The Sleep Lady

Date: May 29, 2014
Author: Emm
Categories: Age: 12-18 months, Age: 3-6 months, Age: 6-9 months, Age: General Baby/Infant, Behavioural & Cognitive-Behavioural Psychology, Routines & Schedules, Sleep
Comments: 3 Replies

Baby sleep tips and issues, psychological perspectives and do you want to Wait It Out or Cry It Out? baby-brain.co.uk

 

sleeping cot

So yesterday the Little Lovely and I went to a baby talk thingy about sleep (aged 5 months)

We’d actually been to it before, a couple of months ago, and the session was being run again by a sleep expert woman that you can hire the services of for quite a lot of money. She kept it quite generic as there were a lot of mothers there with various issues but some common aspects among us, mostly being that baby was not sleeping as long as we’d like them to (of course) or issues with getting baby off to sleep. It was very interesting to go, normalised the sleep issues because, as we discussed, even if you have some “friend” or mother you come across that states that their child sleeps for 12 hours at night uninterrupted, that is the exception and not the norm. I’ll add though that the babies here were probably all under 8-10 months old.
It also made me think that maybe LL’s sleeping isn’t that bad afterall! Sure, i’m up about 3 times a night to feed him and I get about 2-3 hour stretches of sleep, but some of the mothers there were up 7 times a night and one spoke about how her baby scratches himself at night and only falls asleep by scratching himself. She had to put gloves on him. The sleep lady thought that the touching and scratching was something he did to stimulate himself and help get himself to sleep and suggested a comforter with tags or something tactile on it. Interesting situation; wish we’d spoken about it more but unfortunately someone with a louder voice took up a lot of the time (as is often the case in groups) about how her child sleeps from 8 until 5am, but she couldn’t get him to sleep any later than 5am and was tired of getting up so early. Someone eventually commented, when the group couldn’t find any satisfactory solution, maybe she should be happy that her child is sleeping for 9 hours at a time because most of us are not. Harsh, but true especially when speaking to a group of sleep deprived mothers who have been deprived for about half a year or more.

 

Other issues we talked about:
    • sleep associations
    • independent comforters – for example using a comforter, blanket, something that is independent from you and is not the breast, being rocked by you etc, so that baby can use this to feel secure and self sooth and you do not need to be there every time he falls sleeps. We tried this with LL but it never really took off. I bought a nice comforter blanket and slept with it for a few nights (as the sleep lady recommended, to get your smell on it) and got it out when feeding LL (the sleep lady recommended actually putting it between you and baby when feeding) but he wasn’t interested. Another thing I could have done but didn’t would be to play with it with LL and associate it with fun and get him more used to it.
    • putting baby down when sleeping/drowsy – using whatever method you use for baby to get sleepy e.g. rocking, cuddles, etc, but not using these to the point where he is actually asleep and therefore teaching baby the skill of falling asleep independently (much easier said than done, of course)
    • a good bedtime routine, nap routines including use of certain words such as “sleeping time now” or any other word cues. Basically, weaving some cues into the routine so that baby can start to recognise it’s nearly sleep time by using words, song, actions like reading a book
    • something called “wake to sleep” – i’ve not heard of this, I need to look into it more (note to self – look into this)
    • shaping naps with baby after 5 months of age – this was good to hear because i was thinking that we need to start getting a good nap routine and schedule in place and LL is nearly 5 and half months.
    • start with one nap at a time, focus on it and then build on it – building on the above point, to focus on one nap and work on that to begin with – also good to hear because I have been focussing on the morning nap with LL and making sure we 1) do one! 2) he is in his cot 3) he falls asleep in his cot which he mostly does although sometimes I need to go into the bedroom and shush/pat or pick him up and comfort him a few times. We were previously doing morning naps in the buggy because LL only fell asleep by being pushed back and forth in it.

