Safe Baby Jewelry and Teething Myths

I’m standing in this dimly lit, incense-heavy boutique in Brooklyn back in 2018, wearing yoga pants that have an unidentified crusty stain on the knee. Maya is six months old, she's screaming at a pitch that I’m pretty sure is violating local noise ordinances, and I'm frantically handing a cashier forty dollars for a string of unpolished yellow beads. My husband, Dave, is standing outside on the sidewalk holding two lukewarm oat milk lattes, looking at me through the glass like I've officially joined a cult.

Because I had. I was joining the Cult of the Amber Teething Necklace.

When you haven't slept more than three consecutive hours in six weeks and some beautifully filtered woman on the internet tells you that wearing fossilized tree resin will magically absorb your infant's pain, you don't ask for a peer-reviewed medical journal, you just throw your credit card at the screen and pray. I was SO TIRED. I'd have bought a live badger if someone told me it cured teething pain. The cashier handed me this tiny little baby jewel in a hemp bag, and I immediately strapped it around Maya’s chubby, drool-covered neck right there in the store.

Spoiler alert: She didn't stop crying. In fact, she just tried to eat the necklace, which made her gag, which made her cry harder, which made me want to sit on the curb and cry into my cold coffee.

The day my pediatrician roasted me

Two days later, we had our regular checkup with Dr. Aris. I had left the necklace on Maya because I was convinced that the "succinic acid" in the amber just needed time to absorb into her bloodstream. Dr. Aris, who has seen me through every paranoid first-time-mom freakout, took one look at Maya’s neck, sighed, and gently asked me why I had strapped a strangulation device to my child.

I tried to explain the internet science. I really did. I babbled something about body heat and natural pain relief, and Dr. Aris just gave me this look of deep, empathetic pity. She explained that the whole amber thing is basically a giant myth, and worse, it’s incredibly dangerous. She told me she sees babies coming into the ER who have either gotten these things caught on their crib slats while sleeping or, god forbid, snapped the string and inhaled the little loose beads.

I felt my stomach drop to the floor. Like, literal mom-guilt nausea. Here I was trying to soothe my kid, and I was basically dressing her in a choking hazard because I was too sleep-deprived to think straight. Oh, and Dr. Aris also mentioned some infants getting literal lead poisoning from those weird homeopathic magnetic teething bracelets because the cheap metal leaches toxins, which is just absolutely terrifying so definitely don't buy those either.

Dealing with the cultural heirloom guilt

So the amber was out, but that didn't solve the broader issue of baby jewelry, which is a surprisingly massive political minefield in my family. Dave's aunt had gifted Maya this beautiful, traditional baby jewelry gold bangle for her christening. It was stunning, heavy 14k gold, and clearly meant to be a family heirloom.

And then my own mother had given us this tiny little baby j initial necklace that I wore when I was an infant in the nineties, which is cute in theory, but when you look closely at the clasp, it looks like it would snap if you breathed on it too hard.

I felt so incredibly guilty leaving these beautiful things in their velvet boxes. The gold bangle was relatively smooth, but Dr. Aris had basically told me that until kids are like, three years old, any jewelry should strictly be an "occasion-only" thing, and you've to watch them like a hawk the entire time. I guess solid gold is better because it's non-reactive and won't give them a nasty rash like cheap nickel does, but the physical hazards are still there. If it's loose, it comes off and goes in the mouth. If it's tight, it cuts off circulation to their little wrists. There's no winning.

Anyway, the point is, we put the gold bangle on Maya for exactly four minutes during a family photoshoot, she immediately tried to gnaw on it like a metal dog bone, I panicked and took it off, and now it lives in a fireproof safe in our closet. Sorry, Aunt Maria.

If you really want your kid to look dressed up for an event, instead of wrestling them into heavy accessories that you'll have to take off ten minutes later anyway, just put them in clothes that do the work for you. For Maya's first birthday, we completely skipped the jewelry and just dressed her in the Flutter Sleeve Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuit from Kianao. It has these gorgeous little ruffles that make it look incredibly fancy, but it’s actually just super stretchy organic cotton, so she could face-plant into her smash cake and roll around on the floor without me worrying about a necklace getting caught on the table corner.

What actually works when they're teething

Once I accepted that magical jewelry wasn't going to save us, I had to find actual, safe things for my kids to chew on. By the time Leo came along three years later, I had entirely abandoned the crunchy-mom boutique phase and was strictly looking for things that were big, indestructible, and easy to clean.

If you're dealing with a teething monster who wants to chew on everything in sight, you basically just need to throw away the risky bead necklaces, shove a cold piece of silicone in their mouth, and try to remember that this phase eventually ends before you completely lose your mind.

