Do Babies Sleep More When Teething?

I was staring at the glowing green screen of the baby monitor at 2:14 PM on a Tuesday, completely paralyzed by a mixture of deep relief and mounting panic. Florence and Matilda had been asleep for two and a half hours. For twins who normally treat daytime sleep as a personal insult, this was unprecedented. They had both been furiously chewing their own fists all morning, drooling like a pair of rabid mastiffs, and I had foolishly allowed myself to believe a myth whispered on parent WhatsApp groups: that the sheer biological effort of pushing a jagged calcium spike through their gums had exhausted them into a coma.

I used to believe that teething acted as a natural sedative. I assumed the body just shut down for renovations, granting parents a brief, glorious reprieve to drink a cup of tea while it was actually still hot. I was incredibly, dangerously wrong.

If you're hovering outside your nursery door right now, frantically googling whether this sudden lethargy is normal, let me save you some time. That extra sleep is almost certainly a trap, a biological coincidence, or the calm before a very, very loud storm.

The great midday nap deception

Our GP, Dr. Evans, is a wonderfully blunt woman who delivers medical information with the weary tone of someone who has seen too many panicked first-time parents. When I proudly informed her that the girls were finally sleeping through the afternoon because their bottom incisors were coming in, she actually laughed. She told me that, in her experience, tooth eruptions ruin sleep for the vast majority of infants, and if they happen to be crashing out for four hours at a stretch, it's usually because their little bodies are busy doing something else entirely.

It turns out that teeth rarely arrive in isolation. They love to show up uninvited to other major developmental milestones. My mum recently sent me a typo-ridden message asking "is the babi sleeping because of the jabs," which, despite the spelling, hit the nail on the head. We had literally just done their six-month immunizations. Vaccines kickstart an immune response that can leave them absolutely floored for a day or two. So no, it wasn't the tooth making Florence sleep until 3 PM; it was the NHS working its way through her bloodstream.

Then there are the growth spurts. I don't fully understand the metabolic science behind it, but I gather that stretching their bones by an inch overnight takes a massive toll on their energy reserves, causing them to sleep heavily right around the same time you first spot that terrifying little white ridge on their lower gum. Sometimes, it's just a mild cold. Babies are basically tiny, unhygienic sponges that absorb every virus within a ten-mile radius, and the fatigue of fighting off a minor bug often masquerades as a teething symptom.

Fever versus just feeling a bit rubbish

There's an entire cottage industry of wellness influencers posting aesthetic, sepia-toned photos of their "sweet babie" resting peacefully with a supposedly normal teething fever of 39 degrees. This drives me absolutely spare.

I spent three paragraphs' worth of mental energy agonizing over their temperatures during the first round of teeth. You touch their forehead, and it feels like a radiator. You panic. You strip them down to their nappies. You dig the digital thermometer out of the terrifying medical drawer, accidentally switch it from Celsius to Fahrenheit, assume they're literally boiling to death, and then finally get a reading of 37.6C. Dr. Evans specifically warned me that while sore gums can cause a slightly elevated temperature and flushed cheeks (usually just on the side where the tooth is breaching), teething doesn't cause actual, dangerous fevers. If the thermometer hits 38C or higher, she said, they're sick with a virus, and it has absolutely nothing to do with their dental development.

If they've a runny nose and catastrophic bowel movements, they've a bug, end of story.

The things we jam in their mouths

Because Florence deals with pain by quietly gnawing the paint off her cot, and Matilda prefers to wake the entire postcode with her screaming, I've essentially turned my living room into a testing facility for silicone and wood. Not all chew toys are created equal.

My absolute lifeline during the darkest days of the central incisors was the Panda Teether Silicone Chew Toy. I'm not exaggerating when I say this piece of textured silicone saved my remaining shreds of dignity on a packed train to Cornwall. Florence was losing her mind, rejecting dummies, snacks, and songs, but the flat shape of this panda meant she could actually hold it herself without dropping it every four seconds. It's food-grade silicone, which means I can aggressively scrub it in the sink when it inevitably falls on the floor of a public transit system, and you can chuck it in the fridge for ten minutes. The cold seems to temporarily numb the swelling, giving you just enough time to distract them with an empty cardboard box (the only toy they really care about).

On the other hand, we also have the Sleeping Bunny Teething Rattle. It's objectively gorgeous. The organic cotton crochet work is lovely, and the untreated wooden ring provides that hard resistance they crave when the molars start moving. But—and this is a significant but—if you've a child who drools with the volume and intensity of an uncapped fire hydrant, the crochet head gets soggy incredibly fast. It's great for light chewing and looks fantastic on a nursery shelf, but in the trenches of peak teething, you're going to want something you can wipe dry on your jeans.

If you prefer wood but want to avoid the soggy fabric issue, the Bear Baby Teether is a solid middle ground. The silicone bear head gives them the soft pressure for the front teeth, while the beechwood ring lets them really grind down in the back without destroying anything.

If you're slowly losing your mind trying to find something your child will genuinely gnaw on instead of your collarbone, you can browse the rest of the natural teething collection here.

Surviving the night without losing your mind

When the pain invariably peaks at 3 AM, your sleep deprivation will try to convince you to do highly irrational things. I once seriously considered putting Florence in the car and driving up the M1 until dawn just to stop the crying.

My health visitor, sensing my impending breakdown, gave me a messy but vital piece of advice: rather than abandoning all your hard-won sleep routines and letting them sleep on your chest for six months, you just need to keep the room environment exactly the same while offering a chilled flannel to chew on and a carefully measured dose of infant paracetamol thirty minutes before the crib if they're clearly in agony. We relied heavily on Calpol (when appropriate and cleared by the GP), simply because trying to reason with a tiny human whose face is throbbing is an exercise in futility.

I also harbor a deep, burning resentment for amber teething necklaces. I see them everywhere in East London, strapped to the necks of thrashing infants at the local coffee shop. The sheer absurdity of taking a known choking and strangulation hazard, wrapping it around the throat of a baby who can't control their own limbs, and hoping the magical resin somehow absorbs dental pain is staggering to me. The NHS and basically every pediatric body on earth have explicitly warned against them, yet people still buy them because they look earthy. It's absolute madness.

I also don't bother with those benzocaine numbing gels anymore, mostly because our doctor mentioned they can cause a terrifying blood oxygen condition, which was enough to make me bin the tube immediately.

The aftermath of the eruption

The timeline of this misery is surprisingly predictable once you know what to look for. Dr. Evans told me that the entire ordeal for a single tooth usually lasts about eight days—four days of them acting like an irrational, drooly tyrant before the tooth breaks the skin, the terrible day of the actual eruption, and then roughly three days of residual grumpiness while the gum settles down.

So, do babies sleep more when they're cutting teeth? No. If anything, they'll rob you of whatever meager rest you were previously enjoying. But if they do happen to crash for an extra hour, don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Just check to make sure they aren't running a true fever, verify they haven't recently been vaccinated, and then slowly back out of the room. Pour the tea. Drink it while it's hot. You're going to need the caffeine for tonight.

Ready to upgrade your survival toolkit before the molars arrive? Explore our collection of safe, non-toxic baby teethers designed to save their gums and your sanity.

Messy, exhausted answers to your teething questions

Do teething babies nap longer?
In my bitter experience, absolutely not. The pain usually wakes them up early and ruins their midday rest. If they're suddenly napping for hours, they're probably hitting a growth spurt or fighting off a nursery cold.

Can I freeze silicone teethers?
The fridge is your friend, the freezer is your enemy. I froze one once, and it came out rock hard—it ended up bruising Matilda's gum and making her cry harder. Just leave them in the fridge for fifteen minutes so they get nice and cold without turning into a weapon.

Is a 39C fever normal for teething?
Our GP was crystal clear on this: no. Teething can make them feel a bit warm to the touch, maybe around 37.5C, but a true, roasting fever means they've caught a virus. Get the Calpol out and call your doctor if you're worried.

How long does one tooth take to come through?
It feels like a decade, but it's usually an eight-day window of misery. Four days of build-up, the day it cuts through (the worst day), and three days of them slowly forgiving you for it.

Why is my baby suddenly chewing their cot?
Because the wood is hard and their gums itch from the inside out. Florence took a chunk out of the paintwork before we realized what was happening. Give them a wooden ring teether instead—it's much safer and protects your furniture.