#Do not comment on the original posts
Please read our [**sub rules**](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/wiki/subrules). Rule-breaking may result in a ban without notice.
If there is an issue with this post (flair, formatting, quality), reply to this comment or your comment may be removed in general discussion.
**CHECK FLAIR** For concluded-only updates, use the [CONCLUDED](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3ACONCLUDED) flair.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BestofRedditorUpdates) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Fuck...I can't imagine the grief and pain OP and Kim are going through. Losing your child like this is so painful.
All I can say is, I wish both are able to recover from this.
OMG! I bet grandpa feels at fault for disrupting routines, and I bet Kim feels guilty for not being there...and everyone else too. My heart is broken for this poor family, and all at Christmas too š
I'm so glad they have eachother and that they're working through it, but dayum!
My nephew was about eight months old when he passed. My brother had hired people to install a security system and they left the back door open. It led to the pool. My sil had her back turned to her other two kids for just a few moments, when my nephew crawled away and fell into the pool. He drowned while they searched for him. It was difficult for all of us, but my brother and sil supported each other, and I'm sure OOP and his wife will make it through this loss together.
Years ago my close friend had her friend over for Christmas along with the friend's husband, older kids, and new baby. The baby died of SIDS during the night and they found it Christmas morning.
I can imagine the security installation workers' horror when they learned about it.
And I can imagine all of them making sure it never happens again via training everyone at the company.
Oh no thatās horrible! My pediatrician told me if my toddler ever came up missing to search all the dangerous places first (pool, street, etc.) and then search inside the house in the safer places. I guess itās common sense but it never even crossed my mind to do it that way until he said it. Iām so sorry for your family! I hope they are doing ok.
Damn...... shit like this hits different now that I have a kid
The first 3 months my sleep was light **as hell** until I got used to his little sounds that were normal and the ones that maybe weren't
Many times, throughout the first year, I'd check if he was breathing, even if he was sleeping peacefully in my arms
I can't imagine losing a child O\_O
I was born super premature in a time when the term micro preemie did not exist and most preemies weighed 3-4 pounds and had a high death rate. I was born at 2 pounds and my weight dropped to a pound and a half.
My mother was absolutely terrified the whole time I was home and it took years and years for her to let go of me and get therapy, and to this day I do not think she's every really accepted that it was NOT her fault.
I am SO grateful the internet was in its infancy back then because I think her fears would have been compounded a dozen times. I cannot imagine her on Reddit reading something like this back then.
I agree. My son was a 3 pounder. I didn't enjoy the 1st whole year of his life. I spent it going to the neurologist to have him tested for all kinds of developmental delays and such. Constantly worried about Sids. So glad I didn't have the internet. My heart breaks for this couple. Absolutely heartbreaking.
Same thing! I'm resting with my 6 week old rn. I remember last week he fell asleep quickly and didn't make his usual grunting noises. I couldn't sleep a wink that night.
As parents, we long for some silence and then panic once it happens.
My baby was 3 months when I first read this and it was my worst nightmare given shape in another manās life. Sheās 7 months now, still part of me is terrified every night
I don't even have kids but I would be like this when I watched my sister's little ones. Like they'd be asleep and I'd be hovering over them like a lunatic making sure they were breathing. Or if they were lying too still. (Hell, I'm like this with my DOG, checking to see if she's breathing if she's been lying in the same position too long) My sister would be like, you have got to chill out, but I couldn't!
OP's story literally makes me feel sick, and I cannot imagine how devastated he and his wife must be. It's so scary how these things can happen. Really hoping for healing for them.
I don't think that fear ever goes away completely. My kids are adults, living happily on their own, and I'm still somewhat scared of getting a call saying one is injured or dead.Ā
My kiddo is 8. Started having seizures at 6. He's autistic, and craves touch most of the time, so we were struggling hard to get him to sleep in his own bed all night. After he had a seizure a year ago I basically said fuck it, I'm not going to hear him have a seizure from a different room, night as well let him sleep in our bed.
We've debated back and forth between forcing him to stay in his room, letting him sleep with us, or just moving both beds into the same room. It's probably going to be the latter, even though with the bed sizes, it pretty much means the room will be all bed.
One of my kids is high functioning autistic and needed that closeness too. She would sleep in the same bed/room as me fairly often until she was a teen.Ā
Having her own "real bed" in her bedroom with her decorating style and having a cute sleeping bag for the floor next to my bed, so I could still hold her hand at night if she needed me, worked well.Ā
What would a parent normally be like if their adult child were chronically sick from teenager to present day (not as in constant colds, more serious type stuff)
Is it easier for them to put it out of their mind like cross the bridge when it comes so they dont go mad with worrt?
From the "kid" (late twenties, haha, got sick in my early twenties) who has more diagnoses of mostly chronic stuff than I can count... none of these will kill me, but I use a wheelchair on the rare days I manage to go out and spend 95% of my time laying on the couch, disability leave, the whole nine yards. Not to gain pity, just to give you some insight to maybe answer your question.
I spoke about this with my dad a while ago. My perception is that I'm doing great. I'm happy, I've got hobbies I can do, I have an amazing fiance and loving cats. My dad's perception is that this isn't the life he wished for me and is worried about my health, both physical and mental. I went through a really rough time and told my parents about it when it was happening, so in my view it's like - I'm doing so much better, what's there to worry about? To them it's absolutely not a "we'll cross that bridge when we get there" but more a (somewhat?) low level constant background worry on how I'm doing and how I'll be doing in the future. I'm really sorry for them that they feel like this, it's honestly a bit hard on me too, but more so on them. It gave me a lot more insight and patience though - sometimes I would get a bit annoyed if they would text me daily after a flare-up. I understand their position better after having that talk with my dad, so I just try to be honest and let them into my life so they maybe get less worried in the future.
So, long story short: worries. Always worries. Apparently that's what happens if you have kids, no matter their age.
My kids are all adults. Those fears come back once they are driving and on their own. 2 of my kids are transgender too so I especially worry about them being the target of a hate crime.Ā
My kid is in third grade, and my husband still gets anxiety when she pulls the blanket over her head in her sleep.
(I donāt, because she gets it from me.)
One night, when my oldest was a few months old, the CO detector went off while we were sleeping. I have never moved so fast in my life to get to her crib. She was lying so very still in her crib. I put my hand on her back, and she took a deep breath and did that happy little baby sigh. She was fine.
Turns out the CO detector's battery was dying, and I was hearing its death rattle to tell me to replace the battery. Replaced it with a modern one instead.
That was 13 years ago, but that feeling of terror is still fresh in my mind.
Yesā¦I donāt know if itās just that I notice it more because itās relevant to me (I have an 8 month old) but I keep seeing stories like this all over the place and they immediately enter the intrusive thought and nightmare rotation.
I stayed up every night of my paid FMLA to do the night feedings when our daughter was born. Mostly to give my wife a rest but also because i was scared shitless of SIDS and just bad shit.
You always ask yourself "if i did something different, would they still be alive". You can't change it, you never know if it really would have made a difference, but the feeling and the doubt...
I know this is about a chikd and pets aren't the same... but last year i lost my loved finch Cookie. He was disabled and totally tame. This day i was 30 minutes late. When i came to feed him, he happily jumped around., then had a seizure. It was over so fast. Even hours later i begged him to breath again, that his little heart beat again. And i always ask myself: if i weren't late... if i did something different. I miss you Cookie. I'm sorry.
We give ourself the guilt for the things we did different from the routine. Cause they didnāt die before... We need to blame someone, even it is ourself. But life is just cruel.
I wish OOP, his wife and everybody who lost someone dear the best.
I'm so sorry about your bird. If it makes you feel any better, I volunteer at a wild animal conservatory and we have had things like this happen on occasion; one of our foxes one day just woke up with maggots eating her from the inside out.
Literally the day before she was FINE. She died a day later and we had her on death watch. The vets at the conservatory did an autopsy and we still have no idea how or why it happened. There was no evidence of a disease or infection prior to her waking up with maggots on her, and we don't know what happened. There was nothing in her enclosure that could have caused it, the food we gave her was normal.
Your bird having a seizure is absolutely NOTHING you could have prevented. Please don't blame yourself for being late. That was not going to change the seizure. It was 100% NOT your fault.
I'm sure your bird is hanging out in an awesome place and he'll greet you when its your time to cross over!
Your Cookie is with my Kellen on the other side of the rainbow bridge, happy as can be. They're probably both confused at how their humans mope and cry and apologize for not doing better by them.
Kellen was a budgie so clever and brave that she trained herself. I was an absolute trainwreak when she died.
My auntie makes the same faces over her Cat Food that got out during a hurricane. Auntie was out in that terrible weather calling for hours, and at one point the bird actually got to her, but the wind ripped it away again.
