Teething and Sleep with a Highly Sensitive Child
I can vividly remember when the dreaded teething topic entered my mum circle. We all had babies born within a few months of each other and so often referred to the group WhatsApp for advice.
‘Have you tried Sophie Giraffe for teething? So and so has been struggling today with his gums and chewing on that has helped. Other than that I barely notice when he’s teething they just pop right up overnight’.
This message spun in my head for days. Maybe my daughter’s distress wasn’t teething. Maybe I had missed an allergy or something more serious. Cue anxiety spiral every single time she is teething! I think it’s only now that she is two and a half and coming to the end of teething her final molars that I can safely say no she is just highly sensitive and seems to be hit with every single anecdotal teething symptom that parents report.
So this is the blog I needed when teething greatly impacts baby and toddler sleep and temperament.
Teething Symptoms straight from the mouth of a parent to an extreme teether:
Digestive Issues – her sensitive tummy would increase. More reflux, posseting, and lots of hiccups which resulted in her wanting to nurse ALL the time to soothe.
Diarrhoea – It always confuses me that this isn’t noted as a symptom of teething because in our experience it was the most obvious symptom. She would have diarrhoea which I can only assume was caused by the increase in stomach and acid and salvia which in turn made her poo smell like vinegar. If you know you know!
A teething and dribble rash which always causes me to wonder whether it’s an allergy and thus a skin issue rather than just extreme teething symptoms.
Temperatures – These temperatures sometimes last for a week or more. Often starting at 100 – 102 and then dropping to 99 for a few days!
Bright red cheeks and ears.
My daughter will get huge dark circles under her eyes and appear tired, lethargic, and yawning throughout the day. She also requires much more rest, stories, and snuggles during these seasons. It’s the same type of lethargy that accompanies viruses.
My daughter would be latched all night long! I always know she is teething because my nipples are raw from the constant day and night nursing which she uses to soothe her discomfort.
My daughter is always a lot more fretful, agitated, irritated, and sensitive than usual and she’s often functioning with a low level of these traits anyway.
Although many parents will report some of these symptoms it is not often that children will experience all of them and all of them at the more extreme end of the scale. We followed all the advice and had the situation assessed by the doctor and the conclusion was that she was very sensitive to teething.
So how to survive if your baby or toddler is an extreme teether?
Firstly ensure that are seen by their doctor to rule out anything more serious.
Survival in the day – If you are nursing my advice would be to lean into that as much as you can. It is a wonderful physical, mental and emotional calming device for children and helps to soothe their pain and keeps them close to their caregiver where they will naturally want to be when they are suffering. Alongside this, I have found that chamomilla despite my initial skepticism has been incredibly beneficial. My 2-and-a-half-year-old will now ask for this when she is teething as she can notice the impact. Alongside this, homemade ice lollies have helped to soothe pain and ensured she was eating enough because her appetite diminishes when she is teething.
Survival at night – As with anything baby and sleep-related @heysleepybaby has a wealth of information and signposting on her Instagram account. I was glad I found this page early and could use it as a reference point for knowing that this was going to have an impact on sleep and could do so for a prolonged period as the child is teething. I tried to lean into this and change my mindset. I knew I wanted to be able to soothe my child through the pain and co-sleeping and breast sleeping allows me to gain as much rest as possible through these difficult seasons. I nurse on demand throughout the night and this has helped soothe my baby and allows her to rest even during her extreme teething bouts. I try to catch up on sleep during the day and ask for help from my community when I feel I need some extra time to recover. I also have chamomilla on hand overnight if she needs something extra to help her through.
Although it’s taken me time to piece together the path her teething bouts take, I feel that with each teething episode she has gone through, trial and error has helped me to find the best ways to help both her and myself through it. As a family, we practice gentle parenting and I try to lean into the gentlest ways of soothing her as she goes through these things. However, one of the things that I wish I had done was to work with a sleep consultant such as @Heysleepybaby and her co-workers to try and eliminate some of the anxiety spirals I was experiencing and to help me build up a clearer picture early on of what was happening during these periods. Having some outside perspective, working through some of the symptoms, and trying to piece it all together with some outside help would have been helpful in my sleep-deprived state. I find it hard to emotionally remove myself to be able to look at the problem with a much-needed perspective. Some of the things I have mentioned are potential red flags with baby and toddler sleep and looking at them in isolation was causing my anxiety to spiral. @Heysleepybaby has a teething highlight on her Instagram page and this is a good place to start and then progress to a 1-to-1 consultation if you would like something extra.
