Gwen is teething. She has been miserable and wants to make sure that everyone else is right there wallowing in misery with her. Yesterday I was near my breaking point. She had been cranky all day and couldn't sleep. I kept on looking inside of her mouth, but couldn't see any of the tell-tale redness and swelling that people told me that she would get with teething. This led me to doubt that she was teething. I told Keith, "I really hope this is teething for two reasons: 1.) at least all of this misery would be for some end goal, and 2.) if this isn't teething, I don't want to know what our little monster is going to be like when she finally does get teeth."
This morning I woke up at 6 to find a sweat drenched Gwen. She was wearing the normal amount of clothing that she usually wears to go to bed. The temperature in the house was the same as usual. I couldn't pinpoint anything that was different. Except for the possibility of teething. Other than crankiness, she hadn't been showing any teething symptoms. But then I thought her sweat could be from her having a fever overnight (I came to this conclusion as I was sick last week and woke up sweat-drenched every night for about a week from my fever breaking).
She was a cranky mess this morning. We made it for about 90 minutes before she started rubbing her eyes. I decided it was time for a nap (I was hoping I could catch some Zzzzz's, too). But it was not meant to be. I spent the next 75 minutes trying to calm a screaming baby. Once again, Gwen's misery wanted some company. I finally got her to sleep...only for her to wake up 15 minutes later, crying hysterically.
I decided it was time to get some baby Motrin. She had been taking baby Tylenol, but it hadn't done anything (causing me to doubt my diagnosis of teething even more...shouldn't Tylenol help with pain?). I also grabbed a few more baby items: baby thermometer, baby orajel, and a diaper bag sized spray can of lysol.
When we got home I gave her the Motrin. Then I decided that I should at least try the Orajel, in case she was, in fact, teething. But I didn't see any teeth coming in and so I didn't know where to rub it. I decided to play it safe and do both her bottom and top gums (note: Orajel is pretty useless in a baby. It is difficult to apply, it tastes awful, and it wears off in just 10 minutes. You can only apply it up to 4 times a day, meaning that, at most, it can provide 40 minutes of relief in a day if you apply it properly. Save yourself time and money and just skip it). After I gave the Orajel a minute to take effect, I set forth with some detective work. I pulled down Gwen's bottom lip. No teeth. Then I pulled up on her top lip. No tee...wait...what the???
Thankfully, during February and March I babysat a friend's baby, who happened to cut 4 teeth during her time in my care. She was super cranky one day, so I looked in her mouth to determine if any teeth were on their way through. I looked at her bottom gums: 2 little chicklets were present. Then I looked at her top gums and made an important discovery: top baby teeth look wonky. What does wonky mean? It means what it sounds like. They look kind of weird. They aren't located where you would think. They kind of look like little buckteeth.
When I lifted Gwen's top lip I saw that her teeth weren't coming out of the bottom of the ridge of gum that ran along the top of her mouth. The teeth were getting ready to pop out of the front (the anterior aspect, for all of you science folks)! Yikes! More wonky top teeth (I think anyone who has seen top row baby teeth at least has an idea of what I am talking about). If you think of your own mouth, the gums on the front and back of your bottom row of teeth are pretty even with one another. If you examine your top row of teeth, the gums on the back are much lower than the gums on the front. This is because the teeth don't come straight down out of the gum ridge (unlike the bottom teeth that come straight up from the gum ridge). They kind of come out of the front.
This brings about some unforseen teething challenges. First of all, it takes much longer for the top teeth to traverse the front of the gums than it takes the bottom teeth to poke through the top of the ridge. Second, chewing doesn't help much. Another reason that I doubted that she was teething was because, while she does chew a little bit, she wasn't gnawing away on things like I had been told she would do. But if you think about the fact that the top teeth grow out down the front, it makes sense that chewing won't help too much. It does help to chew when the bottom teeth are coming through, because you can put pressure directly on the bottom gum ridge.
