Just after we completed a week of sleep training via the Sleepeasy Solution, Lulu started cutting her first tooth… As soon as that tooth came in, she had a day of calm and then a second tooth began coming in. Lulu got her first two teeth within 5 days. Amazing.
We completely abandoned sleep expectations during this time because Lulu was simply too fussy and uncomfortable. During this very difficult week, we tried giving her Tylenol (alledgedly the miracle cure during teething) and Camilia, a homeopathic treatment that’s supposed to curb the immediate discomfort. To be honest, I’m not sure the Camilia ever really worked. Lulu never had a momentary pause after taking it where she seemed to ease a little. The Tylenol did seem to help, but not nearly as much as I would have liked… It’s NOT an IMMEDIATE soother – it takes at least 30 minutes to set in. At the end of the week, we got the go-ahead from our doctor to try Motrin and that did seem to help much more quickly than the Tylenol. Then again, perhaps the worst of Lulu’s pain was already over. Also, I tried to put orajel on her gums once, but she fussed so much, it ended up all over her lips and tongue. I put it on my tongue to see what would happen and hours later, it was still kind of numb. It just wasn’t feasible to apply it to the correct area with Lulu, so I stopped considering it as an option.
As the week was passing, I was pretty stressed out about backtracking in the progress we’d made with sleep training. Looking back now, on the other side of round one with teething, I know I did the right thing to take Lulu out of the crib and comfort her as often as necessary. I’m sure there were times she was crying just out of habit, but for the most part, I believe she was upset when she was in pain.
Now that the storm has passed, Lulu is back to going to sleep readily according to the training. She goes down great for naps and bedtime. The only regression we’ve experienced is that she is waking in the middle of the night and we are back on a “get up, feed her and settle her back down” routine. We are presently on vacation, and Lulu even went to sleep great on her own in a new strange crib and environment! As soon as we return, we will re-start weaning off of night feeds and I have every confidence that we will succeed.
What Worked For Sleeping While Teething?
Every night, 30 minutes before bed, we gave Lulu Tylenol. If the woke up in the middle of the night, the first thing we did was offer her some Camilia. If she persisted in crying, we’d take her out of the crib, hold and rock her or feed her… whatever was necessary to calm her down. After some hugs and closeness, she settled back to sleep.
Several nights we gave her Tylenol every 4 hours. I think Motrin would have actually worked better and during the next round, this is what we’ll use.
During the worst of the teething pain Lulu seemed to get great comfort from suckling on my breast without eating, and I had her with me in bed many times in that one night.
Sleeping:
After the teething finally passed, Lulu was really overtired. She had gotten the requisite 13-15 hours of sleep each 24 hours, but in shorter patches than usual, and this up-and-down wore on her spirit. After the peak of the teething pain had passed, she was still restless and edgy from lack of quality sleep, which led her sleeping pattern to continue to be fragmented. We needed to get ahead of the curve, so for several days, I added a fourth nap to her schedule (after the teething had passed) by taking her on a long car ride each day. This seemed to help her catch up and get back into a pleasant mood and rhythm.