 

We also spoke about whether you should let your baby cry at night and there were mixed views. There was the view that “happy parent makes happy baby” and so if baby cries for a bit during “sleep training” but then sleeps better as the outcome then everyone in the family benefits. I know that this could be a contentious issue as some are very firmly no cry, and others are not. I have also come across the view that leaving baby to “cry it out” and “controlled crying” results in an eventual reduction of crying, a quieter baby and better sleeping because it actually develops learned helplessness – the baby stops crying and sleeps because they have learnt that nothing they do in the situation can help and they have no control. They have learnt this because the times that they did cry, they were left to cry, or were comforted but didn’t receieve a feed or get picked up or whatever else they were expecting. Therefore, they are helpless and give up, rather than the view that the sleep training intervention resulted in baby sleeping peacefully because they “learnt” to sleep, learnt that it is night time and therefore they should be tired and sleep.

 

Ψ here’s a nice short video and further info on the traditional meaning of learned helplessness, observations/research that led to the development of the term (Seligman), and it’s application to mental health (attributions)

 

Erm, not sure about this myself, seems bit extreme, I mean, we’re talking about behavioural aspects here. Ok, say there is a behaviour going on that is not really very nice and leads to some problems for another person, say for example, your child goes around hitting another child and screaming in their face. Most people would address this and implement some kind of behavioural strategy, maybe some kind of reinforcement or positive punishment such as telling the child off, removing a reward (negative punishment) etc.

 

Ψ Here’s a good page that explains positive/negative reinforcement and punishers – for example, they explain that “punishment” doesn’t necessarily mean there is a harmful or dangerous consequence, it’s a process where a consequence immediately follows a behaviour which decreases the future likelihood of that behaviour occurring. Positive punishment is where a negative consequence is put in place after the behaviour, like sending child to “time out” or telling them off, and negative punishment where a good thing or desired outcome is removed after the behaviour occurs, such as removing cake/sweets/ice cream because the child was “naughty”. Reinforcement is where behaviour increases. Positive reinforcement is where a behaviour increases because  it’s followed by a positive/motivating consequence such as praise, reward, like giving a kid money (positive) for doing chores (the behaviour). Negative reinforcement is where behaviour increases because a negative consequence is removed, such as a kid does his chores (behaviour) to avoid being nagged to do it (negative).

 

Ψ punishers = want to decrease frequency/likelihood of a behaviour

Ψ reinforcers = want to increase frequency/likelihood of a behaviour

 

Anyway, what was my point~? I think it was that you might implement some kind of behavioural strategy or consequence for some behaviours but would we call the desired outcome, i.e. the kid stops screaming at and hitting the other child, an example of learned helplessness? Why implement the strategy in the first place? Well because not many people in the situation are benefiting – the other child isn’t, the parent isn’t, and what’s the child’s motivation or concern that is leading to him screaming and hitting? Because parents are “training” or “guiding” their child in something, be it sleep or other behaviours, why must the outcome be labelled learned helplessness? Each family and parent is different and has their own motivation and justification for what they do, and if by leaving their child to cry for a few minutes at a time while periodically comforting them (or not, depending on the parent), so that the outcome is that they can sleep and therefore better parent their children and cope with the day, then so be it.
I fell asleep

I fell asleep

And so speaking of which, I’m also going to start working on some of these night time feeds because i’m not sure how good it is for either of us to be waking up every few hours. I might start with one and see what happens. Did I mention that I’ve been sleep deprived for almost half a year?

 

 

 

 

Please note: there are of course many other views and approaches to the change to one’s sleeping patterns that comes with children. See, for example, this post on something called “wait it out” (rather than cry it out, I assume).
A quote from the article (I especially like point 1 about sleep being developmental, not behavioural):

WIO or the “Wait it Out” Method of sleep training is a method with a few core beliefs:

1- Independent sleep is developmental not behavioral. 
2- Needing comfort and closeness is an instinct not a preference.
3- Cries are communication not manipulation.
4- Babies can slowly and gently learn to be comfortable with independent sleep as they are developmentally ready.
5- The path each baby will take to independent sleep is unique.
6- The progression to independent sleep does not always feel like forward momentum.

