Night Terrors and Teeth

As I mentioned previously, we believe Jay is teething and has been for almost a month or so now - it's been quite the adventure!

I wanted to hold off on the Baby Orajel until we had some idea where the tooth was coming in at rather than rubbing it all over his entire gums and making his whole mouth numb. We've been lucky that up until this point he's only been drooling like a faucet rather than the vomit or diarrhea or fever I've read some babies get when teething. Well, that dang tooth better be coming in soon as today he's constant diarrhea! It hasn't been much each time but I've changed his diaper more today than ever before - usually he only has 1 decent-sized poopy diaper a day, today there's been some liquidy diarrhea in almost each one! I've been changing it right away too as it smells rancid and sounds like a mini-explosion in his diaper when in fact it's actually not that much. I hope this doesn't continue the rest of the time he's teething - we'll be going through diapers like crazy!

Poor guy though, he's not too fond of teething rings yet, only sucking on them for a minute or 2 before it hurts. And I've tried Baby Orajel the past 2 nights... last night it seemed to help, but tonight, the second I got my finger in his mouth to rub it on the area where we think the tooth is coming in (the front top right) he started sucking on my finger thinking I was giving him some food to taste. Needless to say, he didn't like what he tasted on my finger! We're dealing but I wish this tooth would come in already, I hate seeing him in pain like this - the only comfort that seems to work is snuggles and letting him suck on his fist or burpie cloth or bib.

Because of the teething though he's gained a great interest in people's mouths and teeth! His latest thing is staring at your mouth and teeth and then sticking his hand in there to check out the teeth as he seems to realize he doesn't have them but everyone else does. Tonight he gripped onto my teeth and tried pulling them out, lol...

He's flipped over a few more times - hubby got him to do it a few times tonight, so daddy's finally seen him do it, and I got him to do it for me again last week. Seems like he's getting the hang of it and right on track for his milestones.

He ate most of his bowl of rice cereal today with little fuss than usual, which is a relief! I'm hoping the doctor says we can start him on actual solid foods at his 4 month check-up on the 8th. I think he'd take to that better as the rice cereal is probably pretty bland with not much taste. He seems fine eating from a spoon though. I figure we'll start him on sweet potatoes, then the mashed peas, carrots, etc before introducing the fruit as my mom said once you do fruit they'll prefer the sweetness of it over the veggies.

Another thing I thought I'd mention that I need to remember to ask the doctor about is night terrors.

Jay's had least 4 episodes that I can recall now since he was born and he's just under 4 months old. He'll be sleeping and all of a sudden he'll just start shrieking, like he's trapped in a nightmare. I try to hold him and rock him and comfort him and call his name, telling him to open his eyes and that mommy's here, but it takes a good few minutes before he snaps out of it and then he's fine. One occurrence was when my mom was watching him at the house while we were getting all moved in - freaked her out a bit.

Curious, I did some research and came across the Night Terrors Resource Center page, run by a guy who also suffers from them and decided to do his own research on the condition (for over 20 years) to help others.

There's some interesting stuff.

He does say though that it can occur in babies even at birth, contrary to some belief. They say most times the sufferer doesn't even know they had an episode until someone tells them and it usually occurs about 45 minutes into the sleep cycle. They'll "wake up" startled, screaming or crying, no idea where they are or what's going on. It can last roughly 5 minutes on average but sometimes longer and no matter what you do to console them it doesn't make a difference until they snap out of it on their own. In children they say the best thing to do is just comfort them as much as you can; if they wake up the next morning and have no recollection of the episode, don't tell them about it as it'll likely just scare them.

He also says it's possible it is genetic, which if that's true, in Jay's case it makes me wonder as there has been a handful of times where hubby "wakes up" in the middle of the night, sweating, breathing hard, frantic and scared, unsure of what's happening. He usually goes back to sleep in a matter of minutes but it has creeped me out a few times. I recall his dad telling me he'd occasionally have episodes like that when he was really little, claiming to see a demon or something in his room. Another thing with the night terrors is that sometimes people do think they see a person in the room with them that isn't actually there. If hubby has the occasional night terror, it's possible that's what that could have been when he was young.

It's definitely interesting and worth checking into more! I hate it when it happens though, as Jay's usually asleep in my arms, it's usually been about 45 minutes and he just shrieks for a good few minutes until he actually wakes up and is perfectly fine like nothing just happened.