Teething

I've always worked with toddlers and during this age of 1-2 they are still getting their teeth. We have always kept teethers in the fridge in the kitchen or in the room so that as they teeth they have something to chew on. At the second center that I worked at we had a container of teethers we kept in a cabinet. When a child was teething I pulled one out and gave it to the child to chew on and sanitized it at the end of the day. When a child wanted a teether I taught them to come over to me and say, "Bite." I used the word bite because that's what they would do with the teether, they would bite it.

At the second center I worked at I had a little girl who when she was teething she teethed quicker than any child I have ever taken care of. When she was teething she would point to the cabinet I kept them in and say, "bite." I would give her one and she would bite it to relieve the pain of the tooth coming in. As she would sit and bite it she would moan and groan. It made me feel so bad because giving her the teether to bite on was all I was allowed to do. If the parents brought in orajel and filled out a form to give it to her I could do that but the parents chose not to do that so all I could do was give her the teether. This little girl would chew on it every day all week long until the tooth came in. As a result every day she would ask for the teether and moan and groan as it came in. I eventually gave her the same teether everyday and one day at the end of the day I noticed it had a hole in it. Instead of sanitizing it I threw it out.

I have never seen someone teeth as fast as this little girl. It was crazy. She was irritable the whole time the tooth was coming in. Once it came in though she would be happy until the next one started to come in and we'd go through the whole process again.