 

Further relevant links:

 

 

Reading

Date: May 10, 2014
Author: Emm
Categories: Uncategorized
Comments: 3 Replies

Reading with babies and children: The why, what & how, psychological perspectives and findings. Baby-brain.co.uk

In this article I cover:

  • What baby/child and parent gains from reading 
  • Summary of psychological research and links between reading and skill development (e.g. literacy, language, communication)
  • Tips and ideas to get the most out reading with baby
  • Reading with baby – including visual aspects and development, high contrast flash cards (free download) how to engage baby in books
  • Reading with Toddlers
  • Books without words – for older children (post toddlers)

 

Reading with babies and children: the why, what & how

Look-a-book

Reading books to baby from an early age might not quite make sense, I mean they can’t read, concentrate for too long or even see very well can they? But – it is highly encouraged and has many benefits. There is even research looking at reading to babies in the neonatal intensive care unit, and the positive impact on parent-infant interaction, helping parents feel closer to their baby, increased sense of control and intimacy. It also promoted later reading with the baby (1).

At nearly 5 months, the Little Lovely mainly likes to try and taste the book and get the corners of board books in his mouth. We have a few cloth books also that just get chewed upon. But he also appears to look and listen to the story.

 

For a summary on reading with ages 0-3 months, 3-6m and 6-12m see this page here: Reading with baby: what, why and how to

 

About reading:

 ♦ Baby will recognise mother’s voice from the womb (5) .
 ♦ Reading may therefore reassure baby of the parent’s presence when read to at a young age (1).
 ♦ Hearing your voice will also engage and stimulate.

 

What else do you get out of reading with baby? Quite a lot actually. Reading:
Reading

Cloth book reading – you can chew on it easier!

    • Is bonding (parent-child interaction, sense of comfort and security)

    • Involves learning about your child; their choices, responses and reactions

    • Fun (add different voices, actions, ask questions, etc)

    • Increases communication

    • Simulates your child’s imagination

    • Involves visual development

    • Memory aspects

      (especially if you’re repeatedly reading the same book or their favourite book – the child will come to know what to expect/anticipate at certain parts of the book – repetition can be good)

    • Instrumental in the development of reading skills

 

    • Supports emerging literacy and later language skills

        • For example, this study (2) set out to investigate at what age shared reading begins to impact on later literacy skills. Shared book reading with infants at 8 months was found to relate to language abilities later on when the child was 12 and 16 months old, particularly with girls, and with expressive language  (being able to put thoughts into words and sentences).
        • Reading with younger infants who were 4 months old though was not found to significantly relate to later expressive language.
        • This doesn’t mean it is not important or beneficial to read with infants under 8 months – don’t forget about the other benefits mentioned in this list of reading with younger babies, plus this is only one study . The study also concludes that “more research is needed to clarify what parents say and do when reading to pre-verbal infants” – so we don’t know enough about what parents do and how they do it when reading to younger babies and how this might effect the development of language skills.
        • And, reading with 4 month olds was found to be related to shared book reading when they were 8 months old, indicating the development of a good reading habit and pattern of behaviour that started from early in the child’s life.

 

– Six-month-old babies are good at recognition. 
– Babies crave novel stimuli.
– Eight-month-old babies can auditorily recognize specific words read from a story book for up to  two weeks.
– Five-month-old babies can remember visual stimuli up to two weeks. 

 

Get the most out of reading:

what's in here?

what’s in here?

  • Read with expression

    Sometimes we put more expression in our voices when reading than we would when having a conversation – baby therefore hears more of this when reading to them than they might just from listening to every day chatting.

don’t forget about facial expression and mirroring baby’s expression also – babies are fascinated by faces. 

  • Interactive reading is important

This study (3) writes that Interaction is “the key” to language development during reading, not just the child hearing the the sounds of words being read from the page. The research found that babies made more speech like sounds during reading than two other activities (puppet and toy play). And, mothers were more responsive to these sounds during reading than the other activities; their responses were often imitations or an extension of the sound, e.g. if baby said “ba”, mother might say “ba-ba-ba”, or “ball”.

 

  • Describe and name the pictures, describe what is happening

    Children’s books don’t always have that much text, but make the most out of the pictures. what’s going on? what are the colours? is there something relevant to your life and baby such as there is a cat in the story and maybe you have a cat too. What sound does the cat make? What colour is he? And so on.

 

  • You don’t have to use children’s books – read to baby from whatever you are reading.

