It kind of snuck up on me. My daughter was growing and changing and learning new things, but she was still toothless. I was pleased. I could wait for the biting and chewing to begin. However, anxious family members were asking me when I thought she would get her first tooth. Of course I replied that I had no idea but that I was hoping it would not be for a while. A while did not last very long. Not long after she reached six months her first bottom tooth broke through without any warning. She was not particularly fussy the days preceding her first tooth either … it just happened. I became nervous that she would start biting me but she did not… for a while. She like to chew on lots of things: toys, shoes, papers, clothes, carrots, fingers, plates, glasses, … really anything on the floor. Then again without warning her second tooth broke through and that is when she started biting me. She was really quite nice and kept the biting to a minimum while nursing. She was still chewing on everything in sight. Combined with her crazy crawling skills, my daughter was all over the place crawling and chewing. We started baby proofing by moving most things out of her reach while leaving just a few toys within her crawling reach. Still she found other things to sink her teeth into like the legs of chairs and tables (but we cannot really move those out of her reach). Then she learned to pull herself up onto largely immobile objects and she started chewing on everything at this new found level too. In an attempt to lessen her chewing rampage, I tried giving her carrots to use as a teether. While carrots are fun to chew on, she would rather use her teeth to eat!
