What is "teething"?
Teething is actually when the tooth pops through the gum. The gum gets swollen and it hurts, and as a result babies will drool and gnaw on things like their fist or their hand. Every baby