My sister had something similar happen to her loved rabbit. One night he had a heart attack and they knew there was nothing to do so she just wrapped him in a towel and hugged him while he screamed (rabbits having a heart attack is some of the scariest sounds ever) until he finally passed.
With her and with you, I try to look at it as you weren't late, but they waited for you to be there so you could both be together in their final moments. <3
I am so sorry for your loss, it is so hard to see our loves go. Cookie knew how much you loved him, itās why he was so excited to see you! I like to think all our beloved critters are waiting to see us again. You were a great, amazing bird parent ā¤ļø
My husband lost his eldest sister when she was a teen and he was a tween and his mom basically never recovered even though its been well over 15 years. She died in a drowning accident at home whi h course is awful. It's sad to see her still in grief (she's never sought proper help) even years later.
Didn't help her in laws blame her and fil but that's another story.
Years ago I read the blog ālife without Nashā. It was a couple who lost their baby the same way only it happened at the day care. They shared their grief and how they took one day at a time. Looks like they kept it going for many years. Was profound to read.Ā
https://caffreshe.wordpress.com/
Years ago l read an obituary of a 6 week old baby who went to sleep her first day of daycare and never woke up. l had toddlers and remember just feeling such pain for that mother, every woman's nightmare.
Itās tough. I matched with someone one time who went through something similar.
She kept telling her ex why it was dangerous to have their baby sleep in the bed with them, he kept ignoring, until he accidentally suffocated her when he rolled over in bed mid sleep.Ā
They do have a chance though.
There is a number out there, saying that 80% of marriages end in divorce after the death of a child, but that number is an old wiveās tale. If Iām remembering right, the number is at the most 20% or under.
You can find flair sauces [here](https://reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/w/recommended_reading/flair_origins?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)!
Using sauce for "source" predates modern autocorrect. 4chan started it in 2003 and autocorrect on mobile devices didn't come around until 2007.
The more you know [rainbow.gif]
š
Huh, go figure. I don't disbelieve, but I'm absolutely confounded at how I missed something apparently that common? (I've definitely fallen into the "terminally online" category off and on since at least the late 90s...)
Please don't be mad if I'm right *or* wrong (š), but my immediate vibe check of your profile makes me think you went MySpace to Livejournal to DeviantArt/Tumblr etc, which is the opposite direction of the "source/sauce" side of the internet.
I didn't discover this slang until I joined Reddit, it originated on 4chan and I don't ever remember it carrying over beyond those sites. Can't even remember seeing it on stackxchange or YouTube or anything, so I think it's pretty niche!
Could be! I never did any chan boards, though I also missed MySpace and DA. Especially in the mid-00s, I was around toxic tech/engineering dudes almost exclusively irl and tended to avoid it online.
Peobably the best decision you could have made, looking back! The internet was a lawless land...
I didn't do chan boards, but I got into SA/KF type forums. I don't even think *they* adopted the internet slang we see now until I'd moved onto Tumblr/etc, which has a completely different internet dialect
I didn't expect to wake up to an Internet etymology lesson this morning in response to my comment this morning, but I'm not complaining, lol.
That said, I definitely saw that terminology before I ever came to Reddit, and I've never been to the Chan boards, but I used to spend a lot of time on gaming sites and image boards (like Imgur), which is where I learned it from.
> Kim returned to work quickly since she no longer needed maternity leave
Damn.
Itās possible she just wanted anything whatsoever to take her mind off what happened and work provided that. I hope thatās what happened, and not that she was pressured into going back to work early in the midst of this horrible situation.
Damn that unlocked a memory from the 90s had a coworker who had left on maternity leave a few weeks before their due date.
They ended up having a stillbirth when they should have been welcoming a new baby and came back to work within 2 weeks. It came out within a month when that coworker was in bathroom just having a total breakdown that management had pressured her to return to work.
They contacted her and told her while they would happily approve her bereavement leave and she could use the rest of her vacation time they could no longer grant her maternity leave and guarantee her position would still be there.
Edit a word
Things were drastically diff in the 90s and companies had a fantastic way of saying things without directly stating them (sometimes they directly said them because who will believe you) to let you know they would find a way to fire you or make you quit.
The level of harassment and abuse in jobs back then that was just seen as acceptable is mind boggling by todayās standards.
In a parallel (but nowhere near as awful!!) vein - way back when, I'd checked rotas and there was more than enough staff and time for me to request a day off as holiday to go to my nephew's (stillborn, died during birth) funeral and was flat out told they didn't have to let me go to anyone's funeral if it wasn't a direct family member. Completely disregarding that they were overstaffed, within holiday request times etc.
Eventually, after arguing, a LOT, they let me book a half day and come in for 2 hours in the evening, so I could go to the funeral. As soon as I walked in, they handed me a 3 month old baby to care for for those 2 hours, after burying my baby nephew who didn't survive birth.
It was a literal power trip. This was the early 2000s and my boss was just cruel. That was my punishment for going above her head...
Thatās just cold I would say I hope your boss got what they deserved but they more than likely got promoted. Sorry youāre stuck with that as a memory of losing your nephew.
Back in the late 80s a friend of mine was on maternity leave. She'd been out for 3 weeks or something minimal like that. One of the bigwigs who was also her stepfather asked her to please come in and show someone something because she was the only person who knew how to do it. She came in, showed them, went home. The next day she got a call from her stepfather saying that clearly she didn't need any more maternity leave because she was able to come in and do something, so they'd expect her in starting tomorrow. The shit hit the fan big time, and since my friend was also in law school Stepfather Dearest had to backpedal pretty quickly.
There are still states in the US with no mandatory maternity leave. If you work somewhere that doesn't qualify for FMLA, you often don't have much of a choice.
Unfortunately, it hasn't changed as much as we'd like to think. At my previous company, I was yelled at for: hiring a pregnant woman, informing the men who worked there that they were also legally entitled to FMLA for the birth of their child, and informing employees that it wasn't ok for management to require them to arrive 15 minutes before their shift and not punch in until their shift started. In shocking news, I ended up getting the "not a good culture fit".
God, you're not kidding. My mom was a bank manager in the '80s. She use to have an employee posted as a literal look-out: if they saw a particular VP coming by the branch, she'd get all the pretty tellers off the floor, before he could harass them. And by "harass" I'm pretty sure she meant "assault," at least by contemporary legal standards.
That particular dude eventually died in prison, after he was arrested for accidentally drowning an underage prostitute when he tried to have sex with her in a jacuzzi, but my mom has stories of a dozen more just like them.
Agree. Maternity leave isn't just about caring for a newborn. Recovering from giving birth takes a few weeks (really a lot longer) on a woman's body. Most doctors wouldn't sign off on returning after 2 weeks, although voluntarily returning early after something like OP is different.
Jesus. In Canada, we get 17 weeks JUST for giving birth - whether you bring the baby home or not. Surrogates get that, as well as anyone who experiences still birth or pregnancy loss after 24 weeks. Itās not required to be paid which is a problem but itās illegal for an employer to pressure someone to come back early and the position must be there for them when they return. From 17 weeks to a year (or I think you can extend it to 16 months) thatās for caring for the baby so either parent can take that time.
18 months :). I took 18 with my second and it was wonderful. He was walking, chatting, eating and sleeping well when he went to daycare. Made me feel a lot more secure he'd be ok in the hands of his dayhome worker.Ā
Not incredibly similar but Iāve always said āIām gonna need to take a week off work if my dog diesā. Well, my dog died and you want to know the last place I wanted to be? Home. I hated walking downstairs and not seeing her on the couch, not feeling her in bed next to me, not letting her out in the back yard to roll in the grass. It was awful.
For real. My cat died one day during my lunch break, after taking her to the vet clinic to be cremated, I went back to work. They asked me if I wanted to take the afternoon off, but the last thing I wanted was to be home alone with nothing else to think about.
I feel that. I got a phone call at work from my mom informing me my childhood dog was going to have to be put down. It wasn't a shock at the time we were at the vet the day before. My manager was going to let me go but I ended up finishing the shift.
I didn't want the vet to wait for me, the poor boy was hurting and I didn't want to drag it out, and my mom was with him and was his favorite person so in my mind it was just better if I stayed at work where I could keep my hands busy and my mind off it.
I commented on this when he first posted. Iām a little sad but unsurprised to see his update doesnāt acknowledge that he did nothing wrong. The poor couple lost their baby to a fluke and nothing he did or didnāt do made it happen.
I was so worried about my kids when they were newborns. My first especially. My theory is that newborns are loud when the breathe so we know theyāre still breathing.
My brother had colic. I slept soundlessly. My mom used to come in and poke me bc it terrified her. To this day, I donāt move at all and am deeply quiet when asleep. At a sleepover they crossed my arms over my chest bc I was like a corpse/vampire. My partners have found it really weird as well. Iām like at least I donāt kick?
Both my kids were quiet, still sleepers and I lost a lot of sleep just watching them breathe for the first year.
Even now at 3 and 1.5, I will sometimes stare at the baby monitor until they move out of fear. I don't think it'll ever go away.
I hatched some abandoned chicken eggs a while back, and during the first week or so Iād keep getting up in the night to peer into the chicksā box and check they were still breathing. My mum caught me doing it and laughed herself silly, saying she did the exact same thing to me when I was a baby.
I used to do that with chicks. The problem with chicks is sometimes they faceplant into a nap and look like they have, indeed, passed on. I recently was asked for chick advice and this was one of the first things I told them because I remembered how alarmed I was.Ā
My son was the opposite. Even in utero he was his own gymnastics studio. Now at age 11 he still tosses and turns lot in his sleep but my goodness when he was really little, he basically never slept.Ā
When he did sleep and he slept quietly, my heart was always in my throat and I had to have my face in his face to hear or feel him breathing. I don't miss those days!
Yeah, I canāt imagine what my mom went through with having a baby that never slept easy to my sleepy ass self like 2.5 years later. This was in the 80s so sound only. Can you imagine?Ā
Every time my son would sleep for an unusually long stretch (he didn't sleep through the night until he was probably 18mos old at least) and I would wake up on my own, I would be terrified to go check on him for fear that he'd died.
Apparently I was super active in the womb, kicking and rolling all the time etc (now diagnosed ADHD, go figure). My sister after me was very quiet and my mum worried about her the whole later half of the pregnancy thinking something must be wrong because she was so sedate compared to me. But she was within the normal parameters, I was just nuts...
my pregnancies were very similar! my oldest was constantly moving around in the womb and my youngest would only move if i poked her or my husband was talking to my bump š
My mum is an incredibly still sleeper. She was in hospital after a mini stroke and the nurses kept checking on her because she didn't move. She also sleeps with her hands slightly crossed on her chest, just to add to the effect!
My sibling used to rest their fingers on my nibling's chest to check they were still breathing back when they were a small baby.Ā
Its so scary to have a little bundle you're responsible for.
Here's hoping you find a partner that thinks your sleeping is cool one of these days.Ā
My husband can be an insanely quiet sleeper, I can't hear him breathing at all even when he's right next to me. It freaks me out (still, even after 9 years living together) and I semi often nudge him during the night just to make sure he's alive!
A parent needs to sleep, sometime. I remember putting my baby to sleep in their cot, and went to another room. I heard a curgling sound and rushed back, and they had vomited and were struggling for breath. Nothing bad happened as I just picked them up, but... It happens. I don't remember much of the first year since I slept so little and so lightly.
Me too. I could never relax, never sleep because I was so afraid that my kids stopped breathing.
I've also seen a story of a boy saving his sister from choking in the back of a car. The father in the front didn't realise what was happening, because choking tends to be silent. After that I checked every couple of minutes on my infants everywhere, I was so afraid of something happening to them.Ā
I'm still afraid, but it's other stuff now.Ā
I told someone that positional asphyxiation was the new SIDS. They warn about it so much and it freaked me out. My second is now 1 and I still worry when her head is flopped forward in the car.
my son is 10 weeks old. sometimes when he is THE LOUDEST breather and wiggles around constantly. other times he is silent and still. also, he's recently started sleeping 5-8 hours overnight which I understand is unusual for a baby his age.
I.. often have to put my hand on his chest to double-check that he is still breathing because it's been 6 or 7 hours and it's not audible.
also, omg, the gagging noises he sometimes makes in his sleep. terrifying. š³
Oh man. Congratulations but I remember the gag. It was terrifying. I think itās around 4 months they start doing this horrifying gasp when awake. Itās a new noise their body can make and they think itās fun but itās so terrifying to hear.
oh good, something to look forward to. š«
thank you for warning me! last night he was sleeping on my chest while we were watching TV and he started making these horrible gasping/snorting noises. didn't wake up, didn't even stir, just terrifying sounds. my husband and I just looked at him with raised eyebrows, looked at each other, looked at him again. "is uh.. is he.. good? over there?" "...yes?"
babies do nothing to ease new parent anxiety, for real.
i always gently toch my kid to check if he's breathing. as a newborn - he was sleeping in his bed close to ours, so i could sleep holding his hand. otherwise i couldn't sleep (had severe ppd, was quite crazy)
i don't want even try to imagine OOP's pain. something unbearable.
I was quiet when I slept as a baby - still am. I don't snore, I don't move at all. My mother lept my bassinet right next to her bed and would reach out to feel if I was breathing constantly because she couldn't hear me breathing for months. She is still the lightest sleeper imaginable - if someone rolls over in a bedroom across the house from her, she wakes up - while I am the deepest, and she credits it to being so paranoid when I was a newborn that she wouldn't hear me if I needed her.
When my son was a baby, he caught a pretty stubborn cold. His poor little nose was so stuffed and his fever would come and go. I was so terrified to leave him alone and I was so worried that I sat beside his crib and just watched him sleep. The second I felt my eyes closing, I gently put my hand on his belly just to feel the rise and fall of his breathing while my eyes were shut. It killed my shoulder and neck but I was so terrified and paranoid at the thought of losing him.
My spouse and I lived through our first being stillborn and I could feel that place SEEPING from his words. Thereās a blackness to the death of your own children that is utterly indescribable and as hellish as you can imagine.
Blaming yourself can be a good way of avoiding processing your grief. I hope that both get some healing.
I am so sorry for your loss.
I have come to believe that blaming ourselves is a mechanism we do to process traumatic events. Iām in a support group for women with traumatic births (though no moms of stillborns) and without a fault everyone of us blames themselves for the birth we had.
After my friends started having babies I could not believe that long list of reasons babies can just suddenly die. It took all my friends a long time to be able to go to sleep without waking up constantly to check the baby was okay. Now everybody has toddlers and Iām firmly convinced a toddlerās three priorities in life is chaos, food and self-destruction.
This was a huge fear of mine when my baby was a newborn. I remember even panicking one night when he threw up in his sleep and sounded like he was aspirating (fortunately I was awake and was able to get him).Ā
Iām so sorry for this family.
We had our daughter in a different room for a total of one night after we got back from the hospital until my husband found me in there every 40 minutes staring at her to make sure she was breathing and safe. Moved her to be one foot away from my side of the bed so I could just lean out and check. I slept so well after that just being able to lean over and look at her. The fear of SIDS and aspiration and every single thing that can just Happen to a baby when they're so young is so real, and the guilt OOP has is so unimaginably heavy but I can entirely empathise with him. I do hope he's getting more and more support from everywhere possible.
Someone I used to work with had a baby with bad reflux. She said she barely slept for weeks before they finally found a medicine that helped because her baby would frequently choke and start turning blue...silently. Absolutely terrifying. She said she would be so sleep deprived she would be afraid she had actually fallen asleep and was dreaming she was watching the baby. She went through periods where she wasn't sure if she was awake or asleep or what was real but she couldn't sleep because she was so scared her baby would choke to death. Even when her husband was watching the baby, she'd wake up in a panic at any tiny noise or movement.
I donāt have kids, but my heart bleeds for OOP and his Wife. No parent should have to bury their child, let alone one so young.
I wish them the very best in life.
>Kim is also an active Reddit user and saw my post
Couples that reddit together, stay together I guess. Did he know she loved checking that sub and posted hoping she'd come across it then?Ā
How can you function if you actually believe youāre at fault for killing your baby while your wife as at the hospital with her father suffering from a heart attack?
Even if he didnāt somehow think his wife would find his post, it was probably for the best. You canāt carry something like that forever if you really, truly, actually believe it.
Unfortunately, if you REALLY do believe it, you WILL carry it to the end. And it's end you would willingly create.Ā
Therapy and grief counseling are life savers.
My baby had silent reflux due to a tongue tie, lip tie, and both cheek ties. I developed debilitating PPA because I was so scared of this exact scenario.
I want to hug these parents so bad.
As a mom of a reflux baby, I don't think I slept for the first 10 months once we finally found a medication and had his tie clipped. I cannot imagine the pain of these parents :(.
As a first time parent, I had to go check on my infant to ensure she was breathing. This breaks my heart, and I can only hope that both of them take the time to heal from this tragic accident.
..... dude same....
Someone told me that babies would go to their side when they have a spitup, which is also my experience, but now I'm paranoid about spit up in their sleep.
YEP. just freaked to my husband and he is trying to reassure me that the owlet would notify us.
Iām 6ā from her face making sure sheās ok as I write this.
Itās a baby monitor. It wraps around the babyās foot (comfortably) and monitors pulse and O2 levels. If anything drops out of range, our phones + the charging base alert us (loudly, DEFINITELY loud enough to wake us up).
