Coping with Baby Teething

Parents know that their baby will grow teeth. However, there is no set pattern of when a baby will start teething nor there is any fixed duration of how long he will teeth. But one thing is for sure that in most of the cases baby teething can be frustrating for both the parents and a child. It is a natural procedure possessing no danger to an infant. First two front baby teeth called central incisors usually emerge on the bottom of the gums. Eruption of these teeth occurs between the ages of 4 to 7 months. However, some babies begin to teeth earlier.

Symptoms showing that your baby is teething include the following:

• Crankiness
• If there are sudden changes in the behavior and mood of your child, than check his mouth. Although, there can be other reasons for these sudden changes but there is no harm in inspecting baby’s mouth.
• Another major symptom-reflecting baby teething is sleeplessness. Due to the severe pain, babies are unable to sleep. In some cases, babies become irritable and fussy at night.
• Inflamed or swollen gums
• Make sure to inspect your child’s gum regularly. You should see the outline of the teeth before they appear through gums.
• When the teething starts, an infant may have bruised or swollen gums where a tooth will appear.
• If on one hand baby demands more bottle or breast-feeding and on the other hand, he rejects bottle or breast feeding, it may be due to the eruption of teeth as sucking milk or water hurts the gum.

Several studies show that baby’s teething can be associated with drooling, irritability, sleeplessness, biting behavior, sudden mood change, gum rubbing, sucking and reduced appetite. Approximately, 35 percent of the infants showed these symptoms during the period of tooth eruption.

While teething babies put anything in the mouth. Due to curiosity and with an attempt to reduce pain, infants urge to chew and bite anything they lay their hands on. During teething, cells of the gum tissue start to break down. Desire to chew or bite is good because the additional pressure helps in breaking down the gum tissues. Therefore, give your baby to chew things like teething cookies, ice pops and tablets to reduce your baby’s pain.