Does Teething Affect My Baby's Sleep?

Have you ever heard of Catherine O’Leary’s cow?

In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire killed nearly 300 people and destroyed over 17,000 buildings. The supposed cause of that fire? One of Catherine O’Leary’s cows knocking over a lantern. For over 100 years a cow (and by association poor Catherine O’Leary) was blamed for the devastating fire. In 1997 it was discovered by an insurance investigator that it was actually a discarded match from one of Catherine O’Leary’s pipe smoking neighbours that sparked the fire.

So what does this cow have to do with teething? Not much other than the fact that they are both scapegoats!

Teething gets blamed for almost every imaginable issue when it comes to babies. Runny nose? Must be getting some teeth. Fever? It’s got to be those teeth coming in. Runny poop? I’ve heard teething can cause diarrhea. Babe is crying more than normal? Must be cutting some teeth.

Yes, all of these things are potentially caused by one or more teeth making their way out of the gums, but most parents are very quick to fault teething for any deviation from their baby’s regular behaviour. This is especially true when it comes to sleep.

As parents, we want to find reasons for our children’s complaints and then we want to solve it for them. So, our natural reaction when our baby cries in the middle of the night is to rush in, find out what’s the matter, and then do whatever we can to fix it. Unfortunately, for many parents (my hubs and I included), our “fix” ends up making them prop dependent (cue the rocking, bouncing, feeding, soothers etc.) in order to fall back asleep.

Let me paint you a picture. You’ve been sleep training for a few weeks, everything has been going really well (baby is sleeping through the night, having good naps – YES this can happen!!), but then all of a sudden you notice a regression and your baby is waking up crying 3 times a night. You are going to search for a reason why they are slipping back into their old habits and teething is a quick and easy answer.

Like most parents, if you truly believe your baby is in pain and not just wanting you to feed them back to sleep (or rock, or replace their soother etc.), you are not going to leave them in their crib to cry; instead you decide to put sleep training on the back burner until they are done teething.

Cue to a year later and baby is still being rocked to sleep several times a night because those teeth have to be coming anytime now!!

I don’t know about you but this mama needs her sleep so blaming bad sleep on teeth just doesn’t sit well with me.

So, here are 2 things to keep in mind before you throw your sleep training routine out the window (or say you will wait until after your child is done teething).

1.       Teething symptoms last about 8 days so if you’re on week 2 of your babe waking up several times a night and crying, it’s either due to some other ailment OR they have once again realized that when they cry, one of their favourite people enters their room and helps them get back to sleep. Get back to your routine (or call me and we’ll get started) and sleep should sort itself out in a few days.

2.       When we hear words like “cutting” or “breaking” associated with teething, of course some not-so-nice imagery comes to mind. However, studies have shown that teething symptoms aren’t nearly as painful as we make them out to be. Check out ­this article if you’d like to get science-y. To make a long story short, according to many experts, teething does not cause a significant amount of pain and especially not for nearly as long as we think it does.

I’m definitely not saying to ignore any of the symptoms mentioned above (diarrhea, runny nose, irritability, loss of appetite, fever etc.) – I’m actually saying the opposite – DO NOT ignore these symptoms because it’s likely there could be something going on with your babe. What I’m saying is that teething should no longer be blamed for all of these things, including poor sleep! Also remember that if your baby is getting a full night’s sleep, there is a much better chance they will be happier through the process of teething (oh, by the way – so will you!)