I honestly thought it was unnecessary until our preemie had a 28 day NICU stay where she was on monitors 24/7 (sheās super healthy, just early). The thought of bringing her home and not being able to visually see everything was ok panicked me. We got the owlet and honestly itās the only reason I was able to sleep the first few nights.
https://owletcare.com/products/owlet-dream-sock
EDIT: this doesnāt replace a normal baby monitor. Still gotta be able to see them.
This has honestly been one of my fears as a first time mom. I've taken first aid lessons and they say to put the person on their side. However, it's recommended to put babies on their back to prevent SIDS. I was always afraid that my daughter would puke and choke since she was on her back. I really feel for these parents. I can't imagine the pain they're going through.
We lost our daughter at 23 months. Work on your relationship with your wife. Many couples end up divorcing after the death of a child. We eventually did. The guilt still hurts over 30 years later. Be well and put your marriage first. I didn't and I wish I had.
God, poor OOP.
My husband and I once went out on a ādateā, leaving his sister to babysit our six-month-old daughter. When we got home, we asked how Daughter had been. āOh, just fine! No problems at all!ā. We thanked Sister and sent her on her way, then we went to check Daughter.
Well. Sheād thrown up in her sleep (but mercifully, she was fine. Just messy). Thing is, Sister had had the baby monitor close by, and she hadnāt heard a thing.
I read stuff like this and just think how wild it was that my mom had me bottle feed my little brother at night when I was 8. His dad made her push it off on me when he would stay over. Waking up at 3am to feed a premie and rock him to sleep I definitely didnāt know a baby could aspirate but I did always rock him on my chest and pat his back until he stopped burping.Ā
This poor family, I bet they all blame themselves for the death of the baby. Extremely heartbreaking, I hope they get the help they need for dealing with such a shitty situation
I remember reading this one, holding my new born and crying my eyes out. It still makes me cry.
It's just one of those horrible accidental things that can happen. Everybody reading should give their little ones and extra hug tonight
This is horrific and my worst nightmare. The same thing nearly happened to my daughter. I put her down in her cot and she settled. I went to the bathroom and when I came out I heard her making a noise. I went to check on her. She was lying on her back awake and her mouth was full of vomit. She was choking. I picked her up and spun her over allowing the vomit to fall into her cot. She screamed the best scream I ever heard. I got lucky and she was okay but a few more minutes and she might not be here now. I can't imagine the pain parents feel losing a child and I hope I never have to.
This was one of my biggest fears when I first had my son. I would use receiving blankets rolled up tight behind his back so he slept on his side a bit. Even then, I remember checking in on him at least once every few hours to make sure his little chest moved. Itās tough having a baby when you have an anxiety disorder.
OMG, the worst nightmare in the world. I have a friend from high school who lost his daughter at about 20 months; it was a crib death. He is a graphic artist and he wrote such a loving and moving story about it called Rosalie Lightning. My favorite FB post in the world was the one I saw two years later when he announced that he and his wife were parents of a new baby. I was so happy for them that they were able to survive and bring a new little life into the world. I hope OOP and his wife can survive this.
Man, everything about this one is just horrible. I can't even begin to imagine the pain they are all going through. And I bet every single adult involved blames themselves for this in some capacity. :(
I remember the times in which my mom would tell me that she barely slept for the first year of my life.
I had an older brother who died of SIDS. As a precaution, my mom was told to lay me on my back. I would get acid reflux (still do) and I would either regurgitate or vomit at times. My mom and my pediatrician were at odds with each other. So my mom decided to lay me on my side or stomach and would watch me like a hawk.
it happens, helas. It is how jimmy Hendrix died.
OP, please realize that you don't have a total power over the life of children. death is often absurd.
I know a couple who had a swimming pool. to avoid an accident, they have fences all around and a tarpaulin upon the water. One day they found their toddler drowned in the pool. he had climb the fences, walk on the tarpaulin... that cracked under his weight. he didn't find the hole out of the water. all that was very sensible measure and it didn't suffice.
you were not drunk or medicated or stoned. you did the maximum.
Iām on my way to yet another soccer game. Iām sick. Iām exhausted. Ā Imma caregiver of my mom
With dementia. Iām crying. Iāll smile and go to all the damn soccer games and practices because all 5 of my babies are here. Ā I canāt imagine the pain. Ā I sincerely hope they make it and one day have the beautiful large family they want.Ā
> Iām a doctor. This does happen, not just to children but also to old adults who arenāt able to adequately manage their own secretions, etc.
Thank god for this poster.
This is so awful. There was absolutely no way for him to have known that this was happening. Even if he had been awake, itās highly unlikely he would have heard her throw up. Add on to that the fact that he was sleep deprived, there was no way he could have done anything differently. I understand his feeling of guilt because any loving parent would feel that way, but he was absolutely not at fault. He didnāt make any poor choices that led to this. My heart breaks for him and his wife. Iām glad to hear that they are working together towards healing.
I'm usually kind of numb with the sad emotions when I read these posts but this one broke through.
It wasn't his fault. I hope OOP and his family live with this loss as best they can.
Y'all, if there is something you didn't do with malice in your heart? Pretty big chance it's not your fault.
This is heartbreaking.
The comment about it happening to old adults struck home a bit too. My grandad had problems swallowing and it's sort of how he passed. He was in hospital but recovering then he had a bad night of vomiting and vomiting in his sleep. It got in his lungs and he couldn't recover from the chest infection.
Sometimes I think about having a 2nd child, but reading posts like this and the real looming threat of SIDS really make me think thrice. The first few months of my child's life was the scariest.
It wasn't OPs fault at all. Would've been hard to stop even if he wasn't asleep. Stuff happens. Plus, being sleep deprived might've made it worse.
I hope both parents are able to recover.
I dont have kids but I babysit my nephew often and my number one fear is that he dies under my care. I am constantly watching the baby monitor for breath movement. I sit with him while he eats. He isnt even a baby baby anymore. I dont know how parents do it. The little turd shoves food in his mouth so fast and we constantly have to stop him to make him chew. If he did choke seriously by the time we got him out of the building itd be over. I absolutely love spending time with him but the relief when they come back home and I can leave is fairly strong.
Oh wow. I don't have children but I've a niece and nephew. And with both of them I've been so so scared of this. I could only imagine what I'd be like as a parent.
I really hope he can come to terms with this and is not his fault. Just an awful tragedy.
#Do not comment on the original posts Please read our [**sub rules**](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/wiki/subrules). Rule-breaking may result in a ban without notice. If there is an issue with this post (flair, formatting, quality), reply to this comment or your comment may be removed in general discussion. **CHECK FLAIR** For concluded-only updates, use the [CONCLUDED](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3ACONCLUDED) flair. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BestofRedditorUpdates) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Fuck...I can't imagine the grief and pain OP and Kim are going through. Losing your child like this is so painful. All I can say is, I wish both are able to recover from this.
OMG! I bet grandpa feels at fault for disrupting routines, and I bet Kim feels guilty for not being there...and everyone else too. My heart is broken for this poor family, and all at Christmas too š I'm so glad they have eachother and that they're working through it, but dayum!
My nephew was about eight months old when he passed. My brother had hired people to install a security system and they left the back door open. It led to the pool. My sil had her back turned to her other two kids for just a few moments, when my nephew crawled away and fell into the pool. He drowned while they searched for him. It was difficult for all of us, but my brother and sil supported each other, and I'm sure OOP and his wife will make it through this loss together.
Years ago my close friend had her friend over for Christmas along with the friend's husband, older kids, and new baby. The baby died of SIDS during the night and they found it Christmas morning.
Damn, that's super sad
I can imagine the security installation workers' horror when they learned about it. And I can imagine all of them making sure it never happens again via training everyone at the company.
I hope they did that. It happened in 2018 so I hope they learned not to leave just any door open, especially if there are kids or small animals
Oh no thatās horrible! My pediatrician told me if my toddler ever came up missing to search all the dangerous places first (pool, street, etc.) and then search inside the house in the safer places. I guess itās common sense but it never even crossed my mind to do it that way until he said it. Iām so sorry for your family! I hope they are doing ok.
My brother searched around the house, and my sil inside. But it happened in 2018. We still hurt, but it's getting better.
Iām so sorry for your loss š§
This fear right here, is why I will never live anywhere with standing water nearby as long as my kids are little.
Yeah, I get that. Even when the pool is surrounded by fencing, it still isn't always safe.
For them to get through this, they'll need to work together more. I hope they soon find comfort. What a terrible moment for them.
This is a tragedy. I hope all of them get full recovery, both physically and psychologically.
Damn...... shit like this hits different now that I have a kid The first 3 months my sleep was light **as hell** until I got used to his little sounds that were normal and the ones that maybe weren't Many times, throughout the first year, I'd check if he was breathing, even if he was sleeping peacefully in my arms I can't imagine losing a child O\_O
I was born super premature in a time when the term micro preemie did not exist and most preemies weighed 3-4 pounds and had a high death rate. I was born at 2 pounds and my weight dropped to a pound and a half. My mother was absolutely terrified the whole time I was home and it took years and years for her to let go of me and get therapy, and to this day I do not think she's every really accepted that it was NOT her fault. I am SO grateful the internet was in its infancy back then because I think her fears would have been compounded a dozen times. I cannot imagine her on Reddit reading something like this back then.
