The Midnight Babi Meltdowns: Surviving Drool and Sleeplessness

Whatever you do, do NOT google "why are my kid's gums blue" at three in the morning. I was sitting on the edge of the glider in Maya's nursery—the gray one we bought off Craigslist that always squeaked if you leaned too far to the left—wearing Dave’s oversized flannel that smelled heavily of yesterday's spit-up and the cold coffee I had abandoned on my nightstand. Maya was seven months old and screaming this high-pitched pterodactyl screech that vibrated directly in my molars. I was frantically typing signs into my phone with my thumb while bouncing her on my hip, which is basically the worst thing you can do because the internet will immediately convince you that your child is growing a second head or has some rare nineteenth-century disease.

I was doing literally everything wrong that night. I had taken these cheap, water-filled plastic rings and frozen them until they were literal ice blocks because my mother-in-law Helen told me that's what she did in the eighties. But when I finally dragged my sleep-deprived self to our doctor the next morning, Dr. Aris gave me this very gentle, pitying look and explained that freezing things solid can actually damage their delicate little gum tissue, which sounded horrifying and made me feel like the worst mother on the planet. He said we should just be chilling them in the fridge, or better yet, just using pressure and soft textures because their gums are basically just inflamed and angry. Anyway, the point is, you're going to get a lot of terrible advice from people who haven't raised a child since neon windbreakers were a thing, and you kind of just have to nod and then secretly do whatever actually keeps everyone from crying.

The great drool flood and the timeline that doesn't exist

I remember sitting in Dr. Aris's office with Dave, heavily caffeinated and shaking slightly, asking when do babies start teething because Maya was producing so much saliva she was soaking through three bibs an hour, but there was absolutely nothing happening in her mouth. I guess I thought there was some strict biological calendar we were supposed to be following, like on their four-month birthday a tiny white tooth just magically pops out to say hello. But Dr. Aris kind of laughed and said it's a massive window, usually somewhere between four and seven months, but honestly it's a total crapshoot.

Leo, my youngest, was a complete anomaly and cut his first tooth right at four months like some kind of tiny, angry vampire, completely destroying my breastfeeding journey because nobody prepares you for the sheer terror of nursing a child with sharp bone daggers in their mouth. Maya, on the other hand, was a toothless gummy bear until she was almost nine months old. She just drooled constantly. Her chin was basically a permanent waterfall, and she got this horrible red, chapped rash all over her neck from the constant moisture. I spent months just dabbing her face with whatever relatively clean cloth I could find in my diaper bag, wondering if she was ever going to be able to chew solid food or if I'd be pureeing sweet potatoes until she went to college.

People will tell you that a high fever means a tooth is coming, but our doctor was super quick to shut that down, saying that while they might get a tiny bit warm from the swelling, a real fever means they're actually sick and you shouldn't just blame it on teething. Which is annoying, because "it's just teething" is the most convenient excuse for literally every bad mood, weird poop, or sleepless night your kid has for the first two years of their life.

Chewing on literally everything in the house

When the teeth seriously do start shifting under the gums, they'll try to put everything in their mouth. Maya tried to chew on Dave's shoe once, which was a real low point for our parenting. If you're desperately searching for teething relief for babies at 4 AM, you've probably seen a million different products, and most of them are total crap. We bought so many random things that ended up gathering dust at the bottom of the toy bin.

But let me tell you about the one thing that genuinely saved our sanity. We were at this tiny, cramped brunch cafe on 4th street—the one where the tables are practically touching and everyone is aggressively hip—and Maya was losing her absolute mind. She was arching her back, doing the angry dolphin squeal, and I was sweating through my shirt trying to quiet her down. I dug blindly into my bag and pulled out the Panda Teether Silicone Baby Bamboo Chew Toy that a friend had gifted me. I hadn't even washed it yet—don't judge me, we were in survival mode—but I shoved it toward her and it was like magic. She grabbed the little panda ears, which have these great ridges on them, and just went to town. The silicone is soft but firm enough to really do something, and because it's flat, she could easily hold it herself without dropping it every five seconds. It became our holy grail. I bought three more so I'd never be without one.

I wish I could say everything we tried worked that well. We also had the Bear Silicone & Wood Teether, which looks absolutely gorgeous and matches all that sad beige aesthetic stuff that's so popular on Instagram right now. Honestly, it's totally fine, and the wood part is supposed to be great for firm pressure, but Leo just wasn't into it. He would chew on the silicone ring for maybe three minutes, realize the wood part was too hard for whatever specific gum pain he was having that day, and then literally chuck it across the room. It spent more time under our sofa than in his mouth. Every kid is different, I guess, but for us, the fully silicone panda was the undisputed champion of the teething wars.

Why are buttons even a thing

We need to talk about babies clothes for a second because whoever decided to put thirty-two tiny, microscopic buttons on a garment designed for a squirming, screaming creature that needs their diaper changed in the dark should be legally prosecuted. I can't tell you how many times I've been standing over a changing table at 2 AM, squinting through exhausted tears, trying to match up snaps on a pair of pajamas while Leo thrashed around like an alligator doing a death roll.

And then there are the blowouts. Oh god, the blowouts. It always happens when you're nowhere near home, usually when you've just put them in a pristine white outfit that your aunt bought. I remember carrying Maya through Target like a ticking time bomb, holding her away from my body with stiff arms because a mustard-yellow disaster had breached the diaper containment zone and was rapidly traveling up her back. When that happens, you don't want to be pulling a soiled shirt over your child's head, dragging the mess through their hair and making everything ten times worse.