I was trying to have some mummy time the other day in a coffee shop with LL asleep in pram. He wakes up just as I was enjoying the paper and my soya decaf sugar free vanilla syrup extra hot latte. So I read him what I was reading in the paper and tried to have a conversation around it by asking him what he made of various aspects of the story. He just looked at me though…. I’ll take it that he was carefully considering the questions and constructing a detailed answer.

  • Get creative

    Make your own books, books without words, flash cards, visual stimulation cards, pictures of faces (for younger babies especially)

I bought some black and white (high contrast) flash cards off of ebay (see picture below) but could have made these with use of a laminator, probably easier said than done with a 2 month old baby to look after however. Yeah a few quid spent at ebay probably a bit easier at the time. 

  • Make links between what you read and what baby does later in the day – e.g. if the story was about baby’s day, brushing your teeth, a happy cat or whatever, talk about it if later if you see a cat.

  • Use a variety of books

  • look for baby’s verbal and non-verbal responses to help with your “conversation” about the the book/story (2)

 

Reading with baby:

 

Visual aspects and development

High contrast visual image and baby. Reading with babies and children: The why, what & how. Baby-brain.co.uk

Baby looking at high contrast visual image cards

The visual system is not fully developed at birth (4), and sight develops gradually. Baby has difficulty distinguishing between similar colours such as orange and red and so prefers high contrast colours such as black and white.
High Contrast Images / Flash Cards

high contrast images for babies, as used with LL

I therefore subjected the poor LL to some high contrast “flash cards” and images from an early age (← pictured left)! I’m not sure how much interest he took in them, but the red image was in his Moses basket along with a black and white image that I now can’t find. It’s a post card I bought at a local book shop when LL was a few weeks old. I also brought them out when changing him to distract him. The cards on the bottom row were from Ebay and not very expensive.
The images on the top left are nice sturdy, double sided flash cards on thick board threaded onto a plastic hoop. You can take each image off the hoop and share it with baby. LL was mainly interested in trying to put the board in his mouth. Here is LL on the right a little bit older (8 months) and able to hold and investigate the cards better. You could probably easily make these cards, find strong images in magazines, cut out, laminate or glue onto cardboard or postcards. They were not very easy to have a conversation around but I’m sure you could come up with something or point out the contrasting colours, images, shapes etc.

 

 

Some stimulation cards are available free to download online, like these ones, but please note I haven’t looked through all these myself – take a look or search for more that might take your fancy. Here are some more available to download
Simple square high contrast flash cards for babies - visual stimulation - baby-brain.co.uk

Click image – High contrast flash cards for baby – simple square designs – available to print

Download & print for free: High contrast images, newborn & baby, visual images, 0-6 months

Mixed high contrast images – click to open

Download & print for free: High contrast images, newborn & baby, visual images, 0-6 months

Mixed high contrast images – click to open

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Engaging baby in the book

Setting up a good reading habit and familiarization with books and reading materials can start off at a very young age (note the research above that showed that reading at 4 months was related to the baby reading at 8 months, which is turn was related to language abilities at 12 and 16 months).
But how can you physically do this? I came across this neat little idea (picture below) from a pediatric Occupational Therapist (candokiddo.com) to help babies “turn pages and look at a board book more independently”.
She writes:

Wrap rubber bands around the spine of your book to separate a few of the pages. This will keep them from sticking together and help your little one to turn them long before she can separate them.

 

Be sure to take the rubber bands off after each reading time so that they don’t damage the spine of the book.

 

Caution – rubber bands can snap and be swallowed….closely supervise your baby for safety (eyes on baby within arm’s reach).

how to help young babies turn book pages independently. idea from candokiddo, pediatric occpational therapist, via baby-brain.co.uk

Rubber bands – to help babies turn book pages independently

 

Reading with babies and children: The why, what & how, psychological perspectives and findings. Baby-brain.co.uk

A range of book options to help engage baby

There are also a range of book mediums to engage baby in book including cloth books, books with textures like the sticking out textured animal tails book (pictured left), and peek a boo/lift the flap books. These are also sensory and encourage curiosity and investigation.

