How early did your kid need stitches? Or otherwise break themselves?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I made it into adulthood having never had stitches. My first time was after the birth of my first son. I also had my gallbladder removed at one point, my wisdom teeth removed and, later, a small procedure to remove some cysts in my wrist. Then a second baby and… I think that’s all. I’ve never had “oh, fuck!” stitches. I still, at 30, have never broken a bone.

My middle son had to get stitches, three of them, in his forehead a few months ago when he was only barely still two years old; he was like 5 days from his third birthday (and one day away from having a new brother; that was really a lot of fun at, you know, 27 months pregnant, or whatever…). No broken bones in my house so far. One of my nieces recently broke both the radius and ulna in her big sister’s arm with her ass. The broken niece is 6 years old.

How soon did your kids have you scrambling for the keys and trying to keep the blood mess to a minimum at the same time?

2

2 1/2. He climbed anything that stood still and a few things that didn’t. His childhood caused each and every grey hair that I have. His first stitches were earned after climbing the shelves in a video rental store and swan diving onto another shelf forehead first. I swear to god he was beside me, holding his sisters hand one second and the next there was blood everywhere.

3

Raised four without a need for stitches, but my daughter broke her leg on playground equipment (a merry-go-round) when she was 11.

4

Maybe you could have sued the video rental store for it to make yourself feel better about the situation.

5

Eek. That sounds extremely painful. Did she trap her leg underneath it?

6

Older one fell off a slide the day before his second birthday. His dad managed to get a hand under his head but his shoulder hit and his collarbone snapped. The he younger one fell out of the neighbors treehouse and had stitches right between the eyes. I think he was five. No more than six. Now they’re twenty seven and just turned twenty five!

7

Yep. It was the kind of merry-go-round that tilts – there’s a high side and a low side – she was sitting on the edge and pushing it with her feet. I wasn’t there but that’s how her brother described it to me.

The ambulance attendant told me that she asked if she was gonna be on TV. Sirens = TV, ya know. :slight_smile:

8

When I was a kid, all of the kids I knew had stitches somewhere. It was so normal that the first thing we asked was HOW MANY? Of course, we all needed to see them.

The first ones I remember getting was when I was about 4. There was a hole being dug for a new septic tank. I dropped a glass bottle into the hole to watch it shatter and then jumped in to clean it up before anyone found out. I still carry that scar and remember how frightened I was because I was going to get into trouble for bleeding and causing a scene.

A friend of mine used to have me babysit her kid because she was embarrassed to take him out due to his 2 black eyes, casts on both feet and the lump on his forehead. The kid was severely pigeon toed and was just learning to walk. Corrective casts probably weren’t the best thing at that time in his life, so he kept falling and honestly looked like a child abuse victim.

9

Son = 4-6 sometime. Nasty rip on his nose. He is in his 40’s now and it hardly shows.

My first was clamps with a barb on each end. Clamped the rip in my leg together, I was maybe 7 or 8… Still have that scar.

They used a pliers that ware just like ‘hog ring’ pliers you can get at the farm store to this day.

10

I don’t have kids, but my first stitches were at age 2, due to surgery to repair a congenital hernia.

The first stitches I earned via misadventure were at age 5 – I slid face-first through a decorative window next to the front door of our house. I cut up my entire face, including a deep gash on the bridge of my nose, which required four stitches. 43 years later, I still have the scar.

11

The oldest got two stitches near his right cheekbone when he was 18 months old. We were visiting his grandparents and he tried the stairs and slipped.

The middle one waited until three years. He slipped while carrying a ceramic bowl and cut the side of one knee.

The youngest put it off until four or five. He tried to use a sharp knife while the sitter was in the other room.

For the oldest, the doctor didn’t use an anesthetic. He said at that age, one long poke (with a scary syringe) and a long numbness would be more worrying than two short pokes (with needles like oversized eyelashes).

12

I always think of my older daughter as the careful one, but when I add up childhood injuries, she comes out way ahead of her sister. She cut her big toe horribly when she was six (she’d been using a hoe to hack at a log in the back yard while wearing sandals), broke her collarbone falling out of a hotel bed when she was seven, and got a concussion falling off a swing when she was eight. Her younger sister still hasn’t had a stitch, and she’ll be 21 this year (knock wood).

13

One son had a break in his foot when he was about five. Another son broke a bone in his hand in gym class when he was about 10. My daughter was the worst. I was sitting in the stands when she broke her femur in a high school basketball game (torque fracture). I helped carry her on a stretcher to the military clinic which was thankfully on the same campus as the school. She was in incredible pain and had to be sent to the local Belgian ER to be admitted for surgery. They ended up putting a steel rod in her leg instead of putting on a cast. No stitches otherwise that I recall.

14

My daughter is 8 and has so far made it without serious injury. By her age I had sliced open my thumb on a broken window for 4 stitches (age 4), poked a gear shifter from my bike through my cheek receiving 2 stitches (age 7), and broken my arm after falling off the monkey bars (age 8).

15

My son made it to 11 without doing any injury that could have used stitches. At 10, he was cutting wood with a friend and the saw slipped and grazed his knuckles. After the blood slowed, it was a judgement call - steri-strips or stitches? ER bill or food for the month? So we steri-striped him at home, and he healed fine. There’s a really cool wavy scar over the first three knuckles of his left hand now.

My daughter didn’t even make it to 3 before she gashed her forehead open on a corner of furniture. A small cut, and again it was a “well, we *could *do stitches, but it’s not all that bad…” She got superglued instead. There’s a teeny tiny faint scar over one eyebrow now, but you have to know about it to notice it.

