teethingIt is a fact that many infants can sleep right through their teeth erupting through their gums. It can surprise many families when waking in the morning to discover their little one has a new tooth to add to their collection. You may wonder how is this even possible?

To start off around the two to three-month mark you may notice that they start drooling a lot more You might also see that they start putting everything in their mouth and they start producing a lot more saliva, sometimes more than they can even swallow.

This doesn’t automatically mean that your baby is teething just yet. It more then likely is just their salivary glands opening up and they are producing more salivas than they can swallow. The vast majority of babies sprout their first tooth between four and seven months of age. If your baby’s an early developer, you may see their first white cap, usually one of the bottom two middle teeth, as early as three months. But in rare cases, a baby’s first tooth is visible at birth. Can I say ouch?!

Many parents find that it seems like their baby is teething for what feels like weeks. Often the reality is more that baby is displaying symptoms of teething, when they are actually just tired and irritable, usually this coincides with developmental leaps like hand sucking, and putting toys in their mouth.

Ear pulling is often a symptom parents see as teething, but usually this is an overtired sign, or even a sign baby may need to see a doctor as they may have an ear infection! When baby starts to sleep better for naps and at night, the teething signs usually disappear, and a lot of babies suddenly cut teeth without parents even realizing, as blood pressure lowers when baby sleeps, which then reduces any throbbing pain they may experience.

If your baby, otherwise sleeps well and they are not sick, but they do suddenly seem more irritable during the day, and you can see white marks coming up in the gum with swelling, then offer some teething remedy before their big nap and night sleep to help them get through cutting teeth. This should usually only take two to three days. If your baby is grumpy for weeks, this is not teething.