It seems like whenever our babes are acting off, we blame it on those pesky new teeth coming in. Whether they’re waking up every 30 minutes through the night, or have turned into a constant poop-machine, “they must be teething”.
With no words to let concerned parents understand, and with those little chompers unseen until they finally pop through and things settle down again, teething is usually a pretty good bet.
So when our little lady started showing signs that her potential pearly whites were causing her troubles, we were willing to try anything that could possibly help make her life (and therefore, our lives) easier.
Camilia (homeopathic teething relief drops) made by Boiron has been very good to us, when it comes to taking the edge off our babe’s pain, and has always been a go-to for letting us all rest a little easier. However, when I was set to take a solo overnight trip as my hubs and I both had best buddies getting married on the same weekend, I wanted to make sure every possible force of easy-baby success was with me.
Having had very positive remarks about my friends experiences with using amber necklaces to aid with teething relief, I popped into Hen & Chicks and invested in a small string of amber beads for bebe to don. Actually, I was really nervous about the whole alone-with-a-first-time-seriously-teething tot that I grabbed an anklet of amber as well as a necklace. Go big or go stay home.
Don’t be mistaken – amber teething necklaces are not for chewing on (if your child can get the necklace in his mouth, you may want to consider getting a smaller strand). The whole idea behind amber necklaces for teething is that amber, when heated, apparently releases an anti-inflammatory (succinic acid) when worn against the skin as it heats up. Now, there is a lot of controversy as really, the idea that a stone with a small amount of this anti-inflammatory property could release enough to be absorbed by the skin to enter the bloodstream, but there are a whole lot of people I know and know of that swear by them.
Although I’m still skeptical, myself, I have to admit that the first time we put it on, she became less irritable. We weren’t sure whether it was just the swing of teething getting better coincidentally, or if it really was the necklace, but hey – she was being happier, sleeping better, and leaving us all more content, so we left that sucker on.
That is, until I took it off a couple months ago when we were playing with some other littles that wanted to tug on it. I put it in a compartment if the diaper bag, and lost it for those couple months. (Until I found it again, exactly where I put it in the diaper bag. Perhaps there’s a reason my career as a super sleuth didn’t pan out.)
Over the past few weeks we’ve slept terribly. Little miss has been going through a lovely period of consistently waking up every half hour or so between 11pm and 4am to writhe and scream, and push away comforting arms. So great, right? Who needs uninterrupted sleep (if it does in fact still exist somewhere) anyways?
After a peek in her mouth on Friday, I can understand what’s been bugging her (ok, I can guess about what’s been bugging). One of her top molars is poking through, and on the other side mirroring where the new molar is giving a peep show, was a black, very scary-looking lump.
To calm me down, my hubby googled it (sadly, I’m coming to trust the internet far more than medical professionals after all my issues as of late). It seems to have been as he suspected – the black lump was not “your-baby’s-dying” disease as I calmly and collectedly considered, but rather bruising from the pesky molar trying to get through. (And today the bruising’s gone, and the newest molar is visible!)
Now, this may again be coincidence, but I’ll be darned if the nightly scream-and-writhe-uncontrollably fest has ceased to happen since I put the teething necklace back on her.
So the necklace stays.
Whether science can tell you that there’s a clear reason why something “really” works or not, if it’s working for you to make your life easier, stick with it. There are a lot of things in the world that we don’t have confirmed explanations for. Sometimes, as I’ve mentioned before, you just have to do what your gut (and your own experience) tells you is right for you.
What has worked best for your little ones’ teething/growing pains? Share your tips, tricks and remedies in the comments below, or on our Facebook page!
2 thoughts on “Do Amber Teething Necklaces Actually Work?”
this is really interesting- i would want to look into the science of it
It’s my understanding that the amount of natural anti-inflammatory isn’t enough to make a difference, from a scientific standpoint (the same is instructed for Camilia teething tubes, too), but there are a lot of parents that seem to notice a difference like I do. In my 2 years as a Bachelor of Science student, something that was impressed firmly upon me is that science is amazing, and useful, and necessary, but also that the only one true, unchanging rule of science is that there is ALWAYS an exception to every rule, and there will ALWAYS be things we just can’t quite understand. Our world is so amazing! Let the mysteries continue!!