The screaming. The drooling. The screaming. The bright red cheeks. The screaming. The entire contents of our house going into his mouth. Have I mentioned the screaming?
Our son has no teeth. Well, we're convinced they're in there somewhere, because they torment him daily. But just where they are in there, who can say? Ethan started "pre-teething" (pediatrician code for months of fussiness with no explanation, have fun with that!) back at about four months. We are closing in on nine months. That's 5 months of intermittent unexplanable fussiness, folks. A whole lot of fuss.
Husband & I have cleaned Target out of Baby Orajel. We have tossed the regular strength kind and only give him the "overnight" orajel, which by it's name you'd think contained some sort of baby unisom, but it doesn't. It just has 5% more of it's numbing agent. We have the q-tips filled with orajel that you snap and then rub on his gums. Husband has to do it because I am a useless sissy when it comes to grabbing Ethan and shoving my fingers in his mouth. The orajel seems to take the edge off, like an aspirin or two might take the edge off if you chopped your finger while slicing a bagel. Yeah, it's that good.
We've tried Hyland's teething tablets, which are a homeopathic treat that melts in his mouth and tastes like pure sugar. It seems to calm him down momentarily which is lovely if he wakes up from a dead sleep, screaming. The drawback of Hylands is that it contains the herb belladonna, which after a brief visit with my friend Google, I find is...oh, deadly. Yup. Deadly. So that's a good herb to put in an infant's teething remedy, no?! Well, to be fair, we'd have to give Ethan the equivalent of about 12 bottles of the pills to actually do him any harm, but still. I do give them to him on occassion, but I always stay with him after I do because hey, I'm neurotic.
Today there was much fussing. Today for the first time I was able to entice Monseiur Fussy with a mesh feeder of ice AND his Nuby icy keyring. He is starting to look for cold things to put in his mouth. His father has an addiction to popcicles and a few nights ago introduced Ethan to them. Yes, now that we've broken the seal on the world of solid foods, there's nothing we won't shove in his face in an attempt to fatten him up. But if it's cold, Ethan wants it in his mouth now until the heat from his own gums warms it up-then it's got to go. I got quite a bit of mileage today out of a spoon I stuck in the fridge for 10 minutes.
His cheeks are pink and he leaves a path of drool everywhere he goes. He has woken up 5 times tonight (he went down at 7:30 and it's 10:30--yes, 5 times), each time like he has been lit on fire. Only a mega slathering of Nighttime Orajel will stop the hysterics.
So all this means the popping of a tooth is imminent, right? I mean, it haaaaas to be. There are only so many screaming wake ups and puddles of drool a mommy and a daddy can take before they start ripping out tufts of their own hair.
And besides, I cannot fathom anything more precious than his smile with a tooth sticking out of it. Give me strength, I might have to eat him up!
7 comments:
Dude, our sons are apparently soulmates as well. We "teethed" from four months to TEN MONTHS. Yes, 10. Finally we got some teeth.
But now, since he started so late, he gets one every two weeks or so. Bonus this week: cutting two top teeth at the same time AND a nasty cold.
Hang in there. He'll get some teeth eventually. And he will look so cute!
I hear you with the fussiness. Dorothy has hours of fussy time where NOTHING works. My mom has sworn she was teething since she was a month old;) With you on hoping some teeth pop soon.
Poor Ethan! Poor exhausted YOU! I don't know how you feel about giving him Baby Tylenol, but it's what saved my sanity when my littles one went through this phase. And I so hear you on the drool. My TWO year old still drools like he was an 8 month old.
Hang in there!
Lorena
It sounds like those teeth'll be popping soon! My son does the "wake up I'm on fire" scream too, and low and behold out came the teeth. The baby tylenol helped us a lot too, and lucky for them it tastes like candy.
Gotta love the drool! Pickle has started the same "preteething"... guess I have many months of fun ahead!
Baby Motrin. Go get yourself some stat and give it to him everynight. It's soooo much better than Tylenol. But you have to switch off sometimes cause you don't want to damage their delicate little kidneys.
I have to echo the baby motrin recommendation. Works well, just be sure to only use small doses on those nights when he just can't sleep.
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