If your baby is about 6 months old and above, you should be ready to deal with baby teething problems. Try to look out for signs of swollen gums, too much drooling, biting and sucking and loss of appetite. The baby is often restless, can’t sleep well and cries a lot.

You must be able to understand that the baby is feeling some pain as he goes through this process of teething. What you can do is to show more patience and motherly love by hugging and cuddling to comfort the baby. There are also practical methods to help ease baby teething pain, so the baby would not feel too stressed about this condition.

• Do a gentle massage on the baby’s gums by using a clean finger or a wet gauze pad. Rub gums for a few minutes and repeat as often as needed by the baby.

• Give the baby something to bite on such as some hard silicon based teething rings. You can also use some foods which the baby can chew on like breadsticks, cold carrot and celery sticks but with caution as the baby may be able to swallow some large parts. You can also feed some cold yogurt and applesauce. Remember that babies prefer cold foods when they are teething. Keep a cold bottle of water ready for the baby to suck on.

• Make use of baby pacifiers for the baby to bite on to ease the gums.

• A cold wet dump cloth can be given to the baby to bite on.

• If you are breastfeeding the baby, try to freeze breast milk by making use of some ice cube trays. Then you can just put some of these in a feeder bag for the baby to suck on.

• Put cotton bibs on the baby to be used for drooling. Bibs keep the baby clean and protect the baby’s neck, cheeks and chin from becoming sore.

• Give your baby a warm bath to keep him comfortable and reduce his restlessness.

• If your baby is still restless, try to divert his attention to something else like a colorful toy, point to something that would interest him like a pet running around or some cartoons on TV, or you can do some playtime to lessen the restlessness.

• If teething is something that is too much for your baby, ask your pediatrician for some baby medicines to help ease teething pain.

The baby teething process differs from one baby to another. It is just important to remember that this is just a part of the growing up process of the baby. This is just a temporary thing that would soon be over in a few weeks. The nice thing about this is that you and your baby have experienced this together and were able to get through it as well.

Jason Ladock

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