Our beautiful, usually good-natured Ami, now 10 months old, finally got her first tooth. She has been extremely irritable. Screaming during the day, throwing her body backwards when she is being held and when she’s placed on the floor. She is only taking very short daytime naps and she’s waking up a couple of times during the night.

Giving her something to chew on seems to help for a few minutes or massaging her swollen gums with my finger. She has a frozen teething ring that she likes and she also enjoys gumming cold wash cloths and cold carrot sticks. (Only under CPR Certified adult supervision, of course!) We’ve been alternating infant acetaminophen and infant ibuprofen, which seems to give her some relief and allows me to put her down to play for an hour so I can write my blogs.

Ami is 30 inches tall now and she weighs 23 pounds, so it isn’t as easy as it used to be to do work around the house, while holding her. Holding her though, is the preferred alternative to the thrashing and screaming.

I decided to "Google" a search using “teething fevers” to find the lasted and greatest information and advice on infant teething. One web site indicates there is some correlation between teething and fevers; another is adamant that those are all old wives tales.

I actually found two links at one teaching hospital site with opposing views on teething. About all every site agrees on is that your baby will get teeth, and teething is a normal process.

The normal age range for your baby's first tooth to erupt is any time between three months old and one year old. When a tooth is ready to erupt, you will be able to see the outline of the tooth bulging inside the gums. Most infants get their middle bottom teeth first.

1. 2 lower incisors
2. 4 upper incisors
3. 2 lower incisors and 4 first molars
4. 4 canines

One site indicated that most children have completely painless teething. The only symptoms you should see are increased saliva, drooling, and a desire to chew on things. While there may be some mild gum pain, it doesn’t interfere with sleep. Do you think the person who wrote that ever parented a teething infant?

Another site says that your infant has suddenly turned into a cranky, fussy, drooling, chews-on-everything-in-site little monster! Who is keeping you up half the night, and requires holding, bouncing, and nursing all day long, so welcome to teething.

The disparities are endless, but after much research, I found some consensus on the fever issue. Fevers are more common in infants after they reach six months old because they have lost the natural protection provided by their mothers' antibodies. If your child has a temperature, less than 101°F it may be associated with tooth emergence.

However, no association between tooth emergence and temperatures greater than 100.9°F was found in any of the studies. If your child has a temperature of 101°F or higher there is another cause. Parents should consider seeking a diagnosis and treatment if necessary.

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(C) Julia Fuller 2006