Teething, Teething, Go Away
Posted by: DL / Category: Family Matters, Health Matters, Life Matters
Anybody with young children in the family knows that most people dread teething. I can truthfully say, I am a member of that club. The, I HATE TEETHING club.
My son started teething early, around two-three months. He started the teething process by drooling non-stop. By five months old, he had already gotten his first two teeth.
For the next several months, every now and then, just when I forgot all ab0ut teething, the drooling would start up again. I went out and bought a bunch of things to have as my teething arsenal. Plastic lined bibs, teething rings, plastic links (for him to chew on), numbing medication for his gums, Tylenol to reduce fever, etc. But, when we’d put his plastic lined bibs on, he’d manage to rip them off, when we’d give him a teething ring, he hated them. So, he’d absolutely soak the front of his clothes, and I ended up changing him several times a day to keep him from getting a saliva rash on his chin, neck and chest.
The thing about teething is, it’s not just the irritating buckets of drool to contend with, it’s the fussy behavior, fever, diarrhea, clingyness, runny nose, endless crying and lack of sleep, that makes it hard to deal with. Sometimes there’s just no pleasing them.
And I’m sure at this point I’m sure you’re saying, “And why aren’t you giving him any medication?” Well, the truth of the matter is, I surely did give him the medication when the pain was at its worst, but you also can’t give a child medication endlessly, back-to-back, until the pain suffices. So, I’d use alternate methods. I’d put fruit in a little mesh (baby bag), then freeze the bag in the freezer for a little while, take it out and give it to him, and he seemed to like that. He’d chew it and get the nutritional benefit from it.
Most people who don’t have kids, and don’t want kids, say something like, “And there’s another reason why I decided not to have kids. It’s just not worth the hassle.”
But, I couldn’t disagree more. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, “Nothing worthwhile is easy to come by.“ Life is hard in so many aspects, and this is just another bump in the road.
I daydream of the day when my son gets all his baby teeth and he will no longer be going through the pain and frustration of teething. Not to mention, my stress level can go down because I’ll have a happy baby again.
