For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for September 18, 2020

A recent strip mentioned teething….

I was told by my older brother that his older son (almost 22 months of age) was able to be calmed by having a ride in the car.

She never returned…

Well, April clearly has low pain tolerance. My grandkids were merely fussy when they teethed. Some babies react badly to budding teeth, like April here.

The missing 5th panel: Elly comes back from her walk and says, “Where’s April?” Elizabeth says, “Dad took her to the hospital. She had a temperature of 105.”

By 6 months, she’s teething. A bit of crushed ice packed into a teething ring will soothe her sore gums & there ill be peace once more! lol

Tag! You’re it.

i recorded my daughter crying. then played it back. she’d get quiet and listen for that baby….

Once, when I was a teenager, I babysat my nephew, who was an infant at the time. Suddenly, he started crying & wouldn’t stop. I fed him; he wasn’t hungry. I checked his diaper; clean. I rocked him; he kept crying. All of a sudden I felt sick. I ran into the bathroom and threw up. He stopped crying and let me rock him to sleep. I still kid him about that.

On nights like that, the most successful routine for all three of my kids was walking slowly up and down the cellar stairs. Maybe it was the change in temperature – even in July, our basement is cold.

Reminds me of the time I was walking with my baby daughter (now 12), who was crying, and someone asked me, “Did you try Tylenol?” I answered, “Yes, but my headache from her crying is still there.”

She´s a girl so probably practicing for when she´s married!

It seems universal that babies calm down when moving. I wonder if that is why we, as a species, keep exploring?

Get a cold teeth ring so April can munch on, we did that to ours.

She’s teething – give her something cool and firm (and non-toxic) to gum on :D

Somehow mom making a speedy exit from her crying kid just isn’t chuckle-worthy.

A cold piece of carrot can be an excellent teething aid.

My child’s grandmother said to check the soft spot on top of the head. If baby is crying a lot and soft spot is dimpled down instead of convex and pulsing, one should raise it. Her method was use a soggy bar of soap to softly pull it up. My mouth was big enough, so I very gently sucked it up. The difference was remarkable. CG had fourteen children and over 40 grandchildren, so I gave credence to this advice.

I surmised that the constant crying might be a headache. Once the soft spot is raised, the headache goes away, the baby is happy again.

Rub some vodka on her gums. Then put her in her crib, shut the door, and turn the TV up.

We never had any problems with our kids when they were teething…and when my daughter’s children reached that stage, they didn’t fuss like that either. I really didn’t know what mothers, who were my contemporaries, were talking about. My mother told me that when I was an infant I wasn’t fussy at all when my teeth were poking through…

In the old days, mother would rub whiskey on baby’s gums when they were teething, then have a shot herself. LOL

According to Dan Conner, Give her a frozen Eggo.

John is a dentist. Doesn’t he have any good tips for his own daughter’s suffering?

Remember reading about that hard. plastic giraffe toy that mothers raved about for their babies? Get one of those to for her to chew on.