The Great Teething Toy Mix-Up: Babies, Bunnies, and Panic

It was 11:14 AM on a Tuesday in 2018, and I was wearing a pair of maternity leggings I legally should have burned three months prior. Maya was nine months old, screaming the kind of high-pitched, gum-throbbing scream that makes the inside of your skull vibrate. I was holding a mug of lukewarm French press coffee, staring at the living room rug where Barnaby, our free-roaming rescue rabbit, was sitting in the corner, rhythmically chewing on something mint green. Wait. Mint green? Rabbits don't eat mint green things. Rabbits eat hay. And sometimes baseboards.

I dropped the coffee—literally just let it fall onto the rug, adding to the yogurt stains—and lunged. Barnaby had stolen Maya's silicone teething toy. Specifically, he had sliced through the ear of her favorite little silicone bunny with the terrifying efficiency of a tiny, fluffy paper shredder.

Absolute panic.

Before I had a baby and a house rabbit at the exact same time, I thought a rabbit teething toy was just... a cute search term. Like, you type it into Google because you want a baby toy shaped like a woodland creature. I didn't realize that the internet algorithms violently blur the lines between "cute stuff for human infants" and "actual chew blocks for small mammals." Which is, you know. A massive, terrifying problem when you're running on four hours of sleep and your house is a minefield of things meant to go in mouths.

Wait, Do Rabbits Actually Teethe? (A Vet Yelled At Me)

So Dave, my husband, is frantically calling the emergency vet while holding this mangled piece of mint green silicone, and I'm holding a screaming Maya, and the vet is basically lecturing Dave through the phone. Because apparently, I was completely wrong about how teeth work.

I thought human babies and animals sort of went through the same thing. But no. My pediatrician, Dr. Aris—who has seen me cry more times than my own mother—told me that human babies teethe temporarily. It happens somewhere between four and twenty-four months, their gums swell up, the teeth break through, and they just desperately need firm counter-pressure to numb the soreness. That's why babies gnaw on literally anything they can grab, including your shoulder bone.

But rabbits? Rabbits don't "teethe." They don't have a cute little phase where their baby teeth fall out. According to the very loud vet on speakerphone, rabbits are born with teeth that just... grow. Like, forever. Apparently they grow something insane like three to five inches a year? Or something? So their chewing isn't about soothing sore gums, it's a desperate biological survival mechanism to grind their teeth down so they don't grow into their own skulls. Terrifying. Nature is a horror movie.

Anyway, the point is, Barnaby swallowing a chunk of soft baby silicone is basically a death sentence because their little bodies can't digest it and it causes this thing called GI stasis where their whole digestive tract just quits. Meanwhile, I'm over here realizing that keeping a pet and a baby in the same ecosystem requires the logistical precision of a military operation.

The Willow Ball Incident of 2019

You'd think we would have learned our lesson, but the crossover danger goes both ways. About two months after the vet incident, Dave found this woven willow ball under the sofa. It was made of natural applewood and seagrass—specifically bought for Barnaby to grind down those nightmare ever-growing teeth.

Dave, in all his sleep-deprived fatherly wisdom, looks at this stick ball, thinks, Oh, hey, an organic Montessori sensory toy! and hands it to Maya. I walked into the room just as she was trying to shove this splintery, hay-covered, bacteria-laden pet toy into her mouth.

I almost divorced him on the spot.

Human babies can't chew on pet toys. It sounds so obvious when I type it out now, but when you're just existing in a haze of dirty diapers and cold coffee, a wooden ball is a wooden ball. But pet toys splinter. They break into sharp little daggers. They're covered in zoonotic bacteria because they've been rolling around on the floor near the litter box.

What We Actually Let Them Chew On

After we survived the Great Silicone Ingestion Scare (Barnaby pooped it out, thank god, we spent three days staring at a litter box), I became completely ruthless about segregating the toys. And I got super picky about what I actually handed to Maya, and later, to my son Leo.

My absolute holy grail—the thing that survived both my kids—was the Bunny Teething Rattle from Kianao. I'm weirdly emotionally attached to this thing. It has a smooth, untreated beechwood ring and this little crochet bunny head with floppy ears made of cotton yarn. When Maya's front teeth were coming in, she would just gnaw furiously on the wooden ring because wood is seriously hard enough to provide that counter-pressure Dr. Aris was talking about, but it doesn't splinter like a pet toy. And she would suck on the cotton ears until they were disgusting and soaked with drool, but I could just wash it. Plus, Barnaby had zero interest in it because it wasn't squishy silicone.

