Well, it turns out that Little Dude wasn’t being cranky for no good reason after all.
It would seem that his (and thus my) lack of sleep and desire to act as my own personal magnet wasn’t due (only) to a wonder week.
Nope, he actually has a genuinely good reason to be crying all the time.
He’s teething.
AGAIN!
It would seem that his body decided that it didn’t need to follow the “normal” teething timeline. No sir-ee, it’s not enough that he’s grown about 2 teeth per month for the past 5 months (bringing the grand total to 8 teeth right now). No! Now, he needs to grow 2 more. Of course, since the incisors are all grown in, guess what’s coming in now: the freaking pre-molars, that’s what.
Holy crap! Those little dudes are INTENSE!
You would think that by now, I’d know quite a bit about the signs of teething to recognize that it was happening again.
Well guess what: I actually DID think it was teething at the beginning…and then started to think things through and discarded the thought *facepalm*.
I mean, the little guy was only being a P.I.T.A. (because that is really how it felt after a few nights of not sleeping and not being able to put him down without hearing him scream) at home. I mean, at daycare he wasn’t top notch, but he wasn’t crying or screaming. He wasn’t sleeping much or well but he was napping a bit. At my parents’ place, it was the same thing. No screaming. Nope, he kept that for home.
So I thought: ‘Meh, it can’t possibly be teething. Besides, the teething timelines indicate that the pre-molars are only supposed to come in between 14 and 18 months and Charles is only (nearly) 11 months’.
But then yesterday morning, after 5 scream-filled and tiring days and two horrible nights in a row (horrible = waking up every 2h because of the little guy), I decided to stick my finger in his mouth to check things out. Lo and behold I could not only feel that his gums were raised and tender at the exact spot where his lower first molars are set to cut, but I could see the spots where the points of the molars were getting ready to pierce the skin.
Of course, I felt terrible that I hadn’t caught on before and saved my son from some unnecessary pain at night. But then I reminded myself that no one’s perfect and that I (and my partner) had provided tons of cuddles over the week.
So now, for the second night in a row, the little guy got a dose of Advil before bedtime. We’ve also been giving him some cold washcloths to gnaw on and are giving him plenty of cold things to eat (peach and apple slices, applesauce, coconut bliss…). I’ve also gone ahead and ordered a special teething ring that is specifically designed for molars in hopes that it will help ease things along. I figure that at worst, it won’t help and I’ll be out about twelve bucks.
How did you cope with a child cutting molars? What were your go-to solutions?
mommytrainingwheels 