When you have a child your natural instinct is to protect them. We go out and buy all the necessary baby safety items to keep our precious babies safe. But did you know these very items meant for baby safety could actually harm your child if you are not careful?
I do after yesterday. When researching baby safety gates one of my concerns was not having Big Brother lose his independence. So I bought a baby safety gate that actually has a door for both my kitchen and my hallway. The door swings either way and is easy to open for older kids. This meant Big Brother could still have his freedom to the house while Little Brother was safely contained to my living room.
Big Brother is constantly making sure the gates are closed. It is usually the kitchen one us adults will leave open as we run in the kitchen to grab something and Big Brother will yell “Baby Gate! Baby Gate!” and come running to shut it.
Yesterday was a typical day. We had the furnace guys here installing a new furnace, I was sleeping as I was still sick and Tobei was up with the kids. He went in the kitchen to prep to do dishes and left the gate open. Little Brother was right at the gate, Big Brother saw this and went running to shut the gate. Everything in the next 10 seconds is a blur.
Little Brother’s hand was right by the swinging part of the door in the baby safety gate, Big Brother slammed the door shut to keep Little Brother out of the kitchen and Little Brother starts screaming and there is blood all over the floor.
Big Brother comes up to wake me up and all I can understand is “Baby gate”, “I’m sorry” “It was an accident”. I jump out of bed and run downstairs to see blood on the floor. Tobei is sitting on the chair holding Little Brother and applying pressure to his finger. He finally gets the bleeding to calm down and looks and realized the finger tip is missing.
I run outside and see my neighbour and yell at her she needs to take Big Brother. I quickly get Big Brother out of his pajamas and send him off with my neighbour. We realize we can’t put him in the car seat and drive him to the hospital as he is still bleeding though not much not so I call 911.
The ambulance arrived and the driver was shocked to find us all calm waiting in the parking lot for them.
When we got to the hospital Little Brother was seen right away due to his amputation. We ended up seeing the plastic surgeon who told us there was not enough loose skin to stitch it over.
The plastic surgeon ended up having to shave some of the bone as it was exposed and needed to be shortened a bit to help with healing. She then bandaged my poor baby all up and we are to see her again in 10 days. Until then we are to not mess with the bandage and just wish for the best.
Here I was wanting to keep my baby safe with the baby safety gate and it ended up injuring him. Needless to say we have sat down with Big Brother and we talked about moving baby from the gate.
I feel so awful about what happened to my baby. Little Brother however is a champ. He was all smiles at the hospital, in the ambulance and even since we got home. He just thinks he has something cool to smack his brother with and it is not stopping him from being our typical happy playful baby.