On Teething

I don't know if there is a stage more frustrating than teething. It can be insanely confusing.

When my baby first started teething I didn't really notice. My husband says that he was crankier than usual, but I didn't really notice anything terribly obvious. Besides, there was no way that his teeth were coming in because we had just been to the pediatrician for his four month visit and I was told the teeth wouldn't start pushing through for another couple of months. A few days later, two teeth were visible just under the lower gum line. Then they could be felt and less than a week after seeing the pediatrician, his teeth poked through, one right after the other.

At five and a half months the two middle teeth on the top came in, a little after six months, two more upper teeth broke through, and now at almost eight months, another lower tooth can be seen below the gums.

Tooth three and four caused some crankiness in excess of what the first ones had. Five and six were nightmarish. When the fifth one was coming in I spent three hours trying to calm a crying, fussy baby. It was horrible. He would cry and cry and finally calm and go to sleep. I'd put him down and he'd start up again immediately as he hit the bed. The poor thing. He was in so much pain and I felt I could do nothing to help.

Lately he's been drooling more, but no crankiness yet.

As far as helping with the pain, I'm not sure what to do and I feel like I've tried it all. Since the first two I was half in denial about and half oblivious, I didn't really do much. When three and four were coming in I tried rubbing some vanilla extract (due to the alcohol content and sweet taste) on his gums. I don't know if it actually helped. My husband wanted me to use some whiskey. For the next teeth, the ones that seemed to really bother him, I gave him a couple doses of Baby Tylenol (not at the same time, of course). I'm not sure if it helped much. I also picked up some Baby Orajel the following day and used that once when he was cranky again. Again, I'm not sure if it had much of an effect.

There are some other things to try, there is a night time Baby Orajel which is stronger than the regular and there are teething tablets which I have no experience with, but I know some moms that use them.

As best as I can tell, teething pain comes and goes or at least the intensity comes and goes because for the most part, the baby has had happy, smiling times as well as fussing, cranky times while teeth have been coming in. It is hard to tell the cause of the fussing, if it truly is teething or just crankiness due to tiredness. That is why I find it frustrating. I don't want to overuse pain control options if he is just tired and you can't always see the teeth when they are causing discomfort.

From what I have heard and experienced, you can't predict when the teeth are going to come in, nor can you know which teeth will be the ones to cause pain (because not all of them do). I wish good luck to all moms as they go through these difficult times.