Why I Tossed That Amber Teething Necklace Straight in the Trash

I was sitting in the nursery rocking chair at three in the morning with a baby who had completely saturated his third onesie of the night with pure drool. My oldest son—who's basically the walking, talking cautionary tale for every parenting mistake I ever made—was about five months old and screaming like I had just insulted his ancestors. His little gums were swollen, his cheeks were bright red, and I was so desperate for sleep I probably would have bought magic beans if Amazon offered overnight shipping. Instead, I panic-scrolled through Instagram, saw a gorgeous, beige-filtered influencer mother swearing by this magical Baltic amber jewelry, and immediately bought a teething necklace for my baby.

I felt so smug about it, y'all. I really did. I put that little string of yellow beads around his chubby neck the second it arrived in the mail, fully believing I was unlocking some ancient, natural parenting hack that would save us from the sleep regression trenches. I told myself he looked like a cute little bohemian surfer dude, even though he mostly just looked like a grumpy potato wearing a choke collar. I let him wear it for three solid weeks before his six-month well-baby checkup, which is where my entire crunchy-mom fantasy came crashing down in spectacular, embarrassing fashion.

I'm just gonna be real with you right now because nobody was real with me back then. The internet is full of gorgeous marketing and convincing testimonials, but when it comes down to the actual reality of keeping our kids alive, we've to look past the aesthetic. As a mom of three under five who runs a small business, I know exactly how tempting it's to buy a quick fix, but this is one trend that needs to stay in the past.

That extremely humbling doctor visit

So there we were in the exam room. Dr. Miller walked in, took one look at my son's neck, and his whole demeanor changed. He didn't even say hello before he told me to take the necklace off right that second. I was super defensive at first, ready to rattle off all the holistic blogs I had read at two in the morning, but he just sat down on his little rolling stool and laid out the terrifying reality of infant safety.

My pediatrician said that suffocation and strangulation are the leading causes of death for babies under a year old, and putting a sturdy string around a squirmy infant's neck is basically handing them a hazard on a silver platter. He told me this horrible story he'd read from an FDA warning about an eighteen-month-old toddler who was strangled by an amber necklace during a nap, and my stomach just hit the floor. I hadn't even thought about the fact that the string could get caught on the edge of the crib or a toy.

And it wasn't just the strangling part that had him riled up. He explained that those tiny beads are massive choking hazards just waiting to happen. Babies have incredibly strong little jaws when they want to, and if they gnaw on that necklace and snap the string, you suddenly have twenty tiny, hard resin pebbles loose in their mouth. Add in the fact that the string itself just traps sour milk, drool, and whatever mystery fuzz they found on the carpet to create a literal breeding ground for bacteria right against a teething rash, and I was ready to throw the thing in the biohazard bin before the appointment was even over.

The actual math on those magic amber beads

Let's talk about the so-called science for a minute, because I'm still furious about how much money I spent on something that's chemically impossible. The whole sales pitch for amber beads is that they contain this stuff called succinic acid, which is supposed to be some kind of natural painkiller that absorbs into your baby's bloodstream when the beads get warmed up by their skin.

From what I gathered during my late-night rabbit hole of research after that doctor's appointment, succinic acid is a real thing, but the mechanics of getting it out of a piece of fossilized tree sap are completely ridiculous. My understanding is that the amber has to reach a temperature of somewhere around four hundred degrees Fahrenheit before it releases any of that magical pain-relieving acid.

Now, I don't know about y'all, but my baby's body temperature hovers right around 98.6 degrees. Unless your infant is literally on fire—in which case you've much bigger problems than incoming incisors—those beads are doing absolutely nothing but sitting there looking pretty. It just makes me so mad that companies use pseudo-science to prey on exhausted mothers who are running on two hours of sleep and cold coffee, selling them a choking hazard wrapped up in a wellness aesthetic.

Oh, and while we're on the subject of things that don't work, don't freeze those liquid-filled teething rings rock solid either because my doctor said it can actually cause tiny frostbite burns on their sensitive gums, so just skip that entirely.

If you really want jewelry get something you can wear

Now, I totally get the appeal of having something right there on your chest for the baby to grab while you're carrying them around the grocery store or trying to nurse them in peace. But if you really want jewelry involved in this process, you need to be looking for a teething necklace for mom, not the baby.

The whole concept of a mum teething necklace is that the adult wears it, and the baby just gets to interact with it while they're safely in your arms. When I had my second kid, I actually bought a really chunky, colorful silicone necklace for myself to wear while teething was at its worst. It gave her something safe to tug on and chew while I held her, which kept her hands busy and stopped her from pinching my collarbone or yanking my actual hair out by the roots.

But—and this is a massive but—if you go this route, you've to make absolutely sure it has a breakaway clasp. Babies have the grip strength of an angry silverback gorilla, and if they yank down hard on a cord that doesn't snap open, they're going to take your neck right down with them. As an Etsy seller myself, I respect the hustle of small businesses making beautiful things, but you've to check the materials to make sure you're getting food-grade silicone and a cord that will pop open under pressure instead of decapitating you in the checkout line.

Stuff that actually survives my chaotic house

By the time I had my third baby, Carter, I was entirely done with trendy nonsense and just wanted things that worked, wouldn't kill him, and didn't require me to do extra chores. We tossed all the wearable baby jewelry and moved strictly to things he could hold in his own chubby little fists.

If you want to know what genuinely gets used every single day in my house, it's the Panda Teether Silicone Baby Bamboo Chew Toy. I bought this purely because it was cute, but it ended up being the holy grail of our teething stash. It's completely flat, which means Carter can seriously get it all the way back to his molars without gagging himself. It's one solid piece of food-grade silicone, so there are no hidden crevices for mold to grow in, and it's perfectly sized for his tiny hands to grip.

But the real reason I love it's the price and the fact that I can literally hurl it onto the top rack of my dishwasher honestly. I'm dealing with mountains of laundry and a kindergartener who thinks folding clothes is a competitive sport, so if a baby product requires hand-washing with special soap, it's dead to me. This little panda survives the sanitize cycle like a champ and comes out ready for another day of gnawing.

On the flip side, I'll be totally honest about the Handmade Wood & Silicone Teether Ring. It's gorgeous. It looks like it belongs in a magazine spread about mindful Scandinavian parenting. The silicone beads are great, and my baby did like the texture of the untreated beechwood on his gums.

But bless its heart, it's high maintenance. You can't soak wood in the sink or run it through the dishwasher because it'll swell and splinter or get gross. You have to carefully wipe the wooden ring with a damp cloth and let it air dry. If you only have one baby and a relatively calm life, it's a beautiful, natural option that feels great in their hands. But if you live in a zoo like I do where things routinely get dropped in spaghetti sauce or abandoned in a puddle on the porch, keeping the wood perfectly pristine is just an extra task I don't have the mental bandwidth for.

Take a look at all the safe, easy-to-clean teething toys Kianao offers if you want to see options that genuinely prioritize safety over trends.

Cheap tricks and old wives' tales

Sometimes the best things aren't products at all. My grandma used to tell me to just rub a little whiskey on their gums, which I obviously rolled my eyes at and immediately ignored, but her other piece of advice was pure gold.

Take a clean baby washcloth, get it damp with cold water, tie a tight knot in the middle of it, and toss it in the freezer for about ten minutes. You don't want it frozen solid like a rock, just icy cold. Let them chew on that thick, textured knot. The fabric gives them that rough friction they desperately want on their sore gums, and the chill honestly numbs the pain without any weird chemicals. When they drop it on the floor for the fiftieth time, you just toss it in the laundry pile and grab another one.

When the pain gets really bad, especially at night when they're just thrashing around and miserable, my pediatrician told me to just give them the weight-appropriate dose of infant Tylenol and be done with it. There's no award for letting your baby suffer naturally. Just check with your doctor for the right dosage based on their current weight, give them the medicine, rock them for a bit, and let both of you finally get some sleep.

The one thing my doctor specifically warned me to avoid entirely are those over-the-counter benzocaine numbing gels. Apparently, they wash out of the baby's mouth almost instantly with all the drool, so they don't even work that well, but worse than that, they can cause some rare oxygen-depleting blood condition. I think it's called methemoglobinemia, but I just call it a big nope.

Just gather up all those dangerous strings of beads, toss the questionable numbing creams in the trash, and grab a damp washcloth from the linen closet while you wait for the pediatrician to call back about the Tylenol dosage so you can finally get a minute of peace.

If you're ready to ditch the risky jewelry and get something your baby can really chew on safely, check out the baby care essentials to find something that won't give your pediatrician a heart attack.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did the FDA issue a warning about amber beads?

Back in 2018, the FDA put out a massive warning after an 18-month-old tragically strangled to death during a nap while wearing an amber necklace, and another baby choked on a wooden bead that broke off a teething bracelet. They basically said that no jewelry is safe for babies to wear, period. It's just not worth the risk.

Are silicone necklaces safe for my baby to wear instead?

No, absolutely not. It doesn't matter if the beads are made of soft silicone, hard amber, wood, or fairy dust—the problem is the string around their neck. Any wearable cord is a strangulation hazard. If you want silicone for them to chew, buy a chunky, one-piece hand-held teether that doesn't go around their body.

What exactly is a breakaway clasp on a mom necklace?

It's a special kind of plastic closure on the back of the necklace (the one the adult wears) that's designed to violently pop open if someone yanks on it. Since babies will grab your necklace and pull with the strength of a hundred men, the clasp breaks open instantly so the cord doesn't dig into the back of your neck or snap the string and send beads flying everywhere.

Can I just use numbing gel when my baby is crying?

My pediatrician gave me a hard no on this one. Numbing gels with benzocaine are incredibly dangerous for kids under two because they can cause a rare condition that drastically lowers the oxygen in their blood. Plus, babies drool so much that the gel just washes down their throat and numbs their gag reflex anyway, which is terrifying. Stick to cold washcloths and infant pain relievers approved by your doctor.

How long does this teething nightmare genuinely last?

Honestly? It feels like it lasts from the moment they're born until they leave for college. But really, it usually starts around 4 to 6 months and goes in waves until they're about two or three years old and get those massive second molars. It's not constant crying the whole time, thank goodness, but just when you think you've a break, another tooth decides to ruin your weekend.