Teething can be an exciting yet somewhat stressful time for you and your baby. As not all babies react to teething the same way, it can sometimes be very hard, and it’s understandable that you want to alleviate your baby’s pain.
Frozen – as in hard frozen teething rings can cause more damage than good to your teething baby. However, experts suggest that giving cold and not frozen teething rings can be a great home remedy for teething babies.
As you continue your search for the best home remedy for teething, you may have read that giving your baby frozen teething toys can be beneficial. Although it may have some truth into it, it requires further explanation.
Are Frozen Teething Rings Safe for Babies?
The NHS has released some tips and tricks for easing teething pains for babies. Some examples are by the use of teething rings, offering cold fruits for teething (if your baby is already 6 months old and above), teething gels, and even the use of some pain medications (as prescribed by your healthcare provider).
Although, according to the FDA, there has been no scientific evidence regarding teething gels being helpful when it comes to teething. In fact, they have released warnings against the use of some of the gels in the marketplace as they were observed to have caused severe health issues.
The practice of freezing teething toys such as teething rings, teething rings with gel or liquid in the middle, or even clean washcloths has been around for a long time, however, does it really help?
First, let us define, for the sake of this article, what “freezing” means when bundled with teething toys. According to studies, the cool temperature of the toys is what relieves the soreness of teething.
In addition, freezing anything (may it be fruit, food, or toys) and giving it to your baby may cause damage to their gums, and may even cause an ice burn.
Ice burn is a condition that occurs when a part of the body is exposed to extreme cold temperatures which can cause numbness, itchiness, pain, and even blisters (Source: Healthline).
Think of it like when you reach for a frozen bag of meat directly from the fridge, notice how you can’t really hold it longer than a few seconds, and sometimes your fingers even get stuck on the plastic and hurt when you try to take them off. Now, imagine that scenario happening on your baby’s lips, gums, and tongue.
Then, let us now see the other part of the equation, the teething toys. There may be hundreds if not thousands of choices of teething toys in the market. How can you possibly choose?
Some mothers look for BPA-free, organic, and all these additional points to keep in mind, but the most important part is that they are clean, non-toxic, and free from loose trinkets that may be a choking hazard for your baby. Also, the best way to know which is the best teether for your baby is to try it out and see what they enjoy the most.
When it comes to “freezing” these toys, you might want to stick to only making them cool rather than frozen so as to aid with pain relief and not to cause harm to your baby (Source: CHOP).
So how do you do that? A good rule of thumb is only to keep them in the freezer for 30-40 minutes, and not surpass an hour. This also goes with serving your teething baby frozen waffles, bagels, or fruits.
In addition, there are other home remedies that may help with your teething baby. Some of which are
- Massaging your baby’s gums with clean fingers,
- Make sure to wipe off any drool – this can be uncomfortable and teething babies tend to drool more, and
- If symptoms are bad and your baby is showing signs of extreme discomfort, ask your healthcare provider for expert suggestions, they might also be able to recommend a safe pain medication specifically for your baby (Source: KidsHealth).
To summarize, I hope you have found the information that we have collected to be valuable, helpful, and informative.
At the end of the day, what might work for others may not work for you, and the same goes the other way around, what may work for you, may give a different result for someone else. Be sure to make the choices that are right for both you and your baby, and try out different things to help with teething pain.
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