Teething Sucks. There's Not That Much You Can Do

It's rough. Here's what moderately worked for us — and what probably won't.

The best medicine? Extra love and snugs. Especially at bedtime which will be harder during teething. And know they’ll get through it.

What Actually Helped (A Little)

Pain relief: Tylenol or Motrin depending on age. If your kid is 6 months or older, Motrin all the way. Especially useful for nap time and bedtime. It’s easy to fall into a “they must be teething” trap and dose them for two weeks straight. In theory not horrible if you only do one dose per day, but not ideal. As always, check with your pediatrician to make sure you're following a plan you and they are comfortable with.

Textured "feeders": Munchkin silicone baby food feeders work great when you fill them with frozen formula, milk, or frozen fruit (bananas, raspberries, etc.). Load it up, let them gnaw. Also - this will make a huge mess. It's worth it - but don't trust the marketing photos that make it look clean. Tis not.

Mango pits: This is legitimately fantastic. Give them a clean mango pit to gnaw on. Dust it with hemp seeds for extra grip—and extra mess. But it works. The surface, the size, the texture. They love it. Level-up: freeze the pit! Ready on demand.

Teethers: Buy a wide variety of teether form factors and figure out what they like. Each kid is different. What Mouse loves, Cleo ignored. Give them options. Texture, material (metal vs silicone vs wood), size, etc. Also - you'll probably keep these way longer than you think. They'll help when kids are in a "bit/chew on things just because" phase. When someone loses a tooth. When someone falls off the couch and bonks their lip and it's bleeding a little bit. You're not supposed to freeze the liquid-filled ones because frozen can be too cold on baby gums. The solid silicone ones worked well in the freezer for us. Definitely don't put metal ones in the freezer.

Supervision: Keep an extra eye out just in general. They’ll put random stuff in their mouths right now. Keep bibs and bobs off the floor/out of reach. And pay extra attention when going to other peoples' houses right now.

Hygiene: Clean the teethers regularly. They’ll end up mixed into toy bins, lost under the couch, covered in whatever. We toss ours in the dishwasher top rack and rinse after (wood we hand wash).

Food: Cold food helps. Depending on kid age, if they're doing solids things like cucumber spears, carrot chips, etc can help. Just make sure you're paying attention to the "right" way to serve for their age level and gag reflex sophistication. Related but unrelated - we followed Solid Starts and it was AMAZING for kid solid introduction.

What People Like But We Didn’t Use

  • Camilla drops.
  • Non-benzocaine oral gel. Really not the ones with benzocaine that adults can use - file that under "our grandmothers used to use this and it turns out yikes." In fact, if you're breastfeeding YOU aren't supposed to use benzocaine either.

Some links on this site are affiliate links. If you buy something through one of our links, we may earn a small commission — at no extra cost to you. We only link to things we've actually used and would tell a friend about.