The First Cut is the Deepest – Evanne Ní Chuilinn on a Baby with Bite

I thought there was a blade in his mouth.

It wouldn’t have taken the greatest leap of imagination either. Over the course of the past week, I’ve extracted from his tiny mouth, a bubbles wand, some pink Playdoh (after he swalloed some), and that green cardboard used for egg cartons. But last Sunday week, he chewed on my finger, and it really really hurt. I expected the worst – “Has he done the dog on it now and tried to eat a razor?” No, he has FINALLY broken through the gum. Séimí’s first tooth is a sharp one.

Up until last week, I thought I knew about teething. I thought I understood the basic cause and effect of the gruelling process. I administererd calpol and baby nurofen when it was called for, and I changed the dribble bib more frequently than usual. But it wasn’t until Séimí literally started to ‘cut’ his first tooth that the going got heavy.

He was clingy, needy, narky, and worst of all, sick and sad. The nappies he produced were a sight to behold, and I can’t even bring myself to elaborate. Suffice to say, there was at least one nappy PER DAY after which he needed a good scrub.

I also kept count one day last week, and figured that I was changing his dribbler, which would be soaking, every half an hour. That is a lot of liquid for a tiny human to produce. And if that much was landing on the dribbler, how much of it was he swallowing? 

They say that babies’ saliva is acidic, and that because they produce so much of it when they’re teething,  it can adversly affect their nappies. The same acidity can induces nappy rash, but it made Séimí sick too. The day of the dribbler conveyor belt saga, he cried on and off all day, and got worse as the day progressed.  It didn’t help that his Daddy, (his idol) was away babysitting Séimí’s little cousins and so missed out on playtime in the evening. He wouldn’t eat his dinner for me, and barely drank his bottle. Just before bed, his wailing became supersonic, and nothing I could do would help.  Eventually, he released the tension, and vomited. It wasn’t just baby spit up either, it was full on smelly vomit and tonnes of it.

He was a new child afterwards. I caved and brought him next door to play with his cousin, (and his Daddy) so he went to bed an hour later than usual but at least he was happy.

Babies have it tough, that’s what I’ve learned. My wisdom teeth gave me awful trouble in my teens, but at least I could curse them and take something for the pain whenever it flared up. Babies have no warning for the rollercoaster that is teething, and they have no way of complaining except to cry, which only makes them even more miserable. And so I’ve decided to help the wee man in any way I can. Biting down on hard surfaces  seems to help, but no matter how many teething rings I produce for him, he prefers flesh. And so, even if he marks my finger or my hand or my nose (yes, he doesn’t discriminate against facial features), I’m going to let him use that blade on me whenever he feels sad. Because there’s no drug that will ever soothe a sad little baby boy better than a foolhardy Irish Mammy.