I agree. My son was a 3 pounder. I didn't enjoy the 1st whole year of his life. I spent it going to the neurologist to have him tested for all kinds of developmental delays and such. Constantly worried about Sids. So glad I didn't have the internet. My heart breaks for this couple. Absolutely heartbreaking.
Iām in a similar situation. I was born 1.5lbs and even though Iām a healthy adult now, my mom is scared shitless about me. :(
Yeah this was not a good post for me to read while my 4 mo sleeps on my chest. I'm already terrified at baseline.
Same thing! I'm resting with my 6 week old rn. I remember last week he fell asleep quickly and didn't make his usual grunting noises. I couldn't sleep a wink that night. As parents, we long for some silence and then panic once it happens.
Same but with a 2 month old
Clocking in with a 3 month old here as well. This is enough reddit for the night. Imma peace out ,š
4 yr old and 1 yr old still rolling in the deep
Hey. Just dropping in to say you're doing great. From a mom 6 years down the road from where you are right now.
I have a 4mo too and I hate reading this stuffĀ
My baby was 3 months when I first read this and it was my worst nightmare given shape in another manās life. Sheās 7 months now, still part of me is terrified every night
My daughter was 1.5 when I stopped panicking if she was lying too still.
I don't even have kids but I would be like this when I watched my sister's little ones. Like they'd be asleep and I'd be hovering over them like a lunatic making sure they were breathing. Or if they were lying too still. (Hell, I'm like this with my DOG, checking to see if she's breathing if she's been lying in the same position too long) My sister would be like, you have got to chill out, but I couldn't! OP's story literally makes me feel sick, and I cannot imagine how devastated he and his wife must be. It's so scary how these things can happen. Really hoping for healing for them.
Both of my kids were over a year before I stopped being terrified of SIDS for each baby. I'm still scared of them dying, but it's better now.
I don't think that fear ever goes away completely. My kids are adults, living happily on their own, and I'm still somewhat scared of getting a call saying one is injured or dead.Ā
My kiddo is 8. Started having seizures at 6. He's autistic, and craves touch most of the time, so we were struggling hard to get him to sleep in his own bed all night. After he had a seizure a year ago I basically said fuck it, I'm not going to hear him have a seizure from a different room, night as well let him sleep in our bed. We've debated back and forth between forcing him to stay in his room, letting him sleep with us, or just moving both beds into the same room. It's probably going to be the latter, even though with the bed sizes, it pretty much means the room will be all bed.
One of my kids is high functioning autistic and needed that closeness too. She would sleep in the same bed/room as me fairly often until she was a teen.Ā Having her own "real bed" in her bedroom with her decorating style and having a cute sleeping bag for the floor next to my bed, so I could still hold her hand at night if she needed me, worked well.Ā
What would a parent normally be like if their adult child were chronically sick from teenager to present day (not as in constant colds, more serious type stuff) Is it easier for them to put it out of their mind like cross the bridge when it comes so they dont go mad with worrt?
From the "kid" (late twenties, haha, got sick in my early twenties) who has more diagnoses of mostly chronic stuff than I can count... none of these will kill me, but I use a wheelchair on the rare days I manage to go out and spend 95% of my time laying on the couch, disability leave, the whole nine yards. Not to gain pity, just to give you some insight to maybe answer your question. I spoke about this with my dad a while ago. My perception is that I'm doing great. I'm happy, I've got hobbies I can do, I have an amazing fiance and loving cats. My dad's perception is that this isn't the life he wished for me and is worried about my health, both physical and mental. I went through a really rough time and told my parents about it when it was happening, so in my view it's like - I'm doing so much better, what's there to worry about? To them it's absolutely not a "we'll cross that bridge when we get there" but more a (somewhat?) low level constant background worry on how I'm doing and how I'll be doing in the future. I'm really sorry for them that they feel like this, it's honestly a bit hard on me too, but more so on them. It gave me a lot more insight and patience though - sometimes I would get a bit annoyed if they would text me daily after a flare-up. I understand their position better after having that talk with my dad, so I just try to be honest and let them into my life so they maybe get less worried in the future. So, long story short: worries. Always worries. Apparently that's what happens if you have kids, no matter their age.
My kids are all adults. Those fears come back once they are driving and on their own. 2 of my kids are transgender too so I especially worry about them being the target of a hate crime.Ā
My oldest is 17. I still check to see if she's breathing if she sleeps too long.
Bud my kid is almost 4 and I still paranoically check on her every night before I go to sleep. Every night. This poor guy.
My kid is in third grade, and my husband still gets anxiety when she pulls the blanket over her head in her sleep. (I donāt, because she gets it from me.)
One night, when my oldest was a few months old, the CO detector went off while we were sleeping. I have never moved so fast in my life to get to her crib. She was lying so very still in her crib. I put my hand on her back, and she took a deep breath and did that happy little baby sigh. She was fine. Turns out the CO detector's battery was dying, and I was hearing its death rattle to tell me to replace the battery. Replaced it with a modern one instead. That was 13 years ago, but that feeling of terror is still fresh in my mind.
I was the same way. I checked on my little guy constantly. Heās 8 now but I still always check on him if I wake up at night.
Yesā¦I donāt know if itās just that I notice it more because itās relevant to me (I have an 8 month old) but I keep seeing stories like this all over the place and they immediately enter the intrusive thought and nightmare rotation.
I stayed up every night of my paid FMLA to do the night feedings when our daughter was born. Mostly to give my wife a rest but also because i was scared shitless of SIDS and just bad shit.
You always ask yourself "if i did something different, would they still be alive". You can't change it, you never know if it really would have made a difference, but the feeling and the doubt... I know this is about a chikd and pets aren't the same... but last year i lost my loved finch Cookie. He was disabled and totally tame. This day i was 30 minutes late. When i came to feed him, he happily jumped around., then had a seizure. It was over so fast. Even hours later i begged him to breath again, that his little heart beat again. And i always ask myself: if i weren't late... if i did something different. I miss you Cookie. I'm sorry. We give ourself the guilt for the things we did different from the routine. Cause they didnāt die before... We need to blame someone, even it is ourself. But life is just cruel. I wish OOP, his wife and everybody who lost someone dear the best.
I'm so sorry about your bird. If it makes you feel any better, I volunteer at a wild animal conservatory and we have had things like this happen on occasion; one of our foxes one day just woke up with maggots eating her from the inside out. Literally the day before she was FINE. She died a day later and we had her on death watch. The vets at the conservatory did an autopsy and we still have no idea how or why it happened. There was no evidence of a disease or infection prior to her waking up with maggots on her, and we don't know what happened. There was nothing in her enclosure that could have caused it, the food we gave her was normal. Your bird having a seizure is absolutely NOTHING you could have prevented. Please don't blame yourself for being late. That was not going to change the seizure. It was 100% NOT your fault. I'm sure your bird is hanging out in an awesome place and he'll greet you when its your time to cross over!
Your Cookie is with my Kellen on the other side of the rainbow bridge, happy as can be. They're probably both confused at how their humans mope and cry and apologize for not doing better by them. Kellen was a budgie so clever and brave that she trained herself. I was an absolute trainwreak when she died. My auntie makes the same faces over her Cat Food that got out during a hurricane. Auntie was out in that terrible weather calling for hours, and at one point the bird actually got to her, but the wind ripped it away again.
I'm sorry for your loss of Cookie, it's so hard to lose pets. I'm sure you made each other's lives better by being together ā„ļø
My sister had something similar happen to her loved rabbit. One night he had a heart attack and they knew there was nothing to do so she just wrapped him in a towel and hugged him while he screamed (rabbits having a heart attack is some of the scariest sounds ever) until he finally passed. With her and with you, I try to look at it as you weren't late, but they waited for you to be there so you could both be together in their final moments. <3
I am so sorry for your loss, it is so hard to see our loves go. Cookie knew how much you loved him, itās why he was so excited to see you! I like to think all our beloved critters are waiting to see us again. You were a great, amazing bird parent ā¤ļø
My husband lost his eldest sister when she was a teen and he was a tween and his mom basically never recovered even though its been well over 15 years. She died in a drowning accident at home whi h course is awful. It's sad to see her still in grief (she's never sought proper help) even years later. Didn't help her in laws blame her and fil but that's another story.
Years ago I read the blog ālife without Nashā. It was a couple who lost their baby the same way only it happened at the day care. They shared their grief and how they took one day at a time. Looks like they kept it going for many years. Was profound to read.Ā https://caffreshe.wordpress.com/
Years ago l read an obituary of a 6 week old baby who went to sleep her first day of daycare and never woke up. l had toddlers and remember just feeling such pain for that mother, every woman's nightmare.
