The signs were there for weeks.I just had no idea it was teething.
Nobody warned me how much of teething wouldn't even look like teething. This is what I learned the hard way — and the one thing that finally gave us a break.
If you've got a teething baby right now — solidarity.
For weeks, I thought the problem was me.
That I was just bad at reading my own baby
or doing something wrong — because nothing I did calmed her down.
She'd scream for hours, grab at her face, sleep in forty-minute scraps.
I'd be up at 2 in the morning, bouncing her.
I'd open Instagram
and there'd be someone my age just... out.
At brunch. Laughing with friends.
Their baby asleep in the stroller beside them like it was the easiest thing in the world.
I'd feel this hot, embarrassing stab of jealousy.
We hadn't left the house in days unless we absolutely had to.
A quiet coffee with a friend felt like somebody else's life.
I kept telling myself it would pass. And it does.
But when you're in it, you'd trade almost anything for one quiet hour.
What got us through wasn't one magic fix.
But it started the day I finally understood something nobody had bothered to explain to me.
Because half of what we were going through didn't even look like teething.
The signs no one tells you about
The first time I took her to the doctor, I honestly didn't know what was wrong.
She'd been miserable for about a week, rubbing the side of her face and ears.
I'd already convinced myself it was something serious.
He checked her over and told me she was just teething.
I remember thinking, teething? She didn't even have a tooth yet.
It passed after a few days.
Then a couple weeks later
still no tooth... but
she started pulling her ears and rubbing her face again.
She was also shaking her head side to side a lot and crunching her ears down to her shoulders.
Especially at night.
This didn't look like teething to me.
The signs had been there the whole time. I just didn't know they were signs.
It wasn't until I really went down a rabbit hole one night that it finally made sense.
When a tooth pushes up through the gum, it doesn't just hurt the gum.
It's nerve pain.
And those nerves run all the way up through the jaw,
into the cheeks, and right up to the ears.
So the ache doesn't stay where the tooth is.
It spreads.
That's why she kept grabbing her ear and rubbing her cheek.
The tooth was down in her gum, but the ache was showing up everywhere else.
It's also why so many of us end up in a waiting room
for an ear infection that turns out to be a tooth.
Talk about your brand
Use the flexible grid system to create any layout. Each block can be placed in any of the columns.
Talk about your brand
Use the flexible grid system to create any layout. Each block can be placed in any of the columns.