We also had the Squirrel Silicone Teether around that same time. Honestly? It was fine. Like, it did the job when Leo was six months old and just needed to bite something flat. It's 100% food-grade silicone, completely non-toxic, all the good stuff. But I'll be completely real with you—I always kind of felt like he was chewing on a dog's frisbee. I don't know, maybe I'm a natural materials snob now, but the all-silicone ones just feel very... squeaky to me. But hey, it was incredibly easy to throw in the dishwasher, so I can't really complain.

By the time Leo hit the horrible molar phase, we were living in a fully compartmentalized house. Pet stuff in the corner, baby stuff elevated. If you want to avoid my specific brand of panic and just get safe stuff that honestly helps your kid's gums, you should really just look at a dedicated teething toys collection from a brand that seriously cares about material sourcing.

Because algorithm-generated Amazon listings? They don't care if you accidentally buy a chinchilla toy for your infant.

The Messy Reality of Keeping Everyone Alive

I used to read these parenting blogs that gave you strict, bulleted lists on how to manage your home, and they always made me feel like garbage. I'm not going to sit here and tell you to sanitize your baseboards or build a custom quarantine zone for your baby's toys.

If you take nothing else away from my rambling, just please god put the baby's silicone stuff in a basket with a literal lid on it so the pets can't reach it, and if you ever pick up a teether and notice it looks like it has tiny razor-sharp bite marks on it, throw the whole thing in the outside trash before your kid swallows a loosened chunk of plastic.

We did eventually get Leo the Panda Teether because it had these bamboo-textured details that he loved rubbing against his gums, and it was so visually distinct from anything we'd ever give the rabbit that Dave couldn't possibly mix them up. It's flat, it's grippy, and it lived in the fridge most of the summer of 2021.

Teething is hell. It just is. You're going to be tired, your baby is going to be miserable, and your husband is probably going to do something stupid with a piece of wood. But it does end. Unlike the actual rabbit, whose teeth are still growing, which I try not to think about when I'm trying to fall asleep.

I need to go microwave my coffee for the fourth time today, but if you're deep in the teething trenches right now, grab something safe and natural and just hang in there.

You can find the exact wood and silicone teethers that kept my kids happy (and my pets out of the ER) right here in Kianao's shop.

Questions I Angrily Googled at 3 AM So You Don't Have To

Can my baby use a natural wood pet chew if it's unpainted?
Oh my god, absolutely not. I don't care if the pet store label says "100% natural applewood." Pet chews are designed to be destroyed and splintered so animals can file their teeth down. If your baby chews on that, they're going to get a mouth full of splinters, and also probably whatever weird bacteria the pet store floor had. Stick to baby-specific beechwood that's designed to stay intact.

What happens if my pet chews my baby's silicone teether?
Throw it away immediately. Don't pass go. A dog or a rabbit's teeth will create microscopic (or very obvious) slices in the silicone. Even if it looks mostly fine, the structural integrity is ruined, and the next time your baby gnaws on it, a chunk could rip off in their mouth and choke them. Toss it.

Are wooden rings too hard for swollen baby gums?
I thought this too! But Dr. Aris told me that when gums are really inflamed, babies really crave firm, hard counter-pressure to dull the throbbing pain. That's why they try to chew on the literal wooden crib rails. A smooth, untreated wooden ring is honestly perfect for them, way better than something super squishy that doesn't give them enough resistance.

How long does this teething nightmare honestly last?
Look, I wish I could tell you it's a two-week phase, but it's basically an on-and-off marathon from like, four months until they're two years old. They get a break, you get some sleep, and then suddenly the molars start shifting and everyone is crying again. Just stock up on coffee and get a teether you can easily wash, because you're going to be handing it to them constantly.

Is silicone or wood better for teething?
It completely depends on the week, honestly. When Maya's front teeth were cutting, she wanted the hard wood. When Leo's gums were just generally swollen, he wanted cold silicone straight from the fridge. I highly think having both because babies are fickle little dictators and what worked on Tuesday will offend them on Thursday.