Dreaded teething and the wonder of calpol and Bonjela!!

[laurajaneP]

Hi everyone, after a week of terribly restless nights me and DP concluded that teething has defintley started for our 4 and a half month old DD. She was barely sleeping at all and so last night we tried our first night of using Calpol every 4 hours and calpol which worked brilliantly!! My concern is that this has worked so well we would really like to continue using this for her, but for how many days can you use Calpol in a row? I'm just concernwe about over doing it if that's at all possible?!

Meant to say and bonjela every four hours!!

She could also have been going through the four month sleep regression and its end has coincidentally aligned with starting to use Calpol and Bonjela.

You're supposed to use both sparingly, so maybe try one more night then see how she goes without the following night?

I am not sure about medicating in that kind of 'just in case' kind of way. Talk to your GP but I assume a doctor would advise sparing use. Most medication instructions say to speak to your GP if symptoms persist, so I can't imagine more than 2 or 3 doses over 3 days maybe. I wouldn't feel comfortable giving a baby any more than that.

Have you considered increasing the size and frequency of feeds over 24 hours. Hunger often causes sleep issues. Lots of child development happening around 4 to 5 months old and with all that learning and developing, more calories are often needed. Sometimes in the short term, sometimes in the long term.

Your baby will be teething on and off for the next two years. It would be worth trying to find something else that might work and save the medication for when it's really bad (1st year molar teething hell right here!) We usually wait until we have 2 - 3 wake ups between going to bed at 7.30 and midnight/1am before we know it's teething and medicate.

i think on the box it says 3 days? But personally i wouldnt give it just for sleeplessness, id be looking for some other signs shes in pain because like pp said, lots of other fun sleep depriving stuff happening at 4 months!

not that im belittling sleeplessness! As we are finally out of 4m sleep regression with allergies thrown in, hourly wakings for weeks and weeks.. and it is awful trying to figure out exactly how much pain your dc is in to justify giving painkillers. I start off with the bongela, if that helps short term but not enough then id move on to calpol

My mum managed to get my sister addicted to Bonjela when she was teething. Ended up having to substitute it with a bit of toothpaste on her dummy. Use sparingly!

Anbesol as an alternative maybe? You can get it from the pharmacy. It's an anaesthetic.

I asked pharmacist about this and he said one nightly dose of calpol for several days/ a couple of weeks was ok

my DD tries to eat bonjela! she is 16 months and the poor little thing has molars on their way. she now asks me for jela! I have to tell her no jela but you can brush your teeth! (works when it's not really painful but when it hurts Christ do I know about it!)