 

 

 

 

 

Reading with Toddlers:

 

Here’s a nice post from The Educators Spin On It, about how to select, limit and display books for toddlers. They suggest that:

Less Books = More Reading

They also write that when selecting books:
  • Chose books with a range of textures, colours, moving parts (we have quite a few “peek a boo” and lift the flap books, for example)
  • Take your exisiting books into consideration when buying new – e.g. you might not want 5 books about a cat called Billy, unless your child is cat mad, that is
  • Build a diverse bookshelf with range of topics

 

When displaying and limiting books:
  • Remove books that are not enjoyed or read – I take a bag of kid’s stuff to charity every now and again – then buy more from charity to replace!
  • ROTATE books – just like you might do with toys. Put part of the book collection away and swap them every so often to keep the books fresh and engaging (unless your child likes reading Mog every night for 6 months)
  • Display books in an engaging and accessible way, maybe showing each book front on so your toddler can choose easily, and store at toddler height

 

 

Books without words

Book the Lion and the Mouse

Wordless Books

And lastly, at least for now, a bit about books without words. How does that work and what are the benefits of “reading” books without words? These are more than picture books or basic baby books that have random colours and pictures on each page – they tell a story. With an older child, you both get to be creative, flesh out the story and develop the narrative together. It encourages curiosity, creativity, gets you both asking questions and having conversations. With a younger child you may be doing most of the talking but previous benefits still apply. An example is this almost wordless Aesop’s Fable, the Lion and the Mouse.

 

Further Links

                 0-3, 3-6 and 6-12 months discussed

 

The moral of the story is to enjoy reading with baby/child and the other developmental stuff will be thrown in as a bonus outcome.

 

 

 

 

References:
  1. Lariviere & Rennick (2011). Parent picture-book reading to infants in the neonatal intensive care unit as an intervention supporting parent-infant interaction and later book reading. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 32 (2),  pp 146-152.
  2. Karras, J. & Braungart-Rieker, J. (2005). Effects of shared parent-infant book reading on early language acquisition. Applied Developmental Psychology, 26, 133-148.
  3. Julie Gros-Louis, Meredith J. West, Andrew P. King. The Influence of Interactive Context on Prelinguistic Vocalizations and Maternal Responses. Language Learning and Development, 2016; 
  4. Brémond-Gignac D., Copin H., Lapillonne A., Milazzo S. (2011). Visual development in infants: physiological and pathological mechanisms. Curr. Opin. Ophthalmol. 22, S1–S8.
  5. Decasper AJ, Fifer WP. Of human bonding: newborns prefer their mothers’ voice. Science. 1980;208:1174 –1176.
Other references influencing this page:
  • High P, Lagasse L, Becker S, Algren L, Gardner A. Literacy promotion in primary care pediatrics: can we make a difference? Pediatrics. 2000;105:927–934.
  • Sullivan and Brown, 2014. Vocabulary from adolescence to middle-age, Centre for Longitudinal Studies, Working Paper 2014/7

Day Time Schedules

Date: April 29, 2014
Author: Emm
Categories: Age: 3-6 months, Behavioural & Cognitive-Behavioural Psychology, Mental Health, Routines & Schedules
Comments: Leave a reply

Thinking more about him sleeping through the night, I was thinking about schedules. ???????????????????????????????

I’m attempting a better day time schedule (maybe this will positively impact on night time?). So far we don’t really have one. This is terrible I know because in my work I am all about behavioural interventions and working with people to log their activities and create meaningful activities and some structure to their day. In my depression related work with adults this can be fundamental and people often see an increase in mood with an increase in meaningful activities, good self care and better sleep at night. At the moment with LL we just do what I think he wants to do when he wants to do it. It’s probably an extension of the feeding and sleeping on demand that was present from birth. But now I’m wondering if the lack of structure and routine is just not very containing or predictable for him, or for me. Naps and feeds then get thrown off and can occur at any time. He doesn’t know what to expect and neither do I.

