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Blog Entry 20 of 21 Adventures in Parenting

I am a valleynews.com staffer, wife, and mom. My husband of two years and I had our first child in February. I will write here occassionally about my adventures with baby Frank plus all the wonderful things going on in Burbank and Glendale (as well as the surrounding communities)dealing with children.

Blog Url: http://valleynews.com/~Mom2B

Say Cheese! Baby's first tooth painful

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Contributed by: angie valencia/valleynews.com on 8/17/2007

Last Friday, baby Frank reached a milestone: cutting teeth.

You can see it. I'll miss his gummy grin, but look forward to a mouthful of choppers.

In anticipation of his first tooth, I've been messaging his gums with my finger for the past couple of weeks. To my surprise, I felt the sharp little tooth on Friday.

The signs were there: irritability, drooling, biting and gnawing. The most obvious indicator, in my opinion, is his not sleeping well.

For the past month, he's been waking me up every hour on the hour. The odd thing is he goes right back to sleep after a couple of minutes of soothing.

My baby was breastfed exclusively for the first five months of his life. However, just before I returned back to work, I introduced him to solids. At first, I thought he kept wanting to nurse during the middle of the night to make up for the fact that he doesn't have me around during the day. Now, I'm starting to think his waking up frequently is related to tooth eruption.

I've done my research and understand that he has another 19 primary first teeth to grow. Poor child of mine. Poor me.

Lately, he's been real fussy and cries out of nowhere. I try to comfort him, but sometimes it takes my husband Fernando or brother David to calm him down. We've tried chilled teething rings, a wet, cold washcloth for him to suck, cold bottles of water, and putting pressure on his gums; as well as Baby Orajel and Tylenol for relief.

According to a study in "Pediatrics," the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, there is no correlation between teething and "fever, mood disturbance, an appearance of illness, sleep disturbance, drooling, diarrhea, strong urine, red cheeks, or rashes/flushing on the face or body."
( http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/106/6/1374)

Then why is baby Frank showing those symptoms? I guess I'll never know.

While doing research for this blog, I came across a Web site named Kids Health, which is approved by medical professionals. The articles are informative. So if you've got a teething tot, check it out. The site is a great resource for parents, teens, and children.

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