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Being a parent means being on high-alert all the time – and the younger your child is, the more hyper-vigilant you are.
Because, let’s face it, children are walking disaster zones. They are constantly on a mission to do damage to themselves and it’s our job to keep them safe.
So, when they do something that’s out of the ordinary, or look different, or something happens that we’ve never witnessed before, the alarm bells go off in our minds. And our brains often go to the worst-case scenario.
Case in point: one parent revealed how they called 999 because they thought their 20-month-old daughter was choking.
“My daughter started shaking and making gasping and gaging noises,” the parent explained on Reddit. “I thought she was having a partial choking episode, I did back blows and everything. I’ve never heard her make noises like that before.”
But while the parent called 999, their child mysteriously got better.
“I happened to check her nappy and there’s a massive rock of a poo in there. This thing could break windows,” they added.
A trip to A&E confirmed that their daughter was in fact fine.
“All’s well and my daughter was grouchy about being dragged out during her bedtime but other than that confused about why Mummy and Daddy made a fuss about her having a shit,” they concluded.
In the spirit of sharing (and to make the parent feel better), plenty of other people had similar stories to share about their children or family members…
1. The olive
“An ex went into a massive panic years ago. A lump appeared on her son’s face, not sure if she went to A&E. In the end it was just an olive he’d stuffed inside his cheek.”
2. The newspaper
“I remember one time my sister checked my niece’s mouth (niece was around 2 years old I think) the roof of her mouth was really dark and she panicked, booked an appointment and started calling 999.
“I heard all the drama and went downstairs, saw the panic and fear in my sister’s eyes, she was like “is that a tumour, cancer????” … I tell my niece let me take a look at the ouchy, she opened her mouth and I took a look, then I told her to put her finger in her mouth and scratch the roof, part of it peeled off instantly, I went and cleaned it out.
“She ate a bit of newspaper, part of that newspaper stuck to the roof of her mouth.”
3. The night terror
“We once called 999 for what we thought was our 3-year old being in absolute agony and on the verge of dying from pain but turned out to be a night terror.
“I felt like an absolute idiot, but then realised I’d rather make a mistake than not call when it counts.”
– maregare
4. The hiccups
“When my first child was just born her body started spasming one night in the maternity ward and I called the midwife in terrified she was having a seizure. Turns out she was a bit windy and had the hiccups. Because she was so tiny her whole body jumped each time she hiccuped.”
5. The start of puberty
“My mum took me to the Dr’s because we thought I had breast cancer as a 10 year old. It was just me starting puberty and developing breast tissue. God that was embarrassing for all, the drive home was SILENT.”
6. The fart
“I was babysitting my four week old niece the other day and she started making noises like she was struggling to breathe and was in obvious discomfort and distress and I was seconds away from calling my sister and asking for help when the baby let out a humungous fart, didn’t think such a tiny baby could make such a noise and then she just fell right back asleep.”
7. The blueberry poo
“I once took our then 1 year old to A&E because her poo was black and when you Google that it says liver failure. Turns out she had just eaten too many blueberries. The doctors were so lovely and said when it’s your kid you can never be too careful! I was absolutely mortified though!”
– Skippylu
8. The jacuzzi-shaped rash
“It it’s any consolation, I rushed my 12 month old to A&E because he had a scary-looking rash which consisted of very regular red marks on his back.
“The second the dermatologist walked through the door, it suddenly dawned on me that we’d just given him a bath in the AirBnB we were staying at, which had a mini-jacuzzi built into the bath. He’d been leaning against the water inlet mesh which had exactly that pattern of little holes in it.”
9. The chocolate drop
“We took our (at the time) toddler to the doctor because he had quickly developed a dark mole which we feared was skin cancer, doctor took one look at it, picked it off and told us it was a chocolate drop stuck to him.”
– elmachow
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