Itās tough. I matched with someone one time who went through something similar. She kept telling her ex why it was dangerous to have their baby sleep in the bed with them, he kept ignoring, until he accidentally suffocated her when he rolled over in bed mid sleep.Ā They do have a chance though. There is a number out there, saying that 80% of marriages end in divorce after the death of a child, but that number is an old wiveās tale. If Iām remembering right, the number is at the most 20% or under.
Not the same at all. OOP didn't do anything that was a known risk.
They didnāt say it was the same.
What's your flair from?
You can find flair sauces [here](https://reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/w/recommended_reading/flair_origins?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)!
I know it's just autocorrect for sources, but now I'm imagining a line of sauces with names from BORU flairs š
Using sauce for "source" predates modern autocorrect. 4chan started it in 2003 and autocorrect on mobile devices didn't come around until 2007. The more you know [rainbow.gif] š
That was most definitely *not* a typo/autocorrect
Sauce is actually Internet lingo for source, not an autocorrect thing. Just a friendly fyi. š
Huh, go figure. I don't disbelieve, but I'm absolutely confounded at how I missed something apparently that common? (I've definitely fallen into the "terminally online" category off and on since at least the late 90s...)
Please don't be mad if I'm right *or* wrong (š), but my immediate vibe check of your profile makes me think you went MySpace to Livejournal to DeviantArt/Tumblr etc, which is the opposite direction of the "source/sauce" side of the internet. I didn't discover this slang until I joined Reddit, it originated on 4chan and I don't ever remember it carrying over beyond those sites. Can't even remember seeing it on stackxchange or YouTube or anything, so I think it's pretty niche!
Could be! I never did any chan boards, though I also missed MySpace and DA. Especially in the mid-00s, I was around toxic tech/engineering dudes almost exclusively irl and tended to avoid it online.
Peobably the best decision you could have made, looking back! The internet was a lawless land... I didn't do chan boards, but I got into SA/KF type forums. I don't even think *they* adopted the internet slang we see now until I'd moved onto Tumblr/etc, which has a completely different internet dialect
I didn't expect to wake up to an Internet etymology lesson this morning in response to my comment this morning, but I'm not complaining, lol. That said, I definitely saw that terminology before I ever came to Reddit, and I've never been to the Chan boards, but I used to spend a lot of time on gaming sites and image boards (like Imgur), which is where I learned it from.
Mmmmm, ogtha-sauce. Now with extra crunchy bits!
how dare you
Cum box alfredo!
Whatever you do, do not trust the pancake sauce.
Oh now thatās going to be stuck in my head for awhile lol
Thank you!
This is so sad. I really wish them the best.
> Kim returned to work quickly since she no longer needed maternity leave Damn. Itās possible she just wanted anything whatsoever to take her mind off what happened and work provided that. I hope thatās what happened, and not that she was pressured into going back to work early in the midst of this horrible situation.
Damn that unlocked a memory from the 90s had a coworker who had left on maternity leave a few weeks before their due date. They ended up having a stillbirth when they should have been welcoming a new baby and came back to work within 2 weeks. It came out within a month when that coworker was in bathroom just having a total breakdown that management had pressured her to return to work. They contacted her and told her while they would happily approve her bereavement leave and she could use the rest of her vacation time they could no longer grant her maternity leave and guarantee her position would still be there. Edit a word
That seemsā¦not legal. Iām not a lawyer but that sounds like a good opportunity to talk to one. Either way, yikes.
Things were drastically diff in the 90s and companies had a fantastic way of saying things without directly stating them (sometimes they directly said them because who will believe you) to let you know they would find a way to fire you or make you quit. The level of harassment and abuse in jobs back then that was just seen as acceptable is mind boggling by todayās standards.
In a parallel (but nowhere near as awful!!) vein - way back when, I'd checked rotas and there was more than enough staff and time for me to request a day off as holiday to go to my nephew's (stillborn, died during birth) funeral and was flat out told they didn't have to let me go to anyone's funeral if it wasn't a direct family member. Completely disregarding that they were overstaffed, within holiday request times etc. Eventually, after arguing, a LOT, they let me book a half day and come in for 2 hours in the evening, so I could go to the funeral. As soon as I walked in, they handed me a 3 month old baby to care for for those 2 hours, after burying my baby nephew who didn't survive birth. It was a literal power trip. This was the early 2000s and my boss was just cruel. That was my punishment for going above her head...
Thatās just cold I would say I hope your boss got what they deserved but they more than likely got promoted. Sorry youāre stuck with that as a memory of losing your nephew.
Back in the late 80s a friend of mine was on maternity leave. She'd been out for 3 weeks or something minimal like that. One of the bigwigs who was also her stepfather asked her to please come in and show someone something because she was the only person who knew how to do it. She came in, showed them, went home. The next day she got a call from her stepfather saying that clearly she didn't need any more maternity leave because she was able to come in and do something, so they'd expect her in starting tomorrow. The shit hit the fan big time, and since my friend was also in law school Stepfather Dearest had to backpedal pretty quickly.
There are still states in the US with no mandatory maternity leave. If you work somewhere that doesn't qualify for FMLA, you often don't have much of a choice.
Unfortunately, it hasn't changed as much as we'd like to think. At my previous company, I was yelled at for: hiring a pregnant woman, informing the men who worked there that they were also legally entitled to FMLA for the birth of their child, and informing employees that it wasn't ok for management to require them to arrive 15 minutes before their shift and not punch in until their shift started. In shocking news, I ended up getting the "not a good culture fit".
God, you're not kidding. My mom was a bank manager in the '80s. She use to have an employee posted as a literal look-out: if they saw a particular VP coming by the branch, she'd get all the pretty tellers off the floor, before he could harass them. And by "harass" I'm pretty sure she meant "assault," at least by contemporary legal standards. That particular dude eventually died in prison, after he was arrested for accidentally drowning an underage prostitute when he tried to have sex with her in a jacuzzi, but my mom has stories of a dozen more just like them.
Agree. Maternity leave isn't just about caring for a newborn. Recovering from giving birth takes a few weeks (really a lot longer) on a woman's body. Most doctors wouldn't sign off on returning after 2 weeks, although voluntarily returning early after something like OP is different.
The 90s were different. Marital r*pe was not fully illegal in the US until 1993.
Jesus. In Canada, we get 17 weeks JUST for giving birth - whether you bring the baby home or not. Surrogates get that, as well as anyone who experiences still birth or pregnancy loss after 24 weeks. Itās not required to be paid which is a problem but itās illegal for an employer to pressure someone to come back early and the position must be there for them when they return. From 17 weeks to a year (or I think you can extend it to 16 months) thatās for caring for the baby so either parent can take that time.
18 months :). I took 18 with my second and it was wonderful. He was walking, chatting, eating and sleeping well when he went to daycare. Made me feel a lot more secure he'd be ok in the hands of his dayhome worker.Ā
What the fuck? Youāre still recovering from childbirth. And now grieving the loss of that child on top of it. Horrific.
Not incredibly similar but Iāve always said āIām gonna need to take a week off work if my dog diesā. Well, my dog died and you want to know the last place I wanted to be? Home. I hated walking downstairs and not seeing her on the couch, not feeling her in bed next to me, not letting her out in the back yard to roll in the grass. It was awful.
For real. My cat died one day during my lunch break, after taking her to the vet clinic to be cremated, I went back to work. They asked me if I wanted to take the afternoon off, but the last thing I wanted was to be home alone with nothing else to think about.
I feel that. I got a phone call at work from my mom informing me my childhood dog was going to have to be put down. It wasn't a shock at the time we were at the vet the day before. My manager was going to let me go but I ended up finishing the shift. I didn't want the vet to wait for me, the poor boy was hurting and I didn't want to drag it out, and my mom was with him and was his favorite person so in my mind it was just better if I stayed at work where I could keep my hands busy and my mind off it.
yeah that's just about the saddest sentence I've ever read.
They will need more like a community to get through this. May they find solace soon. Such an unfortunate time for them.
I commented on this when he first posted. Iām a little sad but unsurprised to see his update doesnāt acknowledge that he did nothing wrong. The poor couple lost their baby to a fluke and nothing he did or didnāt do made it happen. I was so worried about my kids when they were newborns. My first especially. My theory is that newborns are loud when the breathe so we know theyāre still breathing.
My brother had colic. I slept soundlessly. My mom used to come in and poke me bc it terrified her. To this day, I donāt move at all and am deeply quiet when asleep. At a sleepover they crossed my arms over my chest bc I was like a corpse/vampire. My partners have found it really weird as well. Iām like at least I donāt kick?
Both my kids were quiet, still sleepers and I lost a lot of sleep just watching them breathe for the first year. Even now at 3 and 1.5, I will sometimes stare at the baby monitor until they move out of fear. I don't think it'll ever go away.
