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Teething

Teething is an ongoing pain for both parents and toddlers! Post the early weeks of night feeds, it probably causes more broken nights than any other ailment.

The hard thing is that it is not always obvious that teeth are causing the problems. Not all children put their hands in their mouths and not all children drool profusely when teething.

On the other hand it is also important not to blame all ailments on the teething process. The poor parent has to be to alert symptoms that may be the result of another illness.

Teething is hard work for all concerned and we'd like to hear about your experiences so that we can share them in this section.

"The thing I didn't understand about teething when I first had Amy was that the teething process goes on for so long! It starts at around 6 months and goes on well past the 2nd birthday. While, it is not an issue every day during this period it certainly accounts for a lot of broken sleep and cranky behaviour."

"It was very difficult to know when the crankiness and crying was due to something more than teething. I can remember feeling so guilty the time when my son had been teething, as we thought for a few days, when I noticed a discharge from his ear. He turned out to have tonsillitis!"

We have found a very good web site that provides a parent's guide to looking after their children's teeth. It includes some very useful tips on how to encourage regular brushing. You can find the site at www.kidsteeth.ic24.net/index.html.

We also have some great advice from Blooming Marvellous below: