So much for old wives’ tales
All I want for Christmas...
Little Man is cutting two very painful eye teeth at the moment.
Yes, yes he is almost two and a half and wouldn’t you think we’d be done with this teething malarkey by now… But he only got his first tooth at 11 and a half months, and they’ve arrived slowly, one by painful one, in the 18 months since then. So much for the old wives theory that “if he gets them late, then they’ll all come in together.” If I had a Euro for every time someone offered me that “sage” consolation when I mentioned our troubles with teething, I’d be very rich. Maybe that’s true for some children, but not in this house!
So instead, here we are with our walking, talking, potty trained little boy, and Charlie and I are being tortured with restless nights, while our poor Little Man is still being tortured with sore gums. And by my count he still doesn’t have his molars, so we have that joy left yet!
Thankfully, we’ve been dealing with this teething business so long now that I have a few tricks up my sleeve. Of course we have the obvious solutions of bonjela on the gums (have to sneak this on – he hates it!) or Calpol. And I’ve discovered that ibuprofen seems to do a better job of reducing teething pain for him – unfortunately it seems a little harsh on his tummy, so I try to use this sparingly. Something we make great use of are frozen Frubes, which are even better than bonjela for cooling sore red gums.
One last trick that makes a difference to us is putting Little Man to sleep raised up a little on pillows when he’s teething. Excess saliva while teething tends to give him a nasty cough when he lies flat, and that impacts his sleep. But elevating his head alleviates that somewhat.
Anyone else with a long-term teether on their hands? Got any tips to share to help your little one through it?
another tip is to take the stone from a Mango with some flesh still attached then wrap it in a muslin cloth and put in freezer. Once frozen let him chow down on the stone, the combination of cold, hard and sweetness is really nice and seems to alleviate the pain for a while at least. Prodol is really good too but not sure if you can get it in ireland and I find Ponstel better than Calpol for emergencies but again not sure if you can get in Ireland. We got both OTC in South Africa when were were there just now.
Thanks for the tips Emma. I’ve never heard of Prodol or Ponstel so I am assuming you can’t get them here. We usually rely on Neurofen and Calpol.
If it’s any consolation the molars may not be too bad. Ellie usually spikes a fever with every single tooth (that seem to go up and down numerous times before staying up) but this week she finally got her first molar and her temperature stayed down. It was the first time she ever had a runny nose and cough with teething though so I’m going to steal your idea of more pillows when the next 3 molars eventually come through.
We only had problems with fevers for the first few teeth Carol – thankfully that doesn’t seem to happen with new teeth these days. It’s just lots of drooling and coughing.
Ugh, it looks like I may be heading toward this! I swear she’s been teething since she was 3 months old but now she’s almost 10 months and not a tooth in sight. I’m still holding on to that old wives’ tale for a bit, thankyouverymuch! By the way, I’m probably late to the party, but your blog is looking great. Now you can tell me that you always had this theme.
Thanks Adele. A little late alright…it’s looked like this for about 14 months! 🙂
I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you that this particular old wives’ tale about all the teeth coming in at once proves true in your house!
It’s cos I’ve always looked from my phone, see. 🙂
Ah well that makes sense! The mobile theme is completely different! 🙂
Hi girls!
My precious boy is 9 months old now with 2 teeths and at least 2 coming. Last 3 weeks have been a nightmare, but a great relief to us is “Teetha” gel by Nelson’s. It’s homeopathic, but works wonders – taking the edge off this actual fit of sore gums. And most important, he opens his mouth himself as soon as he sees that tube, so no problem trying to apply the gel on the gums. It tastes a bit salty (of course, I tried it myself before giving it to him 🙂 ), but he licks it with a pleasure and becomes calm within seconds for at least half an hour, often even longer.
Another relief for us – giving him a big chunk of usual skinned an peeled apple in one of this baby nets for feeding, as the effect comes by actually grazing on it rather than just eating. And being paranoic on my baby choking on smth it’s totally safe with the side effect of having finger food and healthy snack on apple bites 1-of-5-a-day. Though be prepared to a bit of mess 🙂
I feel for you! We have dealt with a lot of teething pain in this house. Thankfully the end is in sight for us now, with only the molars left. I’ll be glad when they’ve all grown in!