teething - my least fave "milestone" - and dumb question

[justincase]

It's like someone flipped a switch on my sweet, happy DD yesterday. My normally super-content baby who naps for long stretches and laughs and smiles engagingly when she's awake was fussy all day, wouldn't nap well, and had to be held or worn all day long. I'm not complaining for myself (it was actually kind of nice to have an excuse to be so snuggly!) but I felt badly for her. She'd even try to smile and laugh and then suddenly "remember" that something was wrong and the laugh would turn into a fuss. She woke up this morning crying hard instead of cooing and gurgling. She bit me a couple of times yesterday while nursing, she's been jamming her fingers in her mouth and chewing away, and she tries to pull our fingers into her mouth as well. She's all drooly with a rashy chin. All signs point to teething, right? DS got his first tooth on what I think is the later side, so my perspective was skewed as far as when to expect this.

Oh, and, dumb question: *Where* exactly am I looking/feeling for something to be coming? I feel like I should remember this... You know that thin little "ridge" of flesh along the top of the bottom gum... Do the teeth come there, or in front of that? Hope that makes sense and doesn't sound too stupid of me. Not enough sleep...

[BabyMine]

That sounds exactly like teething. We did tylenol to help with the pain. Also wet washclothes from the fridge.

They can teeth for weeks before getting any teeth to show thru. I usually just look or feel for the tooth/teeth.

[newnana]

Some folks would say that's too early to teeth, but don't believe it. DD got her first tooth at 3 months and had ALL of her baby teeth by the time she turned 1. Poor kid teethed almost constantly that first year, but thankfully she didn't have to deal with it after that. For her it was on the ridge itself, but I don't know how that's supposed to go though.

DD hated holding cold things, but loved having something cold in her mouth. So she wouldn't hold a chilled teething ring or anything. She did like if we took a washcloth and wet a corner of it and stuck in the freezer. That way the part she could grab was dry and not cold and the part to chew on was.

Gotta run, but sounds like teething from here. Good luck!