In both cases, I’m fairly certain that had we gone to the hospital, they would have gotten stitches, but they would have been of the “let’s make Mom feel like we’re doing something,” variety. Neither absolutely needed stitches (obviously) but both could have gotten stitches.

I’ve never had stitches, never broken a bone. I did tear all the ligaments on my foot as a teenager, but that got me nothing more exciting than an air cast and instructions to take it easy, which of course I ignored.

16

My brother needed stitches when he was three. He slipped, hit his forehead on the corner of a door and split his head open. He still has a noticeable scar sixteen years later.

My sister broke her arm when she was five by jumping off a soccer goal. Then she broke the other arm when she was twelve, this time by falling out of a tree. She hit her head on a rock when she landed, but she was wearing a helmet so she only got a concussion. The helmet was bashed up pretty badly.

I made it to adulthood unscathed, and got my first stitches at twenty-one when they removed my wisdom teeth.

17

My kids had their first ER visits the same weekend. My youngest was 5 weeks and had bronchiolitis. This was the first of three hospital stays before he was 5 months old for the same thing. That same weekend, my oldest (2 years 10 months at the time) was playing “rugby” with his dad in the house. He dived for the ball and hit his forehead on the corner of the baseboard. They glued him up instead of stitching it.

My youngest had his first stitches at 4. He was standing on his brother’s bed, slipped off the edge, and slammed his face into the corner of the play table. We waited for seven hours in the ER for him to be seen. About halfway through, I thought about giving up, but I looked down and saw drool coming out of the hole in his lip (he had bitten all the way through it). We carried on and he ended up with five stitches.

Since then, we’ve managed to go major-injury-free. Oldest is now 10, youngest is almost 8.

My first stitches were when I was about three. I was at the babysitter’s house and her daughter pushed me into the fireplace. The poker got me in my butt and I ended up with three stitches. My mother didn’t know until recently that I’d been pushed!

18

My son got his first stitches when he was 18 months. Ran into a glass door. Oops.

Just last week (age 3), he slipped and fell and got five stitches on his chin. He had a congenital heart condition which cleared up on his own, so his first major medical stuff was in the first 12 months.

My daughter fell down when she was four and started bleeding from her vagina. :eek:

Fortunately, she was fine.

It was really good that we had good insurance when I was growing up. Three or four broken bones, several sprains, and many stitches. Then there was the time when my nurse mother decided to just make a butterfly bandage instead of stitches for me. I’ve got quite the scar as it was on my knee and pulled apart.

Another time I sliced my wrist open when washing dishes, of all things. The scar looks just like a suicide attempt, though. Another time I almost took of the end of my left index finger when I was cutting something. That was a half a dozen stitches.

One broken bone was from water skiing, when I came in too close to shore. The other was my old football injury.

The funny thing about the latter is that I was a bookworm and mostly an indoor kid as well. Never did much sports and consequently sucked at them. In ninth grade gym, we had a number of flag football teams. The coach assigned players so that each team had a least one really good guy and one really bad kid. Our quarterback eventually went on to be the star for the high school team, so he was really good.

I was the designated nerd for our team. Us nerds were assigned to “pass rush” and “rush defense” to “protect” the quarterback. No running so each play was a pass and there was an unwritten understanding among us geeks that the rusher would pretend to rush and the defender would pretend to keep him away from the quarterback. No since risking injuries or possibly break into a sweat.

At the end of the “season” there were just two undefeated teams. Us and one more. We had the final game to determine the champions. The other geek was a good friend, so we’d chat while we pretended to be playing. Near the end, the score was tied. Paul, our normally hot QB, complained about their good pass defense.

Paul came up with a rather brilliant plan. He told all of our receivers to race wide to the sideline and deep, drawing the defenders. He told had me go out three steps and do a button hook, which I didn’t know what it was, so he explained it was to just turn around and he’d gently toss the ball.

I hiked the ball, as normal, and engaged my friend in a conversation to give our receivers time to go really deep. Then, suddenly I took off and left my friend calling after me, “wait, I need to finish.” It worked, just like Paul had planned. I could catch a gentle ball, and then started running down field.

The defenders were completely fooled, and didn’t notice until it was too late. However, just at the goal line, one of them caught me. He was so pissed, rather than try to get my flag, he grabbed my free arm and threw me. I fell breaking my arm.

We won, but most importantly, I got my mother to raise a stink so I didn’t have to take gym in tenth grade.

My wife, one of three indoor girls, didn’t have a single scar on her prior to her c-section. Never had a broken bone or a sprain. Any little bump that our kids get and she freaks out.

19

The Firebug is six and a half. So far, no stitches, and no broken bones. (Of course, tomorrow’s the one-year anniversary of the day I ruptured my Achilles tendon while playing in the woods with him. I’m fully recovered now, thanks. :))

Me: first stitches at the age of five. Was running through the woods behind our house, fell, must’ve banged my head on something, got one measly stitch in the forehead. Had a number of other times I got stitches as a kid.

Only broke one bone: broke my right arm an inch or two above the wrist while high-jumping at summer camp. The landing pits were wood mulch (this was back in 1967), and hadn’t always been loosened recently, and could get pretty solid. This one had, so when I came down wrong, there wasn’t any give. Snap.

20

I don’t have children (that I know of), but my own first stitches were sometime between the ages of 2 and 5, because that’s when we lived in Arkansas, and it was there I tumbled down some cement steps out in front of a house belonging to some friends of my parents. I think it was at night, and I’d been left unattended, so presumably it was closer to age 5 than age 2. Maybe 4 or 5 years old.