The Teething Terror
As the title suggests, we’ve had a little trouble with teething this past week. We’ve known for a little while now that Delilah had some new teeth coming in but so far, any teething troubles had been mild. Until a few days ago…
The first thing I noticed was Delilah’s sleep was off and she was waking up at night. It’s rare for her to wake up during the night, and I can usually get her back to sleep fairly easily.
The second thing we noticed was that there were a couple days where Delilah was a little fussier than usual. She doesn’t normally get a fever when her teeth are hurting her but she does get moody. It’s especially hard at times when we don’t realize right away that it’s her teeth making her so fussy. There have been days where it feels like nothing we do is right and everything just makes her more upset. Sometimes it’s taken us hours to soothe her, only to catch her chewing on her fingers and realize it was her teeth the whole time.
Another way I can tell Delilah is teething is by her cheeks turning bright red. She also recently started chewing on her fingers more when her teeth are giving her some grief.
Teething has also brought changes to Delilah’s appetite. She usually has a decent appetite but I noticed that we definitely go through more milk than food on days where her teeth are hurting. Having a few of those baby food squeeze pouches on hand helped, although we’re supposed to move away from giving her baby food. But she eats those when she’s really not feeling food on teething days. And I feel a little bit better knowing she’s getting some nutrition on those days, too.
The hardest part has been trying to find something that soothes her teething troubles. We’ve tried almost everything. She liked having a cool washcloth to chew on at first, but now she just turns them away. She never liked teething toys or beads either. For the most part we treat teething troubles with a lot of love and patience, and just a little Tylenol on the really bad nights.
We all had a really tough time a few nights ago. Delilah was almost inconsolable, even after a dose of Tylenol. My mom and I were feeling a tired and frustrated, as Delilah had been going back and forth between us for hours. We just wanted to help her have some relief. I try to avoid it but decided to try some Baby Orajel to help her. I think it did because she finally fell asleep. By then my mom and I had given up on our plans to make dinner, ordered a pizza, and called it a night!
Delilah officially has 6 teeth erupted and I wish our teething troubles were close to being finished but we still have a way to go. But with a little help, and a lot of love, we’ll get through it!