Declan's First Cereal

So Rich and I are exhausted. Since he turned three months old, Declan's sleep habits have deteriorated. Now, he gets up as much as he did as a newborn at night. So we bought a sleep book, started charting his sleepy times, and obsessed over the possibility of a food allergy. Then we read up on teething and realized that he could start the process as early as three months. Great. Now, not only do we have a sleep problem, we've got a teething problem. Instead of making any decisions right away, we decided to wait until his four month appointment and ask the doctor.

Then I saw a tooth bud. What?!? Those aren't supposed to sprout until six months at the earliest! But there it was, white, lumpy, and on the bottom far-right inside of his mouth. Wait...aren't babies supposed to get their front teeth first? I did feverish research about irregular teething patterns and found out that they do exist, but they are rare. The only problem was that all of the pictures I saw showed teeth growing from the top of the gum line. This bud was most certainly on the inside of his gums. Instead of freaking out, I suppressed the images of sideways teeth protruding out of the mouth, jumbled and long, and yellow, and decided to wait until our doctor's appointment.

Now keep in mind that my doctor rolls her eyes at me a lot. Especially when I pull out the list of things I want to talk to her about. She mumbles something like "great, you've got a list". This all started at his one week appointment when I was convinced Declan was at risk for Autism because he wasn't making eye contact yet. And at his one month appointment when I wondered if she could tell me if he was going to have an "innie" or an "outie". You know, regular, pressing issues.

Anyway, the time came to show my doctor the tooth bud. She examined his gums and said that she felt the top and bottom teeth under the surface (my vision changed to only one mangled tooth sticking out of Declan's mouth) but said nothing about "the bud". Nothing! So I showed it to her. Or, I tried. It's not easy to get a four month old to keep his mouth open while you probe inside. "It's just normal gums" is what she said. What? Did she not see the white, protruding bump that looked like a tooth? Nope, she didn't see it. She just shrugged her shoulders and announced that he was normal. The imagined tooth shrunk back to a normal size in my head. Then I started imagining that it was a tumor...

Anyway, the point is that she recommended Rich and I give Declan some rice cereal. She said that because of his size he'd probably be ready. I really wanted to wait until six months. I enjoy breastfeeding and I do believe the longer the better. But, that wasn't in Declan's plan. As any of you with kids know, you kind of have to follow their lead once in awhile, and this was definitely one of those times. Declan has been waking up at night every three hours, starving. I can't make a bottle because the boy eats everything I make. And most of the time he's hungry again in under two hours.

I wasn't sure what to expect with the first rice cereal, but Declan, while not exactly as excited as I'd imagined, accepted it, as you can see. I wasn't sure if I'd call it a total success until I saw what happened afterward: Declan was in the best mood. I even took him to Target (his nemesis) and he just kicked and smiled and cooed the whole time. After that, I definitely consider it a success. Now time will only tell if it gives Rich and I some much needed sleep. I'm a believer in Murphy's Law, so chances are I'll be up all night, but here's to hopin'.