Teething can be trying for both the suffering baby and the tired parents. This article offers tips for understanding and helping your teething baby.
Teething is one of the most contradictory milestones; parents face it with both joy and trepidation. As delighted as you may be to see that first tooth, often the trial of getting it makes you wonder if it was really worth the effort! Teething can be tough on both the parent and the baby, but here are a few tips to tame the teething monster.
* Don't panic if your teething baby doesn't want to eat. Teething is one of the number one causes of nursing strikes. Sore gums can make sucking on a nipple or bottle painful. Plus, the excessive drooling associated with teething seems to affect appetite as well. Some parents find that babies enjoy cold food while teething - a bottle of cold juice or chilled baby food can help deaden the teething pain. Also giving Tylenol drops before the feeding sometimes lessens the pain enough to allow the baby to nurse.
* Teethers come in many sizes and types. Some parents have had great success giving a baby a washcloth to teethe on - usually soaked in cold water. Or you can try tying an ice cube up in a washcloth and letting your baby teethe on that. Since cold is comforting, some parents have had success with frozen bagels or frozen bananas as teethers.
* Rubbing the baby's sore gums may help. Some doctors believe that this is the real key in baby gum analgesics -- it is rubbing the gums that gives the actual relief.
* Fever and diarrhea - is teething to blame? Expects disagree about whether teething can cause fever and diarrhea. Some pediatricians believe that all the saliva produced when your baby drools can loosen his stools, and that the inflamed gums may cause a low fever. Other pediatricians argue that teething does not cause these symptoms, though the stress from teething may make the body susceptible to another illness. If your teething child has a fever of over 101 degrees, you should call your pediatrician.
