For first time parents or nonparents any injury to a baby is terrifying. My first kiddo was dragged to the pedoatrcian all the time to the point the Dram had to tell me to quit it unless it was more than a “run of the mill” boo. As a first time mom I had not believed such a thing existed.
I was in a much better position to deal with kiddo 2 learning that not every booboo needs a doctor’s appointment. I’m sure when the time is right kid 1 will tell kid 2 I just didn’t love him as much. Sigh.
One day we had all the boys in the minivan and stopped by McDonalds for a snack on the way to grandma’s house.
My youngest who was barely talking started yelling from his car seat in the back of the van. Fren fry! Fren fry! Fren Fry!
Realizing he was not going to stop, my wife turned around and threw one at him in his car seat. Hit him right in the eye. :eek: I watched the french fry leave my wife’s hand and then saw it fly right into his eye via the rearview mirror. He got over it and now loves McDonalds Fren(ch) fries.
Give it some time. You will make some much larger mistakes with your kids. Remember that they do not come with instructions and that for the most part kids are pretty resilient
My arm got slammed in a car door when I was about 4 or 5 years old. Slammed shut, mind you, not slam-boing-the-door-bounced open. Took a minute or two while somebody ran to get the keys.
When my 3 year old was an infant, I’ve drawn blood with the infant clippers and felt horrible, I’ve bumped her head on the wall while walking down the hall and sobbed afterward. I’ve also driven about 50 miles on the Thruway before I realized she wasn’t strapped in, and I was horrified!
Then when she started walking and following my around with NO understanding of personal space, I’ve knocked her down several times and felt bad about it.
The most recent one was within 5 minutes of playing the Wii (a Christmas gift), I smacked her in the head while I played golf. Hey, it was her fault for getting in the way of my backswing!
When our daughter was an infant, we would put her between us on the bed while we read.
One night, while reading, we heard a loud thump at the end of the bed.
My wife and I looked at each other. We hadn’t realized that she was starting to be mobile and had wormed herself off the foot of the bed – face first.
I went around to get her. When I picked her up, her face was all red and she wasn’t breathing. But before I could even react, she let out a waaaaaaiiiiilllllll. We discovered later that this was her reaction when hurt; she would take a very deep breath and then scream.
Her nose was bleeding a little. We were able to calm her down and all was well.
But we learned to keep an eye on her.
Well my dad knocked out the better parts of my brother’s two front teeth with a hockey stick when my brother was five…I’m glad I can comfort myself that so far that tops anything I’ve done.
But yesterday I bit my little guy’s finger. 
He was feeding me some pieces of apple and I didn’t notice his little finger got caught…I actually cried and so we were both sitting there crying until my husband starting making funny faces and noises to make us laugh again.
I have three scars on my eyebrows, all from the unforgiving corners of various tables. My parents would let people hold onto me and I’d inevitably ninja my way loose and BONK, onto a table. I’m surprised I don’t have some weird phobia of furniture from it 
Not something I have done, but what my mum did to me.
I was about 4 or 5, and she decided my fringe needed cutting.
So she got the scissors and started clipping at my hair, when suddenly i felt a sharp pain. She had cut my eyebrow!
If I had done this to a child, I would have probably cried out of feeling so awful.
My mum? She covered her mouth in shock, then started laughing.
When I was about 8 or so, my dad and I were coming home from whoknowsitsnotreallyrelevant. He mentioned how bright the moon was as he parked the car, and I cranes my neck out of the window to look. Dad begins to put the windows up, and soon starts yelling at me to “stop thrashing around”. See, he didn’t notice my head out the window, and this was before the pinch sensors windows have now…
When I was 15, I babysat my cousins alone for the first time. They were 2 and 4, and the 2yo like to push gramas tv to make it shake. Just for the sheer joy of doing exactly what you’ve just been warned off of, as 2yos are apt to do. The tv was on one of this pedestal stands, does anyone remember those? Unstable as hell, right? Of course, Grama had left a glass on top of the tv. I can still see it, falling down in slo-mo and shattering on his hard, hard head. He’ll graduate college pretty soon, with a 1-inch scar above his eyebrow.
Then there’s my son, the escape artist. Who dislocated his elbow THREE TIMES, trying to make quick getaways in stores. He would just take off, not remembering I was holding his hand. The second time, the doctor showed me how to fix it, so I didn’t have to come back. Thank Og for old-school pediatricians!
My mom was getting a pot of macaroni off the stove to drain, just as 2-year-old me came up behind her to play the “choo choo” game, which involved grabbing her at the waist area. I surprised her, and she dropped the pot of boiling water and pasta, which landed mostly on my chest. I don’t even have a scar.
So The Dude is about three months old. I can’t find the nail clippers, but we do have a garbage disposal.
What, I’ll be careful!
Before the advent of dryers, older Dopers may remember the washing machines that had roller wringers attached. My Gram was holding my mom while wringing some sheets and mom reached in and had her hand sucked up into it. It tore the skin off the top of her hand and she had the scar for the rest of her life. Owie!
My parents also let my older brother fall down the basement stairs when he was three, breaking his collar bone.
My older nephew broke his two permanent front teeth off at age six with a bowling ball at a family bowling outing. My younger nephew stepped on a board that hadn’t been nailed down yet on a deck my dad was building and it flipped up, hitting him in the face and breaking his nose - age four.
The Surly family is sadly lacking in coordination genes…
My mom was a pretty tough, practical woman. When we were growing up she never let us think we were really hurt, and I can still hear her saying, “Shall I call an ambulance?” for something like a skinned knee. In that, “what’s all this fuss” kind of voice. But I can also still see her shock and tears the day she set the leg of a heavy dining room chair down on her grandson’s foot. He was about ten months old, standing by the chair, and she moved it out a bit while sitting in it. The carpet was thick enough that she had to pick the chair up to do that, not just scoot it, and his little foot got underneath. So as she sat back in the seat she felt it, about the same time he let out a cry. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her move so fast in my life. She was standing up, had the chair moved, and had snatched him up, almost before I knew what had happened. He was fine, but I thought for a bit she wouldn’t be. It took her several minutes to calm down.
I guess this doesn’t really count, because it wasn’t even a boo boo, but I hate to think what would have happened if it had been.
I am terrified of having children. I cry at the drop of a hat. I’m afraid I’ll burst out weeping if I ever nicked the kid’s finger with nail clippers.
My mom tells me that I was such a fussy baby at night that one time she and my dad decided they were going to put their foot down and not come for me after they put me in my crib for the night (apparently I refused to go to sleep and would just lie there bawling my eyes out). This was before I could even really crawl properly. I kept crying and crying and they were desperately trying to ignore me when all of a sudden they heard a loud THUMP. Rushing to the bedroom, they discovered that somehow I’d managed to get out of the crib and fall onto the floor. It’s still a mystery to this day how it happened, but the scare of that cured them of trying to break me of my ways.
Still, somehow I managed to fall asleep nowadays without crying my lungs out first.
This is what midwifes around here tend to recommend.