Teething with a Vengance!

Annabelle is officially teething! For the past few days she has been chewing her fingers, and everyone else's fingers, even more than usual. Then, today you could almost tell the instant she really began teething! She has been her usual happy little girl self, then around 2:30pm today she was playing in her bouncee and just all of the sudden started crying like she hasn't cried before. Once she convinced me that she wasn't going to calm down, I took her out of the bouncee and tried all of the regular calming methods. When nothing was working, my mom pointed out that she's been chewing so much, drooling more, her nose is running even though she isn't sick, acting like she wants to breastfeed even though she isn't hungry, and her cry and actions seemed to indicate that she was in pain. We tried letting her chew (not suck) on a pacifier, and that seemed to help. I also gave her some medicine, and that eventually worked too.

Then later today, we were out visiting some of my old friends (see the pictures on our photo gallery), and she started acting up again. They had a baby too, so I tried some of their baby orajel. That seemed to help.

Then later she started at it again! This time we tried letting her chew on a piece of ice (a big piece that we were holding, of course), and that helped a lot! So on the way home, I stopped and bought my own orajel and some teething rings. Again when I got home, she started acting up again.

This seems like it is the beginning of a long journey! Any tips for me to help Annabelle (along with Mommy & Daddy) survive this as painlessly as possible?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Keri, I know what you are going through. Whenever Zach was teething we let him chew on a frozen bagel. It really helped him more than anything else.

Good luck and let me know how it goes.

PS - I love the 4th of July picture. She is absolutely adorable!!

Anonymous said...

Hang in there honey, it gets easier.
I took the advice of an eighty year old nurse at the air base I was stationed at. When it gets really bad you can take a little whiskey, coat a pacifier in it and freeze. The cool feels great and the alcohol will numb it better than the store bought stuff. Just don't do it too often. Also, when she gets a little bigger you can take a carrot, peel the ends, wash and chill. She'll like holding onto it and "chewing" on it. She just needs to be big enough not to gag herself. It will taste good and the texture will feel good on her gums.
My son never liked the teething rings, he always seemed to scrape himself on the seams. Baby Tylenol seemed to help too.

The best advice I can give is to ask other mom's for what worked for them. It sounds like you're doing really well all by yourself though. Good luck!

Andria