In another attempt to break the eat-sleep association, I’m trying to not feed before naps and instead to do a feed, wake (inc. play/activities/baby classes etc) and then sleep kind of structure. I just need to work out how long each cycle should be. Some say 3, some say 4 hours at this stage (e.g. Baby Whisperer; LL is 4.5 months). The eat-sleep association just kind of arose because it was difficult to get LL off to sleep initially and that seemed to work. Rocking him while singing row your boat also seemed to work for day time naps and although I knew that in the long term these methods might not be great because he was reliant on my rocking or feeding, I didn’t mind because at least he was getting some sleep and not cyring about being tired. I thought – well I’ll just have to make changes to any habits later on because at this point (first few weeks/months) any sleep is better than no sleep, and I don’t care how we achieve it! And the longer the sleep, the better.

Ok so plan for next few weeks is to start more of a day time routine! Consistency and predictability is really important.

When will he sleep through the night?

Date: April 27, 2014
Author: Emm
Categories: Age: 3-6 months, Behavioural & Cognitive-Behavioural Psychology, Routines & Schedules, Sleep
Comments: Leave a reply

So we are still getting up a few times a night for feeds.

The Little Lovely (LL) seems to wake up around 1am, 3:30/4am and then about 6:30am. Apparently 6:30am is classed as morning and doesn’t count as a night awakening. Well it does in my book because it’s still the middle of the night and too early for me. He goes to bed around 8pm so can now go a good 5 hours before waking which is great compared to the earlier months and weeks when I was getting up every 2 hours to feed him and it was horrible. I think I must have adapted to disturbed sleep and little sleep. I wonder if my sleep cycle has adapted so that the times LL wakes up actually coincide with the end of a sleep cycle? I have no idea if that’s possible.

What’s the research on this? (note to self – look into this)

So now I’m wondering if he should be sleeping without so many feeds and if I should be doing something about this – or if he is still too young. I don’t mind the first feed at 1am because he has had a good stretch of sleep. But is the next feed necessary? Should we just put up with it until he’s weaned or should we spend a few screamy nights of breaking the eat/sleep association)? Yaaay says LL’s father, to the latter idea. But what if he is genuinely hungry?

A quick look at the internet says that LL might be a “habitual waker” because he tends to wake at the same time every night. Apparently if he was going through a growth spurt and needed the food he would be waking at random times. We briefly attempted not feeding him during one waking the other night and all that happened was he cried at us and refused to be soothed or settled by cuddles, rocking or any other soothing and only calmed once he was fed.

Maybe I can try a briefer feed and slowly cut down on the length/time of feed to change the association between eating and sleeping  (I have to suckle in order to fall asleep, otherwise I can’t do it alone).Although I’m not sure if a graded approach will work because I would still be feeding him to sleep, plus I’m very tired at 4am and might dose off and lose track of how long it’s been or it might work somewhat but take some time. And dosing off while nursing (both of us) is probably contributing to the issue.

I’ve found this:

PANTLEY’S GENTLE REMOVAL PLAN (See here)

More on how Pantley developed The No-Cry Sleep Solution and her research methods

from what I understand, this involves:

  • Feeding baby when awake but rather than letting him fall asleep during the feed and whilst sucking, wait until he is relaxed and sleepy, then remove the breast/bottle just before falling asleep.
  • If baby starts to look for the breast/bottle and tries to continue sucking then try to hold his mouth closed gently by putting a finger under his chin or some light pressure on the chin just below his lips (hmm, sounds easier said than done). You can rock the baby or say comforting words while doing this.
  • If this doesn’t go down well then give the bottle/breast again and repeat the process until he falls asleep without sucking.
  • When removing the breast/bottle, do this for about 10-60 seconds and count while you do this
  • Repeat each night until baby can fall asleep on own and does not frequently wake at night.
  • Work on this technique at bedtime, in particular the initial falling asleep as baby will probably want to fall asleep the same way for the rest of the night following any further awakenings.
  • Once night time use of this method is achieved then it can also be used for naps.
  • It could take several days or longer to break the association but you should eventually see a reduction in night awakenings

…… well we’ll see how well that goes down!

(see Pantley’s book if you are interested in more – I haven’t read it, just found the information above from general sleep and baby forum reading online)

The other option is just to not nurse LL to sleep in the first place and to break the association, or develop a new association there. We should try reading a book or singing a lullaby or something immediately before sleep.

