What should I do after my baby bumps her head?

What matters after a bump

Three facts, and they are the ones you'll be asked for: how far, onto what, and what she did immediately afterwards.

A short drop onto something soft, followed by an immediate cry that settles with comfort, is the reassuring picture. A baby who cries straight away is a baby who is responding normally.

Watch her, not the bruise

Our instinct was to keep looking at the place where she'd hit, pressing it, comparing it to ten minutes ago. That tells you almost nothing.

What matters is her. Is she feeding? Is she alert when she's awake and settling when she should be?

One of ours happened because of frustration. She would not stay still during a nappy change, it had been a long night, and she was pushed down into the mattress harder than intended. She cried, she was fine, and Papa was not fine for days.

Another was a slip while putting her down. Barely a drop at all. Same aftermath — the conviction that something had been broken that wouldn't show up for years.

The guilt and the setup

The frequency goes up enormously and the stakes mostly go down. A baby learning to sit topples over. A baby learning to crawl bumps her head on everything at her height.

That shift is normal and doesn't need the same reaction every time. What stays the same is the list in the red column, and the rule about height — a fall from a bed, a sofa, a changing table, or a lap in a chair, is a different category from toppling over on a carpet, and worth a call.

If frustration was part of it