Health
Tips To Soothe Your Teething Child
Teething is a period in your child’s life when the first batch of teeth starts to emerge. While this progress may be one you have been waiting for, it is actually quite a painful experience for your little one. In fact, mothers often witness how their children suffer from the pain of an emerging tooth with symptoms like crankiness, drooling, and even incessant crying.
What Parents Should Expect
Although the timing of a baby’s first tooth varies widely, most moms report that it usually happens during their child’s sixth month. During this time, you should be able to spot something white along the part of the gums where the lower central incisors should be.
According to experts, teething can be signaled by several symptoms, including irritability and drooling. Your child may also chew on any object he or she gets his or her hands on. This is because a teething child’s gums are sore from the growing tooth that is about to break out, leaving him or her no choice but to use anything to massage it.
In some cases, teething also causes a low-grade fever that doesn’t exceed 99° F or 37.2° C. On the other hand, others believe that teething can cause a feverish temperature of 100.4° F or 38° C and diarrhea in babies, but that has yet to be supported by scientific research.
How To Soothe Your Teething Baby
After confirming that their little one is, indeed, at the teething stage, parents commonly look for ways to soothe their child’s painful experience. Fortunately, the most effective strategies to calm your irritable baby from teething tantrums are quite simple and safe.
- Massage His Gums
One of the easiest ways to soothe your child’s pain from teething is to massage the gums. Simply wash your hands and use your index finger to apply pressure on your little one’s sore gums to help him or her get comfortable again. You may also opt to use a sterile gauze pad that has been soaked in purified water.
- Keep It Cool
You can also soothe your teething child by allowing him or her to gnaw on a cold washcloth or plastic spoon. The low temperature helps ease your child’s sore gums from the emerging tooth in the same way that applying ice can alleviate discomfort from a sprain.
- Use Teethers or Solid Foods
Parents can also let their little ones use teethers made of silicone or any kind of hypoallergenic material that has been certified safe for babies. Another alternative for the first two ways of soothing gum pain from teething that is both effective and affordable is allowing them to chew on solid foods like peeled carrot or cucumber slices.
Since the baby has yet to get a significant set of teeth, there is a very low chance that your child will be able to bite off a chunk that would cause him or her to choke. However, it is still best to be sure, so keep a close eye on your little one.
- Apply Topical Ointment
If everything else fails, you can resort to applying an over-the-counter ointment to ease your child’s sore gums. Numbing gels and creams that contain acetaminophen or ibuprofen are okay, but avoid giving anything that has lidocaine or benzocaine, unless it was prescribed by a doctor.
- Seek An Expert’s Help
While it is good to apply quick and affordable steps to help your child get relief from ore gums, it is still best to consult an expert before when your little one appears more uncomfortable than usual. In this case, a skilled pediatric dentist should be able to help.