  • Rather than feeding him in the bedroom right before he falls asleep maybe I’ll feed him in the living room with a dim light – then take him into the bedroom for a story or another quiet activity immediately prior to sleep.

Tooth for the Price of One!

Date: April 26, 2014
Author: Emm
Categories: Age: 3-6 months, Teething
Comments: Leave a reply

Two for the price of one!

There’s two teeth there not just one! ogre tooth two

The Little Lovely’s daddy noticed another one coming in right next to the first. Poor boy. I wonder if it’s confusing for him to have these things suddenly appear and hurt in his mouth. No calpol, granuals or teething gel today. I did get another teether though in case it helps him. He doesn’t seem to be too interested in them though and prefers to chew on his or my hand instead.

Although he’s been drooly for a while, teething symptoms apparently occur significantly more frequently in the days before, during and after the tooth emergence (an 8-day teething period or “window” – says a recentish study (1)). Might explain some irritability and poor sleep we all had recently.  The study didn’t find high fever to be associated with teething, something that I was looking out for and relying on to confirm teething! Although a mild rise in temperature was associated.  Some infants had no symptoms, but they do helpfully highlight “mild symptoms” found to be temporally associated with teething including increased biting, drooling, gum-rubbing, sucking, irritability, wakefulness, ear-rubbing and facial rash. Although, no particular cluster of symptoms were found to reliably predict the imminent emergence of a tooth — so poot if I was looking for a predictive formula. oh well, only one study.

Note though symptoms are not necessarily caused by teething (they are only associated) – for example, this study (2) writes that  “during this same time period of an infant’s life, passive immunity due to maternal antibodies wanes and exposure to a wide variety of childhood illnesses occurs. Due to this temporal relationship, teething often is blamed for symptoms such as changes in sleep and eating patterns, rhinorrhea, drooling, rash, fussiness, and diarrhea.”

 

References:

(1) Macknin et al., (2000).  Symptoms Associated With Infant Teething: A Prospective Study. Pediatrics, 105 (4), pp. 747 -752

(2) Markman, L. (2009). Teething Facts and Fiction. Pediatrics in Review, 30, pp. e59 -e64 

Is that a tooth?

Date: April 25, 2014
Author: Emm
Categories: Age: 3-6 months, Teething
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small chair LL  The Little Lovely (LL- as pictured) is teething!

He’s been drooly for a while now, and could get quite irritated, so we suspected It could be teething but then we also weren’t sure as he can get slobbery and annoyed at other times as well. He gets particularly drooly before his bedtime feed; I started singing the song “truly scrumptious” but replacing “truly” with “drooly”, until the song got stuck in our heads and LL’s daddy banned the song. In fact I’m singing the song now. I just googled it and found this website, so I’m apparently not the only one making that association. Unfortunately for me the site is American, so I can’t buy anything there. Too bad, this one looks quite nice

ogre tooth

Anyway, he has one little toothy peg coming in on the bottom in the middle. He’s going to look like a ogre with one little tooth sticking out, but it appears that he is “normal” in terms of this tooth coming in first according to info on order of tooth appearance.

I was sitting next to a nanny at a baby class, and she told me that when the front and bottom teeth come in the baby looks like a rabbit – nice! She said she has nannied 7 babies so far and has her own children, so I suppose she should know.

I was recommended those chamomile teething granules so we used one today and a bit of teething gel. LL didn’t seem at all concerned that we were putting strange stuff in his mouth. I don’t know if they work yet for him, it’s only been used the once.

I was a bit upset when he first started drooling and I suspected teething. And now he actually has one coming through it means he’s not a baby anymore and and a reminder he won’t need milk forever. He’s on the way to chewing and munching through his own foods. He’s only 4.5 months old, it all seems a bit early. My little baby is no longer so little.

I need to find a gum massager and other teething tools. We have some teethers that I bought a few weeks ago, but he is not very interested in chewing on them. I got a chewable toothbrush but I’ve seen some that you can put on your finger for babies to chew. This might be a better idea because LL is a big fan of hand and finger chewing, both his own and anyone else’s.

 

Earworms