When I was up at 2:30 with my teething monster baby this morning (and 3:00 and 3:30 and 4:00), my mind was swimming with ideas of what to write about. But now, in my sleep deprived state, as I sit here in front of a blank canvas, I’ve got nothing! Despite the silence (Doodle is miraculously still sleeping and hubby and Sugarplum are off taking Honeybun to school) the ideas are stuck somewhere up in my head, all jumbled together and even the coffee I’m furiously drinking is not unscrambling my thoughts.
I don’t remember teething being this hard with the girls, especially the sleeping part. I know they were overall good teethers and really only fussed when the teeth were pushing up through the gums. It seems to be the same with Doodle, except the poor guy can’t sleep to save his life! His day yesterday consisted of three 45minute naps, the 2nd of which he woke up clearly still tired, writhing in pain, moaning and rocking on his side (he’s an adamant back sleeper still) and breaking this mommy’s heart.
His nights have been much better the past few days. Usually if he wakes in the night he starts with whining and sometimes he’ll put himself back to sleep whereas other times the whining escalates to crying and/or screaming and hubby or I have to intervene. Last night, however, I was awoken at 2:30 by a blood-curdling scream!
Hubby went in to try to soothe him but it didn’t work. I knew it was the teething so I broke my “Finished with Night-Feeding” resolution and went in and fed him. He drifted back to sleep until I put him back in his bed at which time he woke back up, crying. I rocked him awhile and finally got him settled but when I tried to leave the room my knee cracked and he went back to screaming. I continued rocking to no avail. I left him awhile to work it out and he didn’t. I went back in, gave him some teething tablets and rocked again and FINALLY got him to sleep about 4:10. But he was back up a short time later. Hubby went back in and finally got him back to sleep (and he’s still sleeping at 8:10).
The teething never bothered the girls’ sleeping that I remember. Honeybun was 9 months old when she got her cute little bottom teeth and had been sleeping through the night since 9 weeks and was not fazed by her new additions. Sugarplum got her first teeth at around 6 ½ months and wasn’t sleeping through the night so maybe I just didn’t associate the teething with the waking.
While both girls had their miserable moments during the day while teething, it wasn’t ever anything a few teething tablets couldn’t fix. I never needed pain medicine, orajel and didn’t even know about amber teething necklaces. Poor Doodle, though, seems to have more extreme discomfort that came on very suddenly.
He’s been chewing and drooling for months (hubby’s Grammy at Thanksgiving insisted he was going to break teeth at any moment) but he’s always just been a very oral baby. He started sucking and chewing on his burp rags (which now act as his loveys) when he was only a few days old and has been going to town on his teethers as long as he’s been able to hold them. And even though I’ve been watching his tiny little teeth move their way up along the fronts of his gums, the fussiness and pain hit us like a Mack truck yesterday, blindsided us unknowingly and seemingly unprepared!
The teething tablets seem to be helping as does nursing on demand (and he is definitely demanding it!) Hopefully today we can better manage his pain and help him get some good naps in so we can all get a better night’s sleep tonight.
Do you have any tips for helping baby through teething pains?
Are you still breastfeeding him? When both my kids cut teeth, we had lots of nursing going on in my house when teething started. It always seemed to soothe them :-)
Yes, still breastfeeding. Usually he’ll go 2-3 hours between feeds yesterday it seemed like it was every hour on the hour! I don’t mind during the day, but mommmy needs her sleep!