Which is why envelope shoulders on onesies are the greatest invention of the modern era. You can pull the whole thing down over their shoulders and off their legs, completely bypassing the head. After the Target incident, I basically burned all her complicated outfits and switched almost entirely to the Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuit from Kianao. The organic cotton genuinely made a huge difference because, as Dr. Aris suspected, the cheap synthetic fabrics we were using before were trapping sweat and making Maya's teething drool rash so much angrier. These bodysuits have snaps, yes, but they're the chunky, reinforced kind that you can seriously pop open with one hand while holding a wipe in the other. Plus they stretch just enough that you aren't wrestling their little arms into the sleeves like you're stuffing a sausage.

Also, baby shoes are a complete scam and you should just put them in socks and call it a day until they can genuinely walk.

Plastic noise makers that will ruin your life

I don't know what it's about well-meaning relatives, but they love to buy the loudest, most obnoxious toys possible. Dave's parents kept buying these awful, flashing, electronic rattle toys for babies that played distorted midi versions of "Old MacDonald" at a volume that could wake the dead. I'd step on them in the dark and suddenly the whole house was flashing red and blue while a robotic sheep bleated at me.

Dr. Aris mentioned something at our six-month checkup about auditory stimulation and gross motor skills, basically explaining that babies need to grasp things and shake them to understand cause and effect. They literally need to hit themselves in the face with a rattle to learn physics. But he didn't say it had to be a plastic monstrosity that requires AAA batteries. If you want to save your sanity and your eardrums, you really need to curate your nursery so you aren't living in a chaotic arcade. If you're looking for things that really look nice and won't make you want to pull your hair out, you should browse through a curated online babies shop that focuses on sustainable, quiet things. You can find some beautiful options if you just look for wooden or silicone rattles instead of the plastic junk. Browse our favorite quiet toys here to save your sanity.

The floor is eating better than my kid

Right around the time the teeth start coming in, you're also supposed to start introducing solid food, which is just a cruel joke the universe plays on tired parents. Let's combine the crankiness of teething with the absolute chaos of pureed carrots. I was terrified of food allergies because everything you read online makes it sound like one wrong bite of peanut butter and it's game over. But the medical advice has completely flipped since we were kids. Dr. Aris told me that early introduction is the new rule—apparently, exposing them to allergens like eggs and peanuts early on honestly prevents the allergies from forming. I still sat there sweating profusely the first time I gave Leo a tiny smear of peanut butter on a spoon, watching him like a hawk for two hours.

The real issue with feeding, though, isn't the allergies. It's the gravity. Babies have this primal urge to sweep everything off their tray onto the floor. I'd spend twenty minutes making this beautiful, nutritious oatmeal with mashed berries, and Leo would just stare me dead in the eye, smile, and backhand the entire bowl onto Dave's white sneakers.

I refused to buy into the suction bowl hype for a long time because I thought it was just another gimmick, but I finally cracked and got the Silicone Suction Bowl. It seriously sticks. Like, you've to press it down on a clean surface, but once it's there, it requires an adult amount of use to pull the little release tab. Leo would pull and yank at it, get frustrated that he couldn't flip it over, and then eventually resign himself to really eating the food inside it. Plus, you can just throw the whole thing in the dishwasher, which is my main requirement for literally any item that enters my house at this point. If it can't survive the top rack of the dishwasher, it doesn't belong in my life.

Surviving the chaos

Honestly, the whole first year is just a blur of drool, stained clothes, and trying to figure out why they're crying this time. You're going to make mistakes. You're going to accidentally put their diaper on backward in the dark. You're going to give them cold coffee to play with just so you can have two minutes to pee in peace. It's all totally normal, even when it feels like a disaster.

Just trust your gut, ignore the weird advice from the nineties, and invest in things that seriously make your life easier instead of just looking cute on a shelf. Before you lose another hour of sleep to a teething meltdown, do yourself a favor and get the tools that honestly work. Check out Kianao's full collection of teething and feeding lifesavers to make your days just a little bit quieter.

Messy questions I get asked all the time

Should I be giving them Tylenol for teething?

Honestly, I was terrified to give Maya medicine because measuring those tiny liquid syringes at 3 AM is an extreme sport. Dr. Aris told me it's totally okay to use infant Tylenol on the really bad nights when nothing else works, but you absolutely have to ask your own doctor for the exact dosage based on their current weight, because guessing is a terrible idea.

When will they finally sleep through the night?

If anyone gives you a firm date, they're lying to your face. Maya slept through at five months and then woke up every two hours for a month straight when her top teeth came in. Leo didn't sleep a full night until he was over a year old. It's totally completely random, so stop comparing your kid to the internet babies who allegedly sleep twelve hours a night.

How many onesies do I really need to buy?

Way more than you think, but also fewer than the baby registry checklists tell you. I'd say keep like ten good, stretchy organic cotton bodysuits on hand. You're going to go through three a day during the blowout and spit-up phase, so unless you want to be doing laundry every single night, give yourself a buffer.

Are those amber necklaces really dangerous?

Yes. Oh god, yes. Our doctor was so intense about this. He said they're a massive choking and strangulation hazard, and the idea that the amber releases some magical pain-relieving acid into their skin is totally unproven. Just stick to silicone things they can chew on while you're watching them.

How do I clean all these silicone toys?

I literally just throw all the silicone stuff in the top rack of the dishwasher. If it has a wooden piece attached to it, you can't soak it or boil it because the wood will crack and get weird, so I just wipe those parts down with a warm soapy cloth and leave them on a towel to dry while I drink my lukewarm coffee.