My 5 month old has some signs of teething except he sleeps through the night and his gums don't appear to be swollen. His gums are white and he will chew on anything he can get in his mouth. He started this when he was about 3 1/2 months old. He gets really fussy around 5 pm, even after he eats, and will fuss until about 11 pm when he has a bottle and then he's fine until 7 am. He doesn't pull on his ears but he will rub his cheeks and bury his face in my chest and shake his head. He doesn't really like the cold teethers. Can he be teething and have any of you had a child like this? He is generally a happy baby and will actually smile right before he starts to scream.
My daughter did the same thing even tho she just cut her two bottom teeth and she is eight months old, he could just be having trouble cutting his teeth, maybe playing peekaboo on him. Hope this helps, try massaging his gums or giving him something soft to chew on. hope this help!
Sounds like teething and typical "happy hour" at your house at 5pm:) Timing's right, and not all kids get swollen gums or are "unhappy" all the time while teething -- it takes a very long time to complete all those teeth. Also, babies like to "mark" things they love (you:) ) with their scent because they are so scent oriented their first year -- this is possibly the cheek rub/chest/head-shake.
My kids hated the cold teethers, but loved the smooth water-filled ones at room temperature, combined with teething drops and sometimes infant tylenol. They hated the bumpy teethers at any temp, the vibrating ones, and the wet washcloth was totally out. But try what you haven't until you find what he likes.
When to give the tylenol? -- when he gets very close to his "breaking" point (you know the signs, mom:) ) and you'll see a behavior "calm" in around 15-20 min. Good luck this year with the teething:)
Could definitely be teething. I had one son who had his first teeth by 4 months! It will be a long year off and on with teething. I hope you find something to soothe him. I did use Tylenol and sometimes Orajel (more for the molars).
Frozen bananas cut in small pieces worked well for my first one. Sometimes I would freeze a wet wash cloth and then he liked to chew on that.
I think all babies react differently to teething. My daughter never had red or swollen gums and she would only on occasion act a little annoyed when her teeth were bothering her. Don't get me wrong, her way of showing that she's annoyed is to be cranky to everyone so it was hard to miss when she was hurting. But then we would give her a little Tylenol and she was a happy kid again. She also never liked anything cold or even too hard to chew on for that matter. She never really teethed on anything except for her own fingers and we would give her these pretzel sticks that were really thick. It was the only thing hard that we could get her to chew on but I don't think she would have if they weren't edible. We kinda tricked her that way because we knew she needed to chew on something.
The way I look at it, keep your fingers crossed that he keeps up the gentle reactions to his teething. I know I have never taken for granted the blessing I got with an easy teether. My friends baby turns into a screaming devil just out of the blue and will scream for hours non stop. We got lucky!
Smiles!
J.
http://www.mommysjoy.com
This doesnt really sound like teething--more like the classic grumpy hours of babies in the evening. But just remember that teething is a really long process. Even if your baby shows signs of teething, the tooth might not actually appear for weeks!