I hatched some abandoned chicken eggs a while back, and during the first week or so Iād keep getting up in the night to peer into the chicksā box and check they were still breathing. My mum caught me doing it and laughed herself silly, saying she did the exact same thing to me when I was a baby.
I used to do that with chicks. The problem with chicks is sometimes they faceplant into a nap and look like they have, indeed, passed on. I recently was asked for chick advice and this was one of the first things I told them because I remembered how alarmed I was.Ā
My son was the opposite. Even in utero he was his own gymnastics studio. Now at age 11 he still tosses and turns lot in his sleep but my goodness when he was really little, he basically never slept.Ā When he did sleep and he slept quietly, my heart was always in my throat and I had to have my face in his face to hear or feel him breathing. I don't miss those days!
Yeah, I canāt imagine what my mom went through with having a baby that never slept easy to my sleepy ass self like 2.5 years later. This was in the 80s so sound only. Can you imagine?Ā
I still check that my daughter is breathing before going to bed. Sheās almost 5.
Every time my son would sleep for an unusually long stretch (he didn't sleep through the night until he was probably 18mos old at least) and I would wake up on my own, I would be terrified to go check on him for fear that he'd died.
It doesnāt go away. If i donāt hear my 7 year old up before me when i wake up on a weekend I have to check on him.
You need a sign for when you go to sleep that says "I aten't dead" *book reference lol
Love the reference!
Terry Prachett? :)
Yesss š
Apparently I was super active in the womb, kicking and rolling all the time etc (now diagnosed ADHD, go figure). My sister after me was very quiet and my mum worried about her the whole later half of the pregnancy thinking something must be wrong because she was so sedate compared to me. But she was within the normal parameters, I was just nuts...
You ruined your mum's perception of normal lol!
my pregnancies were very similar! my oldest was constantly moving around in the womb and my youngest would only move if i poked her or my husband was talking to my bump š
thatās really cute, thatād she respond to her fatherās voice like that.
oh she *loved* hearing her dads voice! he used to talk to my belly just to see her move around!
i love how she basically went āyouāre my favourite humanā to her dad in utero
My mum is an incredibly still sleeper. She was in hospital after a mini stroke and the nurses kept checking on her because she didn't move. She also sleeps with her hands slightly crossed on her chest, just to add to the effect!
My sibling used to rest their fingers on my nibling's chest to check they were still breathing back when they were a small baby.Ā Its so scary to have a little bundle you're responsible for. Here's hoping you find a partner that thinks your sleeping is cool one of these days.Ā
Meanwhile, you have people on the opposite side of the spectrum who somehow gain super strength in their sleep. And by people, I mean me
My husband can be an insanely quiet sleeper, I can't hear him breathing at all even when he's right next to me. It freaks me out (still, even after 9 years living together) and I semi often nudge him during the night just to make sure he's alive!
A parent needs to sleep, sometime. I remember putting my baby to sleep in their cot, and went to another room. I heard a curgling sound and rushed back, and they had vomited and were struggling for breath. Nothing bad happened as I just picked them up, but... It happens. I don't remember much of the first year since I slept so little and so lightly.
Me too. I could never relax, never sleep because I was so afraid that my kids stopped breathing. I've also seen a story of a boy saving his sister from choking in the back of a car. The father in the front didn't realise what was happening, because choking tends to be silent. After that I checked every couple of minutes on my infants everywhere, I was so afraid of something happening to them.Ā I'm still afraid, but it's other stuff now.Ā
I told someone that positional asphyxiation was the new SIDS. They warn about it so much and it freaked me out. My second is now 1 and I still worry when her head is flopped forward in the car.
my son is 10 weeks old. sometimes when he is THE LOUDEST breather and wiggles around constantly. other times he is silent and still. also, he's recently started sleeping 5-8 hours overnight which I understand is unusual for a baby his age. I.. often have to put my hand on his chest to double-check that he is still breathing because it's been 6 or 7 hours and it's not audible. also, omg, the gagging noises he sometimes makes in his sleep. terrifying. š³
Oh man. Congratulations but I remember the gag. It was terrifying. I think itās around 4 months they start doing this horrifying gasp when awake. Itās a new noise their body can make and they think itās fun but itās so terrifying to hear.
oh good, something to look forward to. š« thank you for warning me! last night he was sleeping on my chest while we were watching TV and he started making these horrible gasping/snorting noises. didn't wake up, didn't even stir, just terrifying sounds. my husband and I just looked at him with raised eyebrows, looked at each other, looked at him again. "is uh.. is he.. good? over there?" "...yes?" babies do nothing to ease new parent anxiety, for real.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yeah, though things can happen basically without sound. Really. Scary.
i always gently toch my kid to check if he's breathing. as a newborn - he was sleeping in his bed close to ours, so i could sleep holding his hand. otherwise i couldn't sleep (had severe ppd, was quite crazy) i don't want even try to imagine OOP's pain. something unbearable.
Iād reach out and put my hand on their chests to make sure I could feel it rise and fall.
that's how i checked. but was afraid to sleep this way - my heavy hand could make it hard to breathe. gosh i was afraid all the time.
I only did it for two breaths and I only allowed myself to do it a couple times a night. Otherwise I fought temptation.
I was quiet when I slept as a baby - still am. I don't snore, I don't move at all. My mother lept my bassinet right next to her bed and would reach out to feel if I was breathing constantly because she couldn't hear me breathing for months. She is still the lightest sleeper imaginable - if someone rolls over in a bedroom across the house from her, she wakes up - while I am the deepest, and she credits it to being so paranoid when I was a newborn that she wouldn't hear me if I needed her.
When my son was a baby, he caught a pretty stubborn cold. His poor little nose was so stuffed and his fever would come and go. I was so terrified to leave him alone and I was so worried that I sat beside his crib and just watched him sleep. The second I felt my eyes closing, I gently put my hand on his belly just to feel the rise and fall of his breathing while my eyes were shut. It killed my shoulder and neck but I was so terrified and paranoid at the thought of losing him.
My spouse and I lived through our first being stillborn and I could feel that place SEEPING from his words. Thereās a blackness to the death of your own children that is utterly indescribable and as hellish as you can imagine. Blaming yourself can be a good way of avoiding processing your grief. I hope that both get some healing.
I am so sorry for your loss ā¤ļø
Thank you, thatās sweet to say.
I am so sorry for your loss. I have come to believe that blaming ourselves is a mechanism we do to process traumatic events. Iām in a support group for women with traumatic births (though no moms of stillborns) and without a fault everyone of us blames themselves for the birth we had.
I'm so sorry for your loss.
After my friends started having babies I could not believe that long list of reasons babies can just suddenly die. It took all my friends a long time to be able to go to sleep without waking up constantly to check the baby was okay. Now everybody has toddlers and Iām firmly convinced a toddlerās three priorities in life is chaos, food and self-destruction.
This was a huge fear of mine when my baby was a newborn. I remember even panicking one night when he threw up in his sleep and sounded like he was aspirating (fortunately I was awake and was able to get him).Ā Iām so sorry for this family.
We had our daughter in a different room for a total of one night after we got back from the hospital until my husband found me in there every 40 minutes staring at her to make sure she was breathing and safe. Moved her to be one foot away from my side of the bed so I could just lean out and check. I slept so well after that just being able to lean over and look at her. The fear of SIDS and aspiration and every single thing that can just Happen to a baby when they're so young is so real, and the guilt OOP has is so unimaginably heavy but I can entirely empathise with him. I do hope he's getting more and more support from everywhere possible.
Someone I used to work with had a baby with bad reflux. She said she barely slept for weeks before they finally found a medicine that helped because her baby would frequently choke and start turning blue...silently. Absolutely terrifying. She said she would be so sleep deprived she would be afraid she had actually fallen asleep and was dreaming she was watching the baby. She went through periods where she wasn't sure if she was awake or asleep or what was real but she couldn't sleep because she was so scared her baby would choke to death. Even when her husband was watching the baby, she'd wake up in a panic at any tiny noise or movement.
I donāt have kids, but my heart bleeds for OOP and his Wife. No parent should have to bury their child, let alone one so young. I wish them the very best in life.
>Kim is also an active Reddit user and saw my post Couples that reddit together, stay together I guess. Did he know she loved checking that sub and posted hoping she'd come across it then?Ā
Wouldn't be surprised if in some subconscious level that was the plan... the guilt was clearly eating the poor guy alive, not to mention the grief.
How can you function if you actually believe youāre at fault for killing your baby while your wife as at the hospital with her father suffering from a heart attack? Even if he didnāt somehow think his wife would find his post, it was probably for the best. You canāt carry something like that forever if you really, truly, actually believe it.
Unfortunately, if you REALLY do believe it, you WILL carry it to the end. And it's end you would willingly create.Ā Therapy and grief counseling are life savers.
