Teeth and Sleep

Joey cut his 6th tooth yesterday (5th was late last week) and Dan's pretty sure that 7 and 8 are on their way through. 5 and 6 are on either side of his top front teeth, not sure where 7 and 8 are, he won't let me see ;) This kid does not give us any indication he's teething or cutting a tooth other than chewing on absolutely everything. But he does that constantly and I know that's totally common for babies his age, so either it means that he's constantly teething or he just chews on everything. He doesn't drool like a faucet and he's really only extra cranky when he needs a nap. He doesn't give us any indication that he's in pain (yay) so when another tooth pops through we're like, "Wow, another one!" Last week, Joey gave me a night where he only woke up a few times (3 or less, I can't remember because I try not to wake up all the way when I feed him), it was AWESOME. Then, last night and the night before, he was nursing almost constantly. When the tooth 6 and 7 cut through, it made sense. I'm eager for this teething thing to be over, but I know that he won't finish until his molars come through when he's 2 or 3 years old.

He sleeps great when he's not teething. The kid loves sleeping, he totally has that in common with us. I began reading The No Cry Sleep Solution to see if I could pick up some times to help him sleep. While Elizabeth Pantley gives lots of really great ideas and suggestions to parents of all sleep arrangements (co-sleeping, bottle feeding, baby in his/her own room, breastfeeding, etc.), she does mention that no matter what rhythm you end up in with your baby and how much sleep you're getting, things like illness, teething, and vacationing can affect even the best infant sleeper. So I have the book and will definitely use some of the ideas when it seems like the teething has slowed down, but what we're doing is mostly working at this point, so I'm not going to mess with it and change what we're doing. Granted, I'm waking up constantly at night but Joey and I go to bed so early that eventually I get the sleep I need to function during the day--even if I have to work (though that's a good night if he doesn't wake up before I leave).