Welcome back to Risky Baby Business, our Saturday series about babies and pregnancy here at More Cowbell! If you’re new, the previous posts in this series can be found here.
In case you hadn’t guessed from the title of this post, Baby Girl is cutting her very last teeth RIGHT NOW. These 2nd molars (furthest back in the mouth) are the end of this stage and we can’t wait.
Baby Girl has some ginormous teeth (her molars looked like little white pebbles in the back of her mouth). I’d be on the floor if I had to cut teeth that big in my mouth. In addition to the giant teeth, she cut most of them in groups of four (i.e. all four molars, ALL the eye teeth).
My husband and I are going to throw a party when her last tooth comes in.
How does a new parent know when their baby is teething?
The snarky me wants to say, “Oh, you’ll KNOW.” However, in case you’re lucky enough to have a Stealth Teether, here’s 7 signs:
- Excessive drool
- Biting more than usual
- Fussier than usual, especially at night
- Disturbances in sleep patterns
- Fever, rashes, cough, and diarrhea
- Decreased appetite
- Pulling of ears and rubbing of chin and cheeks
What can you give to help ease the pain of teething?
Five parents will tell you five things but here’s the Top 5 methods recommended to me:
- Ice – either in the form of a frozen washcloth, teething toy or frozen foods (like bagels)
- Baby Orajel / Baby Anbesol (these did NOTHING for us)
- Hyland’s Teething Tablets – we could never find them in stock but I hear they rock.
- Clove oil – we tried it and she hated the taste (I’ve heard rave reviews though). You MUST dilute this – read here.
- Ibuprofen – this has been the most reliable for us, but you can’t give it until your baby is 6 months old. Ask a pharmacist for the right dosage.
I’ve also dabbed alcohol on her gums – Jagermeister worked the best. I know some of you parents want to lynch me for this, but I discovered it one night when she’d screamed for HOURS. In my defense, this was the last thing we tried. We’d already run through Orajel, clove oil, teething toys, frozen washcloths and trying to feed her.
She refused it all.
I poured a little bit of Jagermeister into the cap of the bottle, dipped my finger in and rubbed it along her gums. The crying cut off like a lightswitch and she went to sleep. Immediately. We keep a 3 oz bottle of Jagermeister on our dresser now and it has saved our bacon several times. When the last tooth comes in, we’re drinking it.
Now that she’s older, she’s also a pretty huge fan of ice. She camps out in the entryway with her toys where she has a bird’s eye view of the freezer, asking for “Ice, ice, ice” from anyone who passes by.
As with everything your babies do, if all else fails, just laugh. The following commercial is guaranteed to make any parent laugh, especially if they had boys. 🙂
What did you use for teething? Any magic remedies we haven’t found yet??
Jenny
Jenny Hansen's Blog 
What a great post, Jenny! I remember when my kids were teething.. I used to get those rubber rings and freeze em (not sure if they make ’em anymore – my baby is 16 now).
And I hear you on the Jager. My mother actually used to rub Sloe Gin on our gums, and I wound up doing the same thing to my kids.
Please, mommies, don’t come with torches. It was many moons ago!
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Your baby lived through the Sloe Gin, Darlene, and it was likely the best thing you could have done for them. It’s like 4 drops of alcohol by the time you’re done.
They do still make those teething rings and we have like 6 of ’em. She never really took to them, though I’m still hoping. Mostly these days, she just shoves ice in her mouth.
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My little guy (15 mos) is currently working on his eye teeth (#s 13-16) all at once. He’s been teething almost non-stop since 4 months old – I say almost because we had a break of about two weeks between his last two incisors and his 1 year molars. Luckily, it doesn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. We haven’t had any sleepless nights or lack of appetite. We have had to make some adaptations in terms of wardrobe to deal with the drool (extra bibs everywhere we go, mostly) but aside from that, no problems.
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Mike, you are a lucky, lucky daddy! It’s interesting to me that ours seemed to teeth on the same schedule in terms of starting at 4 months and cutting all 4 incisors at the same time.
Of course, we part ways there, because Baby Girl swells, bleeds (one time for 40 minutes), gets diarrhea and fevers, etc. The drool is the least of it for her, so I’m jealous of your Stealth Teether!
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ROFL!!! I read the Jagermeister part out loud to hubs, who also laughed his butt off. After experiencing this with three miserable teethers, we can SO relate to what you’re going through! Wish we’d known about the booze – we went the ibuprofen route.
Don’t even get me started on the drooling – we were going through a lot of drool bibs, haha.
Hang in there, Jenny!
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Yep, we’re at the LAST set…WOOT!! As I told Mike above, she bled for like 40 minutes the other night and the only thing we can figure is she shoved the ice back there because those teeth were coming through the gums.
It’s ugly times around here when teething is hot and heavy. Totally impressed that you lasted through THREE bad teethers with your Happy Place intact.
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Oragel works for pets, too. *s* Sorry, that’s my only experience, LOL! Great post!
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LOL, Amy. You could probably do Clove Oil too if it ever doesn’t work but you’d have to check with the vet. 🙂
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Since your baby is at the end of the teething cycle I can’t think of any remedy but Jager sounds good. But for anyone out there whose child is just getting the first set, try frozen waffles. Right now I’m going through reverse teething a molar is being overgrown by the gum and I survive on Abesol and Ibuprofen PM. Keep the faith Jenny.
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All I can say is “OUCH, Tom!” I hate teeth issues, which is probably the only reason I’m able to maintain so much sympathy for her at 3 am. 🙂
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It’s been quite some time since we’ve had teething issues here. My baby is 13 years now. We’re not fans of ibuprofen, which can cause major organ damage if overused or overdosed. We didn’t find it all that effective either. As a last resort, after the frozen teething rings wore off, we’d rub their brandy on their gums–just enough to numb it.
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Now she can get over teething and just start being a terrible two! Actually, that’s overblown. A lot of kids don’t become monsters just because they turn two. And as she grows, just remember – one day she’ll be grown and have kids to pay her back for whatever she does to you.
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Google “Amber Teething Necklaces” I have seen these in action on babies and I swear it is like magic. Wish I had these for my 4 when they were tiny. 🙂
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I’ve heard (but haven’t tried firsthand) the awesomeness of Amber Teething Necklaces.
We used Hyland’s Teething Tablets initially. They definitely helped for the earlier teeth. But those bigger ones were more difficult. Breastfeeding worked better for us than any pain reliever/fever reducer.
On the rubbing the gums with alcohol – I would sooner go that route than Orajel. There are a lot of possible complications/side effects/allergic reactions with the stuff. And from other mom’s I’ve heard that it only helped for a few minutes (if at all).
Love that your post gives so many different possibilities. Every kid responds differently, so it is good for parents to know that there is more than one way to soothe a teething kid!
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Pingback: S is for Sleep (for You and Baby) #AtoZchallenge | Jenny Hansen's Blog
Oh no, so sorry you couldn’t find the Hyland’s Teething Tablets! We swear by them in our household. I’ve had good luck finding them at CVS Pharmacy. You can also find out where they are sold near you by going to Hyland’s “Store Locator” link: http://www.hylandsteething.com/store-locator. You just type in your zip code and search within a certain mile radius. Those last molars have probably already come in judging by the date of of your post…hope you survived!
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