Day 93: Teething? Growth spurt? Wonder week? Or just plain fussy?

Mari has become fussier than usual again for the last several days, and I can't quite tell why. When she cries, she's screaming louder. She's having more difficulty going down without a fuss. Though we really have been trying to keep her to her usual schedule, she seems more sensitive to the slightest variation.

Also, though it used to be that she almost never woke up before about 1 AM, for the last couple of nights in a row, she has been waking up after only a few hours of sleep and screaming at the top of her lungs. The only way I've been able to get her to calm down has been through nursing. She has drank greedily from the boob at those times, making me think maybe it's a growth spurt. She has been eating more during the day too.

But tonight, though I nursed her and put her down, and she was quiet for awhile, she soon started crying again. Jon is upstairs with her as I write this. So maybe something other than hunger is bugging her -- maybe her teeth. Mari has been sucking on things and drooling like crazy. However, she has been doing that since she was about three months old, and she just got her first two bottom teeth recently. A few days ago I thought I felt swelling in her upper gums, but now it seems to be gone. So how do I tell if it's teething or not?

Another thought is that Mari is coming up to Wonder Week 37 (though she's currently 35.5 weeks). (For more on Wonder Weeks, see the book by that name or the brief overview here.) She certainly is crankier, clingier and having more trouble sleeping, so that would fit.

But what this comes down to is that I feel like I have no clue as to what's going on with my kid. Sigh.

Day 85: Teething hell, again?

Argh. Mari just had her first middle-of-the-night lengthy screaming fit in a long time. I actually went out for awhile and left Jon in charge, so I wasn't home when she apparently woke up around 10:30 PM. She was still screaming, despite his considerable efforts to calm her, at 11:10 when I got home. I tried nursing her, but she didn't seem very hungry and didn't eat much, and she still screamed for some time after. In total, she was up for an hour or so, and our usual rules (i.e. about not spending too much time comforting her, not letting her nurse just for comfort) went out the window. I don't want to make a habit of this, but sometimes exceptions have to be made.

Jon said he had to turn on the light because she was really upset, and wonders if that got her "really" awake. Maybe being up and in the light at a time when she's not usually up made her act up like when she's really overtired. But I think she's (also?) teething again. Her lower teeth are now definitely all the way up over the gumline (though they still have some growing to do) but now there's a bump on her upper gums. She seemed fussy all day today, despite getting some decent naptime in. So maybe she's already due to get her upper teeth, though she just got her lower teeth?

I don't like the idea of unnecessarily drugging up our baby, but I've gotten out the infant Motrin, which I may use if she wakes up screaming again tonight.

Day 78: The teething nightmare has started

Last night was Mari's roughest night in a long time. Actually, her whole day yesterday was rough, though she napped a pretty decent three hours in total (though she woke up earlier than usual). She just seemed fussy and clingy all day. She was acting like she was overtired as soon as she got up in the morning but when I tried to put her down for an extra-early nap she wasn't having it, so she ended up napping at her usual times.

At night, she woke up briefly to squawk I don't know how many times. I didn't go to her all those times because sometimes the squawking only lasted a minute or two, but she was up for nearly half an hour shortly after midnight, not a time when she usually wakes up, and every two hours or so after that, though she only night-nursed twice. She was up for the day at 5:45 this morning. I was NOT pleased.

Today she seemed extra interested in sucking on everything, so I looked in her mouth again, and lo and behold, big bumpy lower gums. Sigh. I guess it was too much to hope that she'd be a late teether.