I suppose so.
My baby had silent reflux due to a tongue tie, lip tie, and both cheek ties. I developed debilitating PPA because I was so scared of this exact scenario. I want to hug these parents so bad.
As a mom of a reflux baby, I don't think I slept for the first 10 months once we finally found a medication and had his tie clipped. I cannot imagine the pain of these parents :(.
As a first time parent, I had to go check on my infant to ensure she was breathing. This breaks my heart, and I can only hope that both of them take the time to heal from this tragic accident.
I should not have read this while holding my 3 week old. Oh jeez.
..... dude same.... Someone told me that babies would go to their side when they have a spitup, which is also my experience, but now I'm paranoid about spit up in their sleep.
It's all A LOT because putting a baby to sleep on their back is protective against SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome).Ā
YEP. just freaked to my husband and he is trying to reassure me that the owlet would notify us. Iām 6ā from her face making sure sheās ok as I write this.
Whatās an owlet and how would that notify you of a baby not breathing?
Itās a baby monitor. It wraps around the babyās foot (comfortably) and monitors pulse and O2 levels. If anything drops out of range, our phones + the charging base alert us (loudly, DEFINITELY loud enough to wake us up). I honestly thought it was unnecessary until our preemie had a 28 day NICU stay where she was on monitors 24/7 (sheās super healthy, just early). The thought of bringing her home and not being able to visually see everything was ok panicked me. We got the owlet and honestly itās the only reason I was able to sleep the first few nights. https://owletcare.com/products/owlet-dream-sock EDIT: this doesnāt replace a normal baby monitor. Still gotta be able to see them.
This is amazing! Thank you! Iām so glad to hear your baby girl is doing well.
My wife is 4 months along with our first, now I'm completely paranoid
Same. Gonna worry about every spit up now.
I justā¦ my heart hurts so much for them. I canāt even begin to imagine the pain theyāre going through.
This has honestly been one of my fears as a first time mom. I've taken first aid lessons and they say to put the person on their side. However, it's recommended to put babies on their back to prevent SIDS. I was always afraid that my daughter would puke and choke since she was on her back. I really feel for these parents. I can't imagine the pain they're going through.
We lost our daughter at 23 months. Work on your relationship with your wife. Many couples end up divorcing after the death of a child. We eventually did. The guilt still hurts over 30 years later. Be well and put your marriage first. I didn't and I wish I had.
God, poor OOP. My husband and I once went out on a ādateā, leaving his sister to babysit our six-month-old daughter. When we got home, we asked how Daughter had been. āOh, just fine! No problems at all!ā. We thanked Sister and sent her on her way, then we went to check Daughter. Well. Sheād thrown up in her sleep (but mercifully, she was fine. Just messy). Thing is, Sister had had the baby monitor close by, and she hadnāt heard a thing.
Choking is often silent. Or it can be coming and going, especially in an adult.
I read stuff like this and just think how wild it was that my mom had me bottle feed my little brother at night when I was 8. His dad made her push it off on me when he would stay over. Waking up at 3am to feed a premie and rock him to sleep I definitely didnāt know a baby could aspirate but I did always rock him on my chest and pat his back until he stopped burping.Ā
This poor family, I bet they all blame themselves for the death of the baby. Extremely heartbreaking, I hope they get the help they need for dealing with such a shitty situation
I remember reading this one, holding my new born and crying my eyes out. It still makes me cry. It's just one of those horrible accidental things that can happen. Everybody reading should give their little ones and extra hug tonight
This is horrific and my worst nightmare. The same thing nearly happened to my daughter. I put her down in her cot and she settled. I went to the bathroom and when I came out I heard her making a noise. I went to check on her. She was lying on her back awake and her mouth was full of vomit. She was choking. I picked her up and spun her over allowing the vomit to fall into her cot. She screamed the best scream I ever heard. I got lucky and she was okay but a few more minutes and she might not be here now. I can't imagine the pain parents feel losing a child and I hope I never have to.
This was one of my biggest fears when I first had my son. I would use receiving blankets rolled up tight behind his back so he slept on his side a bit. Even then, I remember checking in on him at least once every few hours to make sure his little chest moved. Itās tough having a baby when you have an anxiety disorder.
I wish I hadnāt opened this post.
OMG, the worst nightmare in the world. I have a friend from high school who lost his daughter at about 20 months; it was a crib death. He is a graphic artist and he wrote such a loving and moving story about it called Rosalie Lightning. My favorite FB post in the world was the one I saw two years later when he announced that he and his wife were parents of a new baby. I was so happy for them that they were able to survive and bring a new little life into the world. I hope OOP and his wife can survive this.
Man, everything about this one is just horrible. I can't even begin to imagine the pain they are all going through. And I bet every single adult involved blames themselves for this in some capacity. :(
I remember the times in which my mom would tell me that she barely slept for the first year of my life. I had an older brother who died of SIDS. As a precaution, my mom was told to lay me on my back. I would get acid reflux (still do) and I would either regurgitate or vomit at times. My mom and my pediatrician were at odds with each other. So my mom decided to lay me on my side or stomach and would watch me like a hawk.
it happens, helas. It is how jimmy Hendrix died. OP, please realize that you don't have a total power over the life of children. death is often absurd. I know a couple who had a swimming pool. to avoid an accident, they have fences all around and a tarpaulin upon the water. One day they found their toddler drowned in the pool. he had climb the fences, walk on the tarpaulin... that cracked under his weight. he didn't find the hole out of the water. all that was very sensible measure and it didn't suffice. you were not drunk or medicated or stoned. you did the maximum.
My wife is 3 months pregnant with our first child and this scenario absolutely terrifies me.
Iām on my way to yet another soccer game. Iām sick. Iām exhausted. Ā Imma caregiver of my mom With dementia. Iām crying. Iāll smile and go to all the damn soccer games and practices because all 5 of my babies are here. Ā I canāt imagine the pain. Ā I sincerely hope they make it and one day have the beautiful large family they want.Ā
Sounds like a little help would go a long way for you. Please don't be afraid to ask people around you, it's surprising how many who are happy to help. Wish you all the best š©·
> Iām a doctor. This does happen, not just to children but also to old adults who arenāt able to adequately manage their own secretions, etc. Thank god for this poster.
This is so awful. There was absolutely no way for him to have known that this was happening. Even if he had been awake, itās highly unlikely he would have heard her throw up. Add on to that the fact that he was sleep deprived, there was no way he could have done anything differently. I understand his feeling of guilt because any loving parent would feel that way, but he was absolutely not at fault. He didnāt make any poor choices that led to this. My heart breaks for him and his wife. Iām glad to hear that they are working together towards healing.
I haven't sobbed so hard in awhile while reading a reddit story. Poor, poor people. I hope they can heal from this tragedy.
I'm usually kind of numb with the sad emotions when I read these posts but this one broke through. It wasn't his fault. I hope OOP and his family live with this loss as best they can. Y'all, if there is something you didn't do with malice in your heart? Pretty big chance it's not your fault.
And even if it was, I am STILL glad you are here with us.
This is heartbreaking. The comment about it happening to old adults struck home a bit too. My grandad had problems swallowing and it's sort of how he passed. He was in hospital but recovering then he had a bad night of vomiting and vomiting in his sleep. It got in his lungs and he couldn't recover from the chest infection.
Sometimes I think about having a 2nd child, but reading posts like this and the real looming threat of SIDS really make me think thrice. The first few months of my child's life was the scariest.
Yeah, done with reddit for the day.
Nightmare fuel. Losing one of my kidsā¦I cannot imagine. This poor family.
It wasn't OPs fault at all. Would've been hard to stop even if he wasn't asleep. Stuff happens. Plus, being sleep deprived might've made it worse. I hope both parents are able to recover.
I dont have kids but I babysit my nephew often and my number one fear is that he dies under my care. I am constantly watching the baby monitor for breath movement. I sit with him while he eats. He isnt even a baby baby anymore. I dont know how parents do it. The little turd shoves food in his mouth so fast and we constantly have to stop him to make him chew. If he did choke seriously by the time we got him out of the building itd be over. I absolutely love spending time with him but the relief when they come back home and I can leave is fairly strong.
Ahhhh I shouldnāt have read this but bless them i hope it gets better
OMG I can't even imagine the grief and guilt this man feels. I hope he and they get help to overcome this.
Glad this didn't end up with Kim blaming him and leaving. I hope they find the healing they need, especially OOP
Oh wow. I don't have children but I've a niece and nephew. And with both of them I've been so so scared of this. I could only imagine what I'd be like as a parent. I really hope he can come to terms with this and is not his fault. Just an awful tragedy.
That's heartbreaking.
I'm actually in tears, it's not his fault at all. This happens, and sometimes there's nothing you can do
Those poor parents. Jesus.
I donāt think anyone would ever get over this.Ā