questions about teething

I normally let Sidney fuss/cry (not hard) for 10-15 minutes before going to her in the middle of the night. Sometimes she would put herself right back to sleep. BUT...now that she is teething when she wakes up she goes straight into a HOWL with tears and all. There is NO WAY I can let her do that for 10 minutes. so I have been going right in to get her. I give her some orajel, try the pacifier, if that doesn't work I rock her and if that doesn't work (most of the time these methods don't work) I nurse her. She usually keeps howling till I nurse her.

A few friends of mine had said Don't Feed Her...but if that is the only thing that calms her what else could I do? And what is the harm? Is it that she may just get used to getting up to eat again?

What I have noticed is that I think she realizes that if she cries hard we come to her faster. Cause now she will wake up...fuss a little and then go into a full blown howl - which of course we run to her.

So my questions are....what methods do you use to help with teething in the middle of the night? Is it bad to nurse her? Is it bad that I run when she howls? Am I teaching her to cry hard?

Thanks so much.

Message edited 12/25/2005 7:25:04 PM.

Re: questions about teething

anybody

Re: questions about teething

I wish I had an answer for you. We are right in the middle of it too. We are just going with the flow for right now and hoping the little buggers pop up soon! I would be curious to here what some of the BTDT moms have to say!

Re: questions about teething

Personally I would not feed her in the middle of the night. That will just get her into the habit of needing to eat during the night and also relying on you to fall asleep. When Kiera goes through her teething pain at night we go in and pick her up. We'll only hold her for about a minute and then put her down. One of us will stay with her while she lies in the crib and eventually she will fall asleep. Some nights she screams for 10-15 minutes. Other nights it's 30 seconds. But we have found that this is works the best with her.