Celebrating Those First Teeth

“Ah, finally.” Those are the two words I say every.single.time I see a brand spakin’ new razor sharp white tooth poke through my daughter’s swollen gums.

It’s true what they say about kids being different, because my first breezed through teething without barely making a peep. Our second, on the other hand? Well, she makes it known weeks ahead of time that there might, maybe possibly, be a tooth about to come through..sometime.

Her teething symptoms include all of the following: extreme crankiness, waking up at night every 15 seconds, a low-grade fever, not eating, super soft poop, occasional random puking a day or so before it comes through, and the strangest one of all: her arm hurts her…like to the point where she won’t use it. We’re pretty sure the arm thing is residual pain (she did get four molars in almost all at once), but goodness gracious does she keep us on our toes!

You can see why a deep sigh of relief followed by, “ah, finally,” is how we celebrate seeing new teeth. The first time she had a tooth pop through I’m pretty sure I cried, because it meant I got my sweet, happy baby back. It was crazy that almost immediately after it came through that she went back to her old self.

I can’t be the only one who has a baby like this, right? That’s why I was so compelled to be an Orajel #smilehood ambassador, so we can chat about these things.

After that first tooth came in is when we picked up her first toothbrush for her. She likes to mimic everything her older sister does anyway, so it was a win/win to have her start massaging her gums (aka playing) with her toothbrush.

Now that she has even more teeth in her mouth, including the newly popped molars, she’s enjoying eating more solid foods…including steak. We had steak for dinner the other night, and she easily chomped through half of ours.

The problem with eating solid food is that food gets stuck…often. Again, this didn’t happen with her sister, but somehow Maddie’s teeth are a haven for food pieces. I can’t tell you how many times she gets food stuck in her two front bottom teeth.

She’s at the age now where she knows something weird is happening when it’s stuck there (she points to it and grunts, basically), so I help clean it out by taking a damp paper towel or washcloth and try to wedge the food out. Thankfully she’s patient while my fingers are in her mouth, and doesn’t try to bite me. Then we get her toothbrush and gum cleaner, and she “scrubs” her teeth clean.

The bright side to more teeth means that we can ditch a lot of the soft baby food. It also means that we can relax a little while and enjoy our happy baby before the next set of teeth decide to pop through. Teething, man; it definitely makes life interesting!

Do/did your little ones teeth like crazy, or were they blissfully unaware about what was happening? And, how did you start introducing good teeth/gum practices?

This post is sponsored by Orajel but all opinions are my own.