felt really bad and spoiled me a lot after that. I told them it was just an accident but they felt guilty.

 

Thanks again, you guys are sure sweet to a relative stranger. Funny how comparatively curt the relatives were with me. "You got bunk beds! Well, I guess you'll be taking those down. Whatever you do, don't cut off any of her shirts or people will be thinking abuse." What?!? Oh well, they do mean well that's just family for you.
It sounds like some of you knew it, she is being soooo good about the situation and barely thinks about the cage on her arm. The doctor who put her permanent cast on was the nicest and wrapped her up fast, keeping her engaged and worry-free the whole time. Not that I'd recommend a child breaking something, but I sure can give her hugs for all of you because she is absolutely Hugame Sue and Snuggleme Too lately and it is soo precious.
Becca

 

Having three boys, I always had bunk beds... And they've all fallen off them (friends too), at one time or another. Luckily, no one was seriously injured.

However, we did learn that the rules need to state "no playing on the bunk beds, at any time". And we did need to make sure that the guard rails were always in place.

If she's a climber, you can look forward to more falls and trips to the ER. Sorry...

 

My oldest was hurt in a freak swing accident when she was 5, broke her left thigh bone, and was in traction for a MONTH in the hospital. After that she was in this heavy body cast another month, and after we finnally got her out of that she had to use a walker (like an old lady type) for a couple of weeks with a really bad limp for a year after the accident. One of her legs is still longer than the other, and it's been nearly 4 years. She was with her grandfather for the weekend at the time, but I still felt really horrible about it.

As far as bunkbeds go, we used to have them as kids and I remember we were always falling off the top bunk, so when my kids started using one I did everything I could to keep my youngest off of it. I even got rid of the ladder, just to be sure there was no way she could get up there. They know now that they're only supposed to get up there to sleep, and there is no playing in the bed. I guess I've been lucky, 2 years we've had this thing and no one has fallen from it yet!

I hope you're baby's arm gets better soon, she's such a cutie and I know that cast has to be horrible and itchy. My daughter couldn't stand it.