Gwen's teeth are coming in "out of order." Most babies get their bottom front teeth first. Gwen's top front teeth are coming in first. This, at least partially, explains why she hasn't been the typical teething baby. If you baby doesn't have teeth yet, or if you wonder why your baby did something while teething, I hope that this post has provided some elucidation.
This morning I woke up at 6 to find a sweat drenched Gwen. She was wearing the normal amount of clothing that she usually wears to go to bed. The temperature in the house was the same as usual. I couldn't pinpoint anything that was different. Except for the possibility of teething. Other than crankiness, she hadn't been showing any teething symptoms. But then I thought her sweat could be from her having a fever overnight (I came to this conclusion as I was sick last week and woke up sweat-drenched every night for about a week from my fever breaking).
She was a cranky mess this morning. We made it for about 90 minutes before she started rubbing her eyes. I decided it was time for a nap (I was hoping I could catch some Zzzzz's, too). But it was not meant to be. I spent the next 75 minutes trying to calm a screaming baby. Once again, Gwen's misery wanted some company. I finally got her to sleep...only for her to wake up 15 minutes later, crying hysterically.
I decided it was time to get some baby Motrin. She had been taking baby Tylenol, but it hadn't done anything (causing me to doubt my diagnosis of teething even more...shouldn't Tylenol help with pain?). I also grabbed a few more baby items: baby thermometer, baby orajel, and a diaper bag sized spray can of lysol.
When we got home I gave her the Motrin. Then I decided that I should at least try the Orajel, in case she was, in fact, teething. But I didn't see any teeth coming in and so I didn't know where to rub it. I decided to play it safe and do both her bottom and top gums (note: Orajel is pretty useless in a baby. It is difficult to apply, it tastes awful, and it wears off in just 10 minutes. You can only apply it up to 4 times a day, meaning that, at most, it can provide 40 minutes of relief in a day if you apply it properly. Save yourself time and money and just skip it). After I gave the Orajel a minute to take effect, I set forth with some detective work. I pulled down Gwen's bottom lip. No teeth. Then I pulled up on her top lip. No tee...wait...what the???
Thankfully, during February and March I babysat a friend's baby, who happened to cut 4 teeth during her time in my care. She was super cranky one day, so I looked in her mouth to determine if any teeth were on their way through. I looked at her bottom gums: 2 little chicklets were present. Then I looked at her top gums and made an important discovery: top baby teeth look wonky. What does wonky mean? It means what it sounds like. They look kind of weird. They aren't located where you would think. They kind of look like little buckteeth.
When I lifted Gwen's top lip I saw that her teeth weren't coming out of the bottom of the ridge of gum that ran along the top of her mouth. The teeth were getting ready to pop out of the front (the anterior aspect, for all of you science folks)! Yikes! More wonky top teeth (I think anyone who has seen top row baby teeth at least has an idea of what I am talking about). If you think of your own mouth, the gums on the front and back of your bottom row of teeth are pretty even with one another. If you examine your top row of teeth, the gums on the back are much lower than the gums on the front. This is because the teeth don't come straight down out of the gum ridge (unlike the bottom teeth that come straight up from the gum ridge). They kind of come out of the front.
This brings about some unforseen teething challenges. First of all, it takes much longer for the top teeth to traverse the front of the gums than it takes the bottom teeth to poke through the top of the ridge. Second, chewing doesn't help much. Another reason that I doubted that she was teething was because, while she does chew a little bit, she wasn't gnawing away on things like I had been told she would do. But if you think about the fact that the top teeth grow out down the front, it makes sense that chewing won't help too much. It does help to chew when the bottom teeth are coming through, because you can put pressure directly on the bottom gum ridge.
Gwen's teeth are coming in "out of order." Most babies get their bottom front teeth first. Gwen's top front teeth are coming in first. This, at least partially, explains why she hasn't been the typical teething baby. If you baby doesn't have teeth yet, or if you wonder why your baby did something while teething, I hope that this post has provided some elucidation.
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