Molar Meltdown

I haven't been around the last week because I've been in molar teething hell with Alexa. We had seven straight nights of less than three continuous hours of sleep. Do you know what that does to a person?? This is not newborn baby wake up, change diaper, nurse and go back to bed middle of the night hell. This is a whole new torture chamber that this mom was not prepared for!

Alexa's always had a rough time with teething. She sports two bright red, super hot cheeks, her temperature teeters between low-grade and high fever and her personality turns uber needy. This time around there were no red cheeks, no temperature change whatsoever, but the neediness was replaced by whininess and clinginess to a degree I could have never imagined. I wasn't allowed more than two feet away from her or she would produce this horrible, high pitched, squeally whine that could only be stopped by picking her up and rocking her for a few minutes. She completely stopped sleeping through the night and turned into a little havoc wreaking zombie toddler.

I hate teething. I really hate molar teething.

After four sleepless nights I was close to breaking. A friend of mine sent me this blogpost to read and it definitely cracked me up and made me realize we would survive this horrible, rotten, no good, very bad week. However, after I read through the comments I did cry because I was doing absolutely everything that every other mom had tried and still, nothing was helping. Nothing was calming her down, reducing the pain, helping her sleep or making those damn molars pop through any faster!

Here's the list of tried and true teething stuff that we used and that lots of other moms suggested as well:

-Hyland's teething tablets (worked like a charm for regular teeth, was basically a snack during molar time)
-Dentinox gel (this is a prescription teething gel here in Europe, in the states I guess baby Anbesol or baby Orajel would work)
-Ibuprofen (in the correct dose for your child, this did seem to help a little bit. Ibuprofen combined with the Dentinox helped initially at bedtime)
-Frozen washcloths or cold washcloths to chew on
-Cold, peeled, raw carrots (parental supervision needed. I just peel a whole carrot and let her gnaw on it)
-Snuggles (I know this sounds like common sense, but after not sleeping for nearly a week, the last thing I was thinking was, "Hey let's snuggle together and it'll be great!" I was more of the "Why are you still clinging to me? What in god's name is going to make you stop whining?!?!?!" It's horrible, but it's true. No sleep makes me very irritable. Getting down on the floor and just hanging out really helped. I pulled the pillows off the couch, brought out our big comfy comforter from the bedroom and put on a movie for us to watch. I also pulled some of her favorite books out and we just hung out, snuggled, watched a bit of the movie, read a book and then snuggled some more. I wish tired me had thought of this sooner!)
-Cold sippy cups of water or milk (Alexa usually drinks cold water no problem, but pre-molars preferred warm milk. This past week it has been icy cold goodness all the way!)
-Freezer pops (Simple genius. I offered a freezer pop in between the ibuprofen and the teething gel.)
-Frozen apples (or other fruit) in a mesh feeder (This was the golden ticket for us! (Thank you Brandi) Alexa was not eating anything except applesauce and yogurt because chewing hurt, but frozen apples got a little bit of food in her tummy and soothed her aching gums at the same time.)

As of last night, I think one of the bottom molars has broken through the skin. She has been in a substantially better mood the last two days and I can only hope the upswing continues as the molars come all the way through. This was such a horrible and trying week. I'm hoping next week is much better.