Teething

Cupcake seems to be teething. I say "seems" because no one seems to be in agreement as to what teething actually entails. I guess we'll know for sure once some beautiful teeth appear on her perfect little gums. Meanwhile, we are just left to figure out why our baby girl seems to have gone crazy.

Is she drooling? For sure. It's like every shirt has a new wet spot on her neck. And I'm frankly getting concerned for her skin. She already has a pimple on her chin. I really thought it'd be a least 13 more years until we had to deal with these issues.

Sleeping problems? You betcha. All weekend she's been taking these 15 -20 minute naps that she wakes herself in a total cranky mood.  And overnight she's all of a sudden regressed to ... I don't even know, she's always been a good sleeper, so I don't know where its coming from.  What I know is that we are ALL exhausted, her included.

Fussy & Irritable?  Why yes.  I don't think I've ever seen her cry so much short of the time she got her 2 month shots, and that time it was only for the afternoon.  This scream/crying followed by random fussiness and sporadic angry screaming has been lasting about a week now.  Its curious, she'll be okay when she's happy, which makes me question if she's really teething, but it really seems like all the anger is directed toward her mouth.

Rubbing her mouth?  Yes, she definitely seems completely fixated with having something in her mouth.  She constantly touches her cheeks and mouth, and will in fact wake herself up when she touches her own face.  Last night we tried some arm swaddling and it seemed to work, at least for a bit.

I feel very frustrated.  Cupcake seems to be distressed and in pain.  We have given her gripe water and acetaminophen, which I don't feel comfortable doing since I don't want to over medicate her.  But the acetaminophen seems to help her relax enough to sleep.  Is she upset because she's over-tired from not getting sleep?  Is the pain keeping her from sleeping?  Is she just overstimulated and has a hard time sleeping?  It's so hard to tell, but I'm getting a better feeling of why some parents choose to Cry It Out.  We've had only a week of this, and I"m already at the end of my rope.