With Leo, our absolute lifeline was the Panda Teether. I can't overstate how much this little silicone bear saved my sanity. It's completely flat, so it was super easy for his clumsy little four-month-old hands to grip, and he would just obsessively gnaw on the panda's ears for hours. I used to throw it in the fridge next to my iced coffee overnight, so by the morning when he woke up fussy and swollen, I could just hand him this gloriously cold, BPA-free chew toy. The best part is you can just chuck it in the dishwasher. No weird strings, no choking hazards, just straightforward relief.

If you're ditching the risky accessories and just want some actual safe teething gear, check out Kianao's organic baby essentials collection.

I'll say, not every toy works perfectly for teething. I also got Leo the Gentle Baby Building Block Set thinking he could chew on them since they're soft rubber. Honestly? They were just okay for teething because they were a bit too bulky for him to get his mouth around when he was really little. But they ended up being his absolute favorite bath toys because they float and squirt water, so whatever, we still use them every single night in the tub.

The hazard of my own jewelry

Here's something no one warns you about: even if you decide not to put jewelry on your baby, you've to completely rethink what *you* are wearing.

I used to wear these big, thin gold hoop earrings every day. They were my signature thing. One afternoon when Leo was about eight months old, I was carrying him on my hip while trying to unlock the front door. He was in that grabby, pinch-everything phase, and his little fingers hooked perfectly through my right hoop. Before I could even react, he lunged backward toward a passing dog, pulling the earring with him.

Oh god, the pain. I literally screamed. He didn't completely rip my earlobe, but it was bleeding, and I had to sit on the floor of the entryway drinking an entire glass of water just to stop shaking. Dave came home to find me icing my ear with a bag of frozen peas while Leo happily banged a wooden spoon on the floor.

After that, I completely gave up on dangling jewelry. I switched to tiny stud earrings and stopped wearing necklaces altogether until he was basically in preschool. Babies are incredibly strong, and their grip reflex is no joke. If you've a long chain or chandelier earrings, they'll find them, and they'll pull them.

Navigating the ear piercing debate

I can't talk about infant jewelry without touching on ear piercing, because this is another one where everyone has a violently strong opinion. In some cultures, babies get their ears pierced before they leave the hospital. In others, you wait until they're teenagers.

I asked Dr. Aris about this because Dave's family kept asking when Maya was going to get little gold studs. My pediatrician basically said that if we were going to do it, we had to wait until after her first round of tetanus shots (around 2 to 6 months), and we had to be absolutely religious about cleaning them because baby immune systems are so fragile. I guess the big rule is you've to use screw-back earrings, which literally screw onto the post so they can't be pulled off and swallowed, and they don't poke the baby behind the ear while they sleep.

We ultimately decided to wait. I just couldn't handle the anxiety of adding "clean infected earlobes" to my already overwhelming list of daily chores. Plus, Maya had this horrible habit of aggressively rubbing the side of her head against the crib mattress when she was tired, and I just pictured the earrings catching on the sheet.

Parenting is basically just an endless series of risk assessments where you've no idea what you're doing, you're constantly second-guessing yourself, and you're just trying to keep everyone alive until bedtime.

Before we get into my incredibly scattered brain's attempt to answer your most common questions, if you're looking for things your kid can actually put in their mouth safely without giving you a heart attack, go browse Kianao's teething toys and save yourself the anxiety.

My messy answers to your jewelry questions

Can my baby wear a necklace just for a quick photo?

I mean, yes, if you're literally holding the camera and staring right at them the entire time. We did this with Maya’s gold bangle. But the second the camera is down, take it off. They move so fast, and all it takes is one second of you turning around to grab a baby wipe for them to yank a chain and break it. It's just not worth the panic sweat.

What if my baby swallows a bead from a broken necklace?

If they swallow a plastic or wood bead, you're basically on poop-watch for the next few days to make sure it passes, but you still need to call your pediatrician immediately. If they swallow anything magnetic, or a battery, GO TO THE ER RIGHT NOW. I don't totally understand the science, but Dr. Aris said magnets can attract each other through the intestinal walls and cause literal tissue death. It's a massive medical emergency. Just don't let them near magnetic jewelry, period.

How do I politely tell my mother-in-law we aren't using her heirloom jewelry?

Blame the doctor. Always blame the pediatrician. I literally told Dave's aunt, "Oh my gosh, we love this bracelet so much, but Dr. Aris is so strict and said absolutely nothing on her wrists until she's a toddler!" People will argue with you, but they rarely argue with a stern medical professional. Then put the jewelry in a nice shadow box in the nursery so they can see it's appreciated, just not worn.

Are silicone teething necklaces safe if I wear them?

Those chunky silicone necklaces that moms wear for babies to chew on are definitely safer than the baby wearing them, but honestly? I found them super annoying. Leo would just yank on my neck and it gave me a headache. I preferred just handing him a separate, loose silicone teether that he could manipulate himself without strangling me in the process.