Monday, September 18, 2006

Making Do on Mondays: teething tips

These are afew things which helped my son get through cutting his eight teeth and which still helping as he now cuts his molars...

1. Frozen bananas on a stick: cut bananas in half width-wise, stick a popsicle stick (or two, depending on your baby's ability to hold things) in it, and freeze in a plastic ziplock bag. Have these little half-popsicles handy in the freezer at all times for those fussy times. Depending on the age of your child you can either feed it to them or hand it to them.

2. Hyland's teething tablets. These are around $8.00 for a little plastic bottle of them. 3 tablets every few hours usually eases their symptoms temporarily. Or, if you are an owner of a Washington Homeopathic kit, use a few pellets of Calcium Phosphate (calc. p)every 3 hours or as needed. (I am no physician; therefore please take note that this is simply what Ido.


3. Fruit Juice Popsicles: Try to make your own, as most popsicles in the stores are full of corn syrup and extra sugar. You can buy popsicle sticks and put them into tiny plastic cups of juice, then freeze. A simpler way is to invest in those cheap little plastic popsicle-making mold and use those. Fill them with a pure fruit juice, cuch as O.J. or natural strawberry, etc. Or, what I have been doing this year, as I've been sort of "on the road", you can simply buy popsicles. Edy's Whole Fruit popsicles were Aidan's favorite, as they're mostly all strawberries. Pnce again, depending on the age, you may find yourself snuggling down and feeding the popsicle to your child or giving it to them in their high chair.

4. A wet rag, frozen or unfrozen. My little one loves to suck all the water out of a clean fresh washcloth. Fill it with water, wring it out partially so it doesn't drip, and hand it to your child to suck on, chew on, etc. If you put it in the freezer, it makes a good COLD cloth to help numb their gums... and it's a good for keeping them hydrated, too!

5.Any flattish-rubber toy: they can chew, chew, chew, to their heart's delight.

6.Any cloth toy with knots in it. It would be easy to make using an old clean sock, by cutting it up into a sort of star shape and tying knots at the ends for them to gnaw on. Magic Cabin makes an excellent teething toys called terry teethers. They're around $10 each and are made of washcloth material. These are great wet, too.

7. Finally, if you are losing sleep at night from a very restless, screaming child, you may want to give them a tiny dose of baby tylenol. I try to only use this when it's really taking away their sleep and our sleep. Otherwise, during the day, I try to use the above aids and to rock and hold him.

All the best-- and please, please please comment with any tips you have found helpful, as well. I think we all love to hear new ideas, as teething can be such a hard time on the child and on us.

~Sia

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one of us :: 12:19 PM :: 3 Comments

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