Bean,  Food and Eating,  Parenting

Mayday! Mayday! The Molars Are Coming! Mayday! Mayday!

Bean has cut almost all of his teeth already.  He’s only got about four spaces in his little mouth left empty and the rest are filled with pearly whites.  Right now, he’s cutting his molars and let me tell you…molars are nothing to mess around with, yo. Those suckers are HUGE.  In fact, when the first one came through, I thought Bean was growing two rows of teeth!  You could see two white tips coming in next to each other and I screamed for Chris and declared our son was a freak of nature.  What he so rationally pointed out to me was that molars are much bigger than front teeth and so they poke through in two different places.

OUCH!

I felt so bad for my Bean Man.  He was in so much pain, even when I gave him Motrin.  He just walked around the house moaning.  And he was chewing on EVERYTHING.  So, I started experimenting with different things he could chew on to get some relief.  First, I tried the mesh feeder bags you guys suggested with ice cubes and frozen grapes inside, but Bean isn’t a huge fan of really cold things, so those only lasted for a couple minutes.  I tried an ice cold wash cloth and that worked pretty good, but he kept trying to share it with Big Molly and thought the dog hair/wash cloth combination was a bad idea.

Finally, I remembered something I used to do when he first started cutting teeth.  I used to freeze carrot and celery sticks and let him gnaw on those.  They are big enough that they aren’t a choking hazard and if you freeze them, they won’t flake off into little pieces (which is good for little dudes).  Now that Bean is eating solid foods though, I decided not to freeze these.  So, Bean and I had a little snack.

The cool of the veggies feels so good against his sore, raw gums and the shape of these lets him maneuver them into the back of his mouth where those pesky molars live.

I don’t recommend these as teethers unless your wee one is pretty good with solid foods because they do flake off into pieces and, of course, don’t leave them alone with something like this.  But for a few minutes of relief when the teeth are just not giving the little guy a break, they were a perfect pain reliever for Bean Man.

15 Comments

  • Ella

    Poor Bean. Teethings no fun at all. Are these his 2 year molars that he is getting? My son is 2 and his are just starting to come through. I just give his some panadol as well as some teething gel.

    • Katie

      I actually thought of it on my own when we were out to dinner at a restaurant one night and Bean started having a meltdown. All we had were hot wings and celery sticks, so I gave him one of those to entertain him. And then I thought, “Those are great for teething!”

  • Nate's Mom

    Oh! Poor Beanie! Growing is hard enough but growing + growing teeth? Yikes. Nate just cut the two teeth on either side of his big top front ones (and they are BIG. Miss Carrie gasped when she first saw them.). That brings his teeth total to seven. So funny how each kid grows at his/her own pace. Chomp away, little dude!

  • Megan

    We’re moving on to the big molars in the back now. And the incisors. At the same time of course. It’s beyond lovely let me tell ya. And of course…Q-Tip won’t touch the carrots. I tried it after reading another post you wrote about them being good for teething. She won’t have anything to do with them. She’ll eat cooked ones…but not raw ones. Ahhh the eating habits of toddlers. Love it…really love it.

    Megan

    http://reddirtandcrazy.blogspot.com/

  • Candace

    He is so cute…My boys are one and only have 2 teeth each…I feel like teething will be apart of my life forever…I am going to try the celery…thank you!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *