“A teething baby is so much fun”, said no parent ever.
When your baby hits six months of age, you may notice them getting more irritable than usual, drooling or putting their hands in their mouths. Chances are they are teething. Teething occurs when a baby’s teeth erupt and break through their gums. The thought of teeth erupting and breaking through the gums already sounds painful for most adults, so imagine your baby’s discomfort when they are going through the teething process.
In this article, we will discuss how cold therapy with ice packs can offer relief for your child’s teething.
But first, let’s see what the symptoms of teething are.
Irritability and changes in daily patterns
For parents of normally happy babies, these are easy to spot. Usually, by the time a typical baby starts to teeth (earliest four to six months), you would have already established or spotted their routine, and their personalities and preferences are quite visible at this age. If they are normally a happy and quiet baby, and in the past days and weeks they’ve become visibly more irritable and whiny, or the usual “tricks” won’t cheer them up, that’s a sign that they could be teething. When their regular sleep and eating patterns suddenly change, take note of this as well because it means that the discomfort that they feel is causing a disruption in their normal pattern.
Swollen gums and visibility of the bottom two teeth
The bottom two teeth towards the front are commonly the first to come out when teething, so look for signs of these coming out in that area. Look for swollen or red gums, especially along the bottom.
Slight increase in temperature
When a baby is running a fever, it is likely they are teething, but it isn’t always necessarily so. Take your baby’s temperature. If their temperature is above 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 degrees Fareneheit), their fever is caused by an illness, not teething. If they feel warm but the actual body temperature is below 38 degrees Celsius, then they are likely to be teething.
Putting their hands / objects in their mouths
Babies often do this to find relief or distraction from the pain they are feeling in their gums. This symptom is a little tricky because it is also usually around this age (four to six months and older) that babies are on a developmental milestone of putting things in their mouths. This symptom alone does not necessarily mean the baby is teething, but it should be taken in consideration of other symptoms.
How ice packs help with babies’ teething and toothaches
Cold therapy has long been the favoured method in relieving pain from teething. When cold temperatures are applied to the gums, blood flow in the gums reduces, thereby helping decrease inflammation and swelling.
An old remedy is to put a spoon in the fridge and let your baby chew on this. While the spoon may be cold, yes, can you imagine how painful that must be when rubbed against soft gums.
One of the best cold therapy remedies for teething babie is an ice pack. Not just your ordinary ice pack, though, but one made specifically for little tots like Magic Gel’s Children’s Ice Pack set, which are very safe for youngsters to use.
Here are simple and effective ways how ice packs like this can help babies when teething or experiencing toothaches:
They’re a cool distraction
When babies put their hands or any object that they can grasp in their mouths when teething, they chew or gnaw on these objects so their attention is momentarily taken away from the pain. If your baby must chew on something cold during teething, let it be a safe one. These Children’s Ice Pack Set by Magic Gel come with five ice packs, three of them are shaped as cool, friendly little monsters.
Made from high-quality nylon, reusable and easy to clean, these gel packs are also filled with non-toxic gel beads which keeps the packs cold for 15 minutes at a time. The cold temperatures help keep inflammation down, so it’s quite a relief for teething babies.
They can lower a baby’s body temperature
As mentioned earlier, one of the symptoms of babies teething is increased body temperature. While this is not a full-blown fever, they will still feel uncomfortable all over. You can help your child feel better by giving them an ice pack treatment to help lower their body temperature.
Magic Gel’s Children’s Ice Pack comes with two headband-shaped ice packs (one in a princess tiara décor, and the other designed as a fireman’s hat), and these can easily be wrapped around your child’s head. Put the headband ice packs in the fridge and use it cold to wrap around the head. This method will not guarantee to fight off your child’s temperature but will help in lowering their body temperature.
If your child has a fever above 38 degrees Celsius, you should take them to their doctor, and do not administer this kind of cold therapy.
They provide pain-numbing effect
One of the reasons why cold therapy is extremely effective in relieving pain is that it has a numbing effect on the affected area.
When your baby chews on an ice pack, their gums will be exposed to the cold temperatures and will be numb for a while. This will make their gums’ pain temporarily disappear. Use this time to feed your baby before the numbing effect wears out.
You can also use the ice pack as a cold compress for babies’ faces and cheeks which may have been affected by the teething pains.
We hope this post has been quite helpful to you! Are you currently experiencing teething pains with your baby? We’d love to hear from your experience! If you have any questions, or you simply would like to share your teething story, drop us a line, we’d love to hear from you.