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Question

What age do babies start teething?

My four-month-old daughter is doing a lot of what I would call 'low level' crying or just grumbling and being unhappy.

I haven't started to wean her and she displays no sign of needing anything else, and sleeps well at night.

She hasn't got nappy rash or red cheeks but she is drooling a lot and putting everything in her mouth.

I thought she might have started teething but I have opened her mouth and can't actually see anything there.

Answer

Although six months is the most common age at which children sprout their first tooth, not all babies follow the typical pattern.

Sometimes the first tooth appears later, and sometimes much earlier (very occasionally it's already there at birth), so it's certainly possible that your child's 'grumbling' is due to teething.

However, there could be any number of reasons why she seems a little out of sorts. A mild virus infection or some change in her routine that might be unsettling her for example.

If teething is the underlying cause for her seeming more unhappy than usual, then you would expect the first tooth (which will be one of the middle two teeth on her lower gum) to appear some time during the next week.

Even though you can't be sure at this stage that she is teething, it would do no harm to assume that she might be, and to try rubbing a little teething gel (which you can buy from a pharmacy) onto her lower gum as well as giving her a teething ring, or something else hard like a scrubbed carrot, to chew on.

These might make her mouth a little less uncomfortable if she is teething and so help to make her less fretful.

Yours sincerely

The Medical Team

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