Tuesday, July 21, 2009

The teething beast and my little gummy worm

I should have known that when my daughter started sleeping through the night at 10 days old that "it was too good to be true," and that something would end up biting us in the butt. When I discovered her intolerance to the protein found in dairy and milk products at 4 weeks old, I thought that might be the universe's way of balancing things out, but it turned out that the diet change really only affected me as I was still nursing.

The average first tooth comes in at around 7 months. Not for my poor sweetie. She's days away from 10 months and she still has no teeth. The funny thing is--she's been "teething" since she was 4 months old. Seriously. I can't even tell you how many well-meaning, although IKE-ish people have said, "Oh that girl is drooling something fierce--I bet she'll pop a tooth out tomorrow." or "Oh, her low-grade fever, loss of appetite, diarhea, runny nose, restless sleep, etc, etc, is just her teething..." No, sweet IKEs, it was an ear infection(s), hand-foot-mouth, stomach virus, etc, etc... every.single.time.

To all of you mommies who's babies' first teeth just "popped through" one night while they were just a "tad" bit fussier that usual, I have this to say to you, "Weellllll, ISN'T THAT SPECIAL!?!?"

Ha! Seriously, I don't care when she gets teeth. I absolutely adore her gummy smiles--even though lately it just exposes her inflamed gums. I just want to put my sweet baby out of her misery. She is gnawing on my coffee table; she puts her entire fist into her mouth while she screams; she bears down on her spoon while eating and then wails in pain. Oh, I have given her tylenol when she is especially miserable while running a low grade fever, but I don't want to over-medicate her... I have given her her frozen teething toys, her pacie, her other various chew toys. I have pulled out all the stops. She's FINALLY down for her nap, and I just hope that she can get some peaceful rest. I'm going to go read read read about teething woes and mommy helps... There is nothing like learning with on-the-job training!

2 comments:

Jesse Faris said...

I am definitely going to have to put that "Well, isn't that special?!" phrase in my back pocket--that's a keeper! Hang in there, Momma KDC!

Kiera said...

I TOTALLY hear ya!! Seriously. I thought Tyler was teething at 3 months, called the dr and all, but yes he's 10 1/2 months and has 1 tooth and is getting another one as week speak although it takes about 2 weeks to get one for him... Man it's miserable. Take it for what it's worth... Advice from another mom to me said to try the Humphrey's Teething Pellets (I think David got them at CVS) we tried them and I'm not sure exactly how much they work, but they're 100% natural and seem to take the edge off a bit. Might be worth a try if you want. ;) Good luck hopefully she'll get through the roughest before you have to start back to school!!