Some teething questions

[shonaspurtle]

Poor ds is teething early. His first tooth came through last week (12wks) without too much angst but the second is following close behind and he's absolutely miserable.

I suppose because he's so little (and we've been lucky) I've never seen him in pain before and the crying is breaking my heart - possibly just as heartbreaking is the 2 hourly wakening after a month of fairly unbroken night's sleep .

I just want to ask, is teething trouble intermittent? Will he be better for a while once this second tooth arrives, hopefully soon? There is no sign of any others.

Secondly, anyone have good tips for relieving him - he does try to chew his fists but can't reliably keep them in his mouth yet and also can't hold any sort of teething toy. We tried teething gel and Calpol last night and they seemed to help a bit.

Anbesol liquid is fantastic, it doesn't slide off like the gels and really numbs. Nelson's Teetha is also good for relieving the grouchiness, they're homeopathic granules (chamomilla, I think) that you just tip into their mouths.

With my dcs, they were miserable while the tooth cut through then were fine until the next one started to cut. They both got them 2 at a time, which made for a miserable few days but then a longish gap before the next pair arrived.

Oh, meant to say, you have to buy Anbesol from the Pharmacy, it's not with the normal teething stuff.

Thanks Olihan. Just noticed a very similar thread from earlier. Will look out for the Anbesol & Teetha as I don't want to really give him any more paracetamol than I have to.

i work in the pharmaceutical industry and always recommend ashton and parsons tething powders and always got told how they worked so well,they contain chamomile which is very soothing for baby.I have a 9 wk old son and when the time comes i will be buying those most definetly

Thanks Debbsy - I just feel so sorry for him. Every time he gets a fist in his mouth to chew on it flies back out!

A&P are good too, used them for ds1 but they are quite hard to get into the baby's mouth because the paper wrapper is really floppy. Nelson's are in a sturdier wrapper so you can just tip them in. I used to get A&P all over ds1's face! I vaguely remember that you can only give half an A&P sachet if baby is under 6mo which is quite tricky. Don't know about Nelson's, dd was over 6mo before we needed them.

You can get teething beads (think in Mothercare, I got ours from Kiddicare) which are much easier for a little baby to chew on than standard teething rings. They look like bright coloured big bracelets but require a lot less dexterity for them to use. I have found ours invaluable and don't leave the hosue without it! The pressure of chewing should help him to relieve some of the pain.

And calprofen (I think he is just old enough but check the bottle) is useful at night if it's stopping him sleep. I find that far more effective than calpol for teething symptoms.

HTH.