Why I threw my baby's amber teething necklace in the trash

It was exactly 3:14 AM. I know this because the glowing red numbers on the microwave were basically mocking me from the kitchen. The bathroom floor tiles were freezing against my bare legs, and I was wearing a gray nursing tank that smelled aggressively like sour milk and sheer desperation. My son Leo, who was about six months old at the time, was trying to gnaw his way through my actual collarbone. Just, completely feral.

He had been screaming for forty-five minutes. Not the hungry cry. Not the tired cry. The high-pitched, my-face-is-exploding teething cry.

I was sitting on the bathmat, bouncing him, blindly scrolling through my phone with my left hand, and there it was. An Instagram ad for a Baltic amber teething necklace for babies. The baby in the photo was sleeping peacefully. The mom in the photo was wearing a pristine white linen shirt that didn't have a single spit-up stain on it. She looked well-rested. She looked like she drank hot coffee.

I wanted to be her. God, I wanted to be her.

I had my credit card out. I was literally typing in the CVV code to spend like forty-five dollars on a string of shiny brown beads because the caption promised it would magically dissolve his gum pain. That's when my husband Dan walked into the bathroom, rubbed his eyes, looked at my phone screen, and sighed.

He was just like, are we really buying a choking hazard at three in the morning because an influencer told us to?

I snapped at him. Obviously. Because how dare he bring logic into my sleep-deprived delusion. But I put the phone down. And a few days later, at Leo's checkup, I asked our doctor about them. And honestly, what she told me made me want to throw every piece of baby jewelry straight into the actual garbage.

Dr. Aris ruined my magical amber dreams

So thing is about those Baltic amber necklaces. The whole marketing pitch is that they contain this stuff called succinic acid. Supposedly, it's like a natural painkiller or anti-swollen? I think? And the warmth of your baby's skin is supposed to make the amber release the acid into their bloodstream to soothe their gums.

I explained this entire theory to my doctor, Dr. Aris, who's this incredibly no-nonsense woman who has seen it all. She literally stopped typing on her little laptop, pulled her chair around, and looked at me.

She told me that yes, amber has succinic acid, but it needs to reach nearly 400 degrees Fahrenheit to release it. Four hundred degrees.

Which... oh god. If my baby's body temperature is 400 degrees, we've significantly bigger problems than a swollen gum. He'd be on fire. Anyway, the point is, there's absolutely zero scientific proof that human skin can absorb this stuff from a necklace. The only reason babies seem to get relief from wearing them is because they end up putting the beads in their mouths and chewing on them, which provides physical counter-pressure. They're just chewing on hard rocks.

And then she got to the safety part, and my stomach completely dropped.

She told me the FDA and basically every pediatric academy on earth has begged parents to stop using these things. The risk of strangulation is huge. Babies sleep with them, or the necklace gets caught on the corner of a crib or a car seat buckle. And even if you think you're watching them like a hawk, babies have these razor-sharp little emerging teeth, and if they chew on that necklace and snap the cord? You suddenly have two dozen tiny, hard beads in a baby's mouth. It takes one second for a bead to block an airway. One single second.

I felt so sick thinking about how close I came to buying one on that bathmat.

Oh, and Dr. Aris also said absolutely no numbing gels with benzocaine, so just toss those in the trash immediately.

Trash.

The whole wearing it yourself loophole

So after I got properly terrified of putting jewelry on my infant, I thought I found the ultimate parenting hack. I discovered the whole mum teething necklace trend.

If you haven't seen these, it's basically a chunky necklace made of food-grade silicone beads that the mom wears, and the baby can chew on it while you're holding them or nursing. I bought a geometric one in this mustard yellow color that I convinced myself was very chic and modern.

I thought I was a genius. I was like, look at me, finding a safe teething necklace for mom that completely eliminates the strangulation risk for the baby! I'm a problem solver!

Yeah. No.

Fast forward to when my daughter Maya was born. She was about seven months old, we were at this overcrowded coffee shop on 4th street—the one that charges like eight dollars for an oat milk latte—and I was wearing my trusty mother teething necklace. Maya was in my lap, going to town on the biggest silicone bead.

Babies have the grip strength of an angry gorilla. Maya grabbed the necklace with both hands, planted her tiny feet against my chest, and yanked. The clasp on the back of my neck held strong, but the cord itself? It made this horrifying snapping sound. And suddenly I'm sitting there in public, desperately trying to catch heavy silicone beads as they bounce off my chest, my lap, and into Maya's stroller, terrified she was going to inhale one before I could find them all.

So even when you search for a teething necklace for mum, you're still dealing with a cord and small parts. If the cord breaks while they're chewing on it while you're wearing it, the choking hazard is exactly the same. They're literally right at chest level, inches from their mouth. It's just not worth the anxiety, honestly.

Things that actually work and won't kill anyone

If you're frantically scrolling the internet right now with a screaming baby, please just skip the jewelry, grab a clean washcloth, get it wet, tie it in a knot, and throw it in the freezer for a bit, or find a solid, one-piece silicone teether that doesn't have a million tiny parts waiting to break off and ruin your life.

You want things that are molded into a single piece. No strings, no beads, no clasps.

If you want to know what actually saved my sanity, it was the Panda Teether from Kianao. I'm not exaggerating when I say this thing basically lived in my bra for easy access when Maya was an infant.

It's 100% food-grade silicone, but more importantly, it's flat and hollow in the middle so she could actually get her tiny clumsy fingers around it. She gnawed on that panda's ears like she was being paid an hourly wage. It’s completely solid, so there's zero choking anxiety, and I could just toss it in the dishwasher when it inevitably got dropped on the floor of a Target parking lot. It gave her the exact same hard-but-yielding counter-pressure she wanted from my collarbone, but without the bruising.

If you're in the thick of this awful phase, do yourself a favor and just browse Kianao's teething toys collection for things that are genuinely meant to be chewed on.

We also had the Bear Teething Rattle, which has this natural beechwood ring and a cute little crochet bear head. Honestly? It's fine. It looks gorgeous sitting on the nursery shelf, and I love that it’s plastic-free, but when Leo was super little, he just lacked the coordination for it. He kept enthusiastically shaking it and whacking himself in the eye with the heavy wooden ring, which obviously resulted in more crying. It was much better when he was a bit older, around nine months, and had better motor control. But for those early, desperate months? Stick to the soft silicone.

Another really solid option we had was the Squirrel Teether. Again, one solid piece of silicone. It has this little textured acorn detail that both my kids loved running their gums over. Plus, it’s shaped like a ring, so you can easily attach it to a pacifier clip (a short one, obviously) and clip it to their shirt so it doesn't end up on the floor of the subway.

Just survive the phase

Teething is hell. It just is. You're exhausted, they're miserable, the drool is giving them a chin rash, and you feel entirely helpless.

But slapping an aesthetic string of rocks around their neck isn't the magic cure the internet wants you to believe it's. It's just a really stressful liability disguised as a natural remedy. Stick to cold things, solid silicone, and maybe just surrender to the fact that you're going to be carrying a drooly, grumpy koala bear for a few days.

And drink the coffee. Drink all of it.

If you need safe, single-mold relief that you can really trust, go check out Kianao's full line of safe silicone teethers. Your baby's gums (and your collarbones) will thank you.

Stuff parents always ask me about this

Are any teething necklaces seriously safe?
Honestly, no. Like, my doctor was super clear about this. Whether it's amber, silicone, or wood, if it goes around a baby's neck, it's a strangulation hazard. And if it's made of smaller beads strung together, it's a massive choking hazard. It just takes one broken string. It’s not worth it.

What about wearing a teething necklace myself?
I tried the whole mum teething necklace thing and it backfired spectacularly. Yes, it keeps the cord off the baby's neck, which is good! But babies pull hard. If they snap the cord while you're holding them, you suddenly have loose beads raining down right next to their mouth. Plus, the constant yanking on the back of your neck gives you a massive headache.

Why do people swear by Baltic amber then?
Confirmation bias, mostly! People buy it right when their kid is at peak fussiness. A few days later, the tooth finally cuts through the gum, the baby calms down, and the parents are like, "OMG the amber worked!" No, the tooth just finally popped out. Or the baby was just chewing on the hard beads, which you can easily replicate with a safe, solid teething toy.

Can I freeze my baby's silicone teethers?
Okay, so I used to do this until I was told not to. You should put them in the fridge, not the freezer. If they get rock solid in the freezer, they can genuinely bruise your baby's already swollen gums. A cold, refrigerated panda teether is perfect. Rock hard ice is too much.

How do I clean silicone teethers after they drop them in public?
Because they'll drop them. Immediately. The best part about food-grade silicone is that you can just throw it in the top rack of the dishwasher. If I'm out and about, I just use warm water and whatever soap is in the bathroom, or those little pacifier wipes in an emergency. But at home? Dishwasher all the way.