Thursday, March 09, 2006

It's the teeth again

These are the things I tried when Baby's teeth started bothering her this afternoon:

1. A teething rattle which has a water-filled piece at one end, straight from the fridge.

But she wouldn't take the hint and bite on the damned thing, so big failure there.

2. Nursing.

Funnily enough, although nursing is usually the panacea for just about all of Baby's woes, this time it didn't work. She either cried harder as soon as I laid her on the pillow on my lap, or arched her back and studied the mobile hanging from the ceiling.

3. Bonjela.

I rubbed a pea-sized amount on her gums and waited for her to recognize the yummy flavour. She didn't care, and continued to wail.

4. Bouncing her on my knees.

This worked great, but after an hour my legs got tired and my voice was starting to go hoarse from so many repetitions of This is the way the parson rides, parson rides, parson rides...

5. A rusk and a spell in the vibrating rocker.

Again, a big winner. But only for about half an hour. Also, the vibrations tend to stimulate Baby's poo-making muscles so we don't want to overdo it.

6. Putting her in the hammock, with a lullabies CD on the stereo.

I was surprised that the lullabies, set against a background of wave sounds, really did settle her, as promised on the CD cover. She only started fussing again when her hunger finally caught up with her (it'd been over five hours since her last feed).

...then the boy came home and put her to bed, leaving me to wallow in the fatigue which set in even before the TV news had ended.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

parson??!! it starts "this is the way the ladies ride, nim, nim, nim, nim".
Or "ju ju, adada, sur le cheval de bonpapa"
Or "jute jute paardje, naar Brussel om een staartje"

boudica of suburbia said...

Awww! I've heard what trouble babies can be at that age. No fun.

Hopefully it will pass quickly.

xxB

darth said...

i still remember that time, violet-i sympathize wholeheartedly..the joy of a new tooth (symbolizing your baby is growing right) is always tempered by..well, that damn new tooth and teething!!

i think we did the same as you-ran thru the gamut, with short successes of each...sooner than you expect, they'll all be in :)

*then we found out darth jr.s orthodontry regimen included pre-emptive pulling of many of those hard earned baby teeth, but there ya go ;)

Violet said...

editter: in my version, it starts with the parson, who rides sedately, then the lady, who rides side-saddle, then the farmer, who rides bareback.

boudica: the last teeth appear at the age of three <:-(

darth: after all that discomfort, no teeth have actually appeared yet!
I didn't think that you put braces in until after the adult teeth appear.