Mazen now has not one but two little teeth!!! It has taken about 3 weeks for them to cut through, and his bottom two teeth are gradually making their way up.
Mazen started showing signs of teething at 14 weeks old – lots of drool and hands in mouth ALL the time. Since these are also signs of a 14 week old baby, I really had no idea when the teeth were actually going to come. 5 months later it seems : )
The only sign that he was teething when the teeth actually started to emerge was their visibility. He didn’t start to drool more or chew more since he already did those things. His cheeks did rose up a lot during this time, but I didn’t know if that was just a coincidence. He never had a fever or anything and while he did have some face rash, I’m not sure if that was related to the teeth or the dry desert air of our trip to Arizona.
Around 6 months we noticed little white squares embedded in his gums that started to look more prominent and eventually a white blister appeared on top of his gums just days before the first one broke through. I probably stuck my (clean) fingers in there every hour those days to see if I could feel it yet, and then one time – I could! A sharp little razor of a baby tooth.
He did have a few rounds of unexpected fussiness around the time when the first blister appeared, including a couple of midnight wakeups. I had heard that the pain was the worst right before the teeth burst through, and that was true for us. We used some chew toys, homeopathic teething tablets (after all of my friends recommended them) and acetaminophen a few times. But overall, these first two weren’t too bad. I hear the molars are the worst!
Here are a few of the things we tried to make teething as comfortable as possible:
–Blankets: M loves to chew on fabric, and he seemed to enjoy chewing on his receiving blankets most of all. His blanket chewing peaked when his teeth started to come in. He also loved to chew on his lovie at bedtime, and I think this helped him fall asleep throughout the teething process.
–A teething necklace: I got the above necklace for Christmas and wore it a few times when I knew we’d be out of the house a lot (like on our flight to Arizona!) He liked to chew on it, although it didn’t seem as therapeutic as I might have predicted.
–Chew toys and teething rings: Like I said, M likes to chew on everything so I’m not sure if any specific teething products made much more of a difference than his everyday toys. I had one teething fish that I put in the fridge so it would hopefully cool off his gums, and he did seem to enjoy that when I gave it to him at midnight one night, but he grew tired of it quickly. In general any squishy toy was a good teething toy!
–Clean fingers: He loved to chew on my fingers, but watch out because once those teeth came in a bite HURT! Total “Charlie Bit Me” moment 
–Homeopathic teething tablets: My friends swore by these little “marshmallow” tablets that melted in his mouth. It’s hard to tell how much they actually worked, but a few times he definitely calmed afterward. Whether it was from the tablet’s ingredients or the distraction of having something to chew, I don’t really care. Bottom line is it helped!
–Acetaminophen: I try to be conservative with medicine, but there were a few nights when I felt that he was really in pain, so I gave him a dose and it definitely helped.
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