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Growing pains. They suck, but they're necessary.
Watching your twins deal with discomfort as their teeth slowly and surely come in is tough because there's not much you can do but try to explain that the pain they're feeling won't last forever—except, at this point, they likely don't understand, so can't correlate that dental data just yet.
Babies start to experience their teeth coming in anywhere from three months up to around their first birthday, with most seeing their first tooth around six months of age.
Of course, every baby is different, even with sets of identical twins, as I can attest to with my twins—their first teeth came in on different days and their teeth came up in different orders and on opposite sides of their faces.
Infants will continue to welcome (we use this word loosely) the remainder of their new teeth with open arms for the next two to three years (most have their full set of 20 baby teeth, or milk teeth, by the time they're 24 to 36 months old.
The fact that they use the word "erupt" to describe a tooth making its way through an infant's gums paints a pretty vivid picture....
The fact that they use the word "erupt" to describe a tooth making its way through an infant's gums paints a pretty vivid (read: grotesque) picture and explains why your kiddos could be feeling crummy and cranky sometimes.
While you can't prevent their teeth coming in, you can lessen the amount of discomfort they're in.
Aside from administering pain medication to your babies or toddlers, you can make homemade teething popsicles to help bring down inflammation in their gums and keep the worst of the pain to a minimum.
If you keep frozen fruit in your freezer, it's really easy and quick to make, so they're easy to keep on hand, as needed.
The best part is that if you forget to make them ahead of time or don't realize the last ones were doled out the night before, you can still make these and spoon-feed the non-frozen pops to your teething tikes as a tasty treat while the rest of the popsicles get frigid in the freezer.
And, if I'm really being honest, the best-best part of making these frozen fruit and yogurt popsicles is that you usually had a few spoonfuls of the mixture leftover, so you could enjoy a healthy treat and quick few-spoonful-fuel-up while making sure your twins have the same thing coming in popsicle form.
Frozen Fruit Teething Popsicle Recipe
- 1 bag of frozen fruit blend of your choice.
- ½ cup Vanilla Greek Yogurt
Method
- Fill your smoothie cup three-quarters full with frozen fruit. Our twins loved a mix that had mango, peach, strawberries, and pineapple.
- Add a ½ cup of Vanilla Greek Yogurt to pack these popsicles with protein for your growing babies.
- Blend ingredients together and add more yogurt, if needed, for desired consistency.
- Use a small spoon to scoop mixture into popsicle molds. Fill them to almost the top but do not overfill them. Leave a bit of room, so that when you pop the lids on, the mixture doesn't seep over the sides of the molds.
- Seal the molds with lids, and pop them into the freezer. After a few short hours, you'll have a stash of healthy and delicious treats to help soothe the aching gums of your teething toddlers.
You'll want to make sure you have a trusty blender that can stand up to the job of making these treats every couple of days when your twins are troubled with teething pain. I loved using our Ninja single-serve blender for this job because it was the perfect serving size for the number of molds we had.
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Single-Serve Smoothie or Shake Blender BL450C by Ninja
Pro Single Serve Blender
This is the BL450C by Ninja. It's a single-serve personal blender with 900 watts of power. It's highly rated for its professional and durable blades, which crush through ice, seeds, peels, and stems to achieve a smooth, even consistency while powerfully extracting nutrients and vitamins. This model comes with 18-ounce and 24-ounce to-go cups and lids, plus recipes and a wellness guide.
You also want to make sure you've got a popsicle mold tray that will stand up to the steady use you'll be needing it for. Look for one that has easy-to-hold handles, so your babies don't have a tough time trying to hold onto their fruitsicle.
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Garden Fresh Fruitsicle Frozen Popsicle Tray by Nuby
Ergo-Friendly Design
This is a Frozen Popsicle Tray by Nuby. Designed for making fresh puree popsicles at home, they're BPA-free and catch drips as the popsicles melt. This set comes with four colorful handles, plus a tray to mold the popsicles (each mold holds one fluid ounce), whether they're made with fruit or vegetable puree, breastmilk, or juice. The handles snap into the mold, and they're ergonomically designed for little hands.
Or if you like versatility, depending on your freezer set-up and readily available real estate for popsicle molds, this set from Munchkin can be snapped together into one unit or stored as separate halves, if needed.
When you first think about a mold that can be snapped together or kept separate, it doesn't seem like it would make that big of a difference. But when you're also storing, say, enough frozen breastmilk to feed two rapidly growing babies, you may need every square inch of storage space available in your freezer, and the versatility offered by these modular molds could be just what you're looking for.
So long, teething pain
Teething popsicles were a regular staple in our household while our twins were going through the worst of their teething.
They were always excited when they saw the molds coming out of the freezer and were delighted to each get their own popsicle to enjoy after lunch or in the evening.
As they got older, they also really liked being able to pick which fruit blends we'd try out for the next batch we'd mix up, and it became more about being able to help out in the kitchen than it did about preventing the pain they had no choice but to deal with.
How do you help your babies or toddlers deal with the intense discomfort that comes with teething? Let us know in the Comments section below or connect with us on Instagram to share your thoughts!
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