Toddler Teething 101

Teething is an important and a big milestone in your baby’s growth. Though it is as exciting phase, no topic raises so many queries and no topic has so many myths surrounded as there are with teething.

Myth buster

• First of all, I must make it clear that teething causes only teething. It is not responsible for fever, headache loose motions etc. As increasing length of hairs or increasing length of nails doesn’t cause any discomfort, same is the case with teething. It’s a very normal phenomena and an ongoing process for a long period of time.
• It may cause a bit of irritability and hand to mouth is considered a part of normal development so both may be inter related.
• Putting hands inside mouth, excessive salivation and drooling are parts of normal teething process.

Tackling irritability in babies

To reduce the irritation, kids tend to take all sorts of dirty things inside mouth resulting in gastro intestinal infection which can cause diarrhoea, fever etc. Teething per se directly is not responsible for any symptoms.

• To reduce the irritation, I recommend giving hard stuffs like carrot, cucumber or apple slice wrapped in muslin cloth and hand over to child. This will lead to reduced irritation, child will get the juice out of it and won’t choke.
• Alternately, there are nibblers available in market which are nets which can be used for putting same things.

I hope these help you in dealing with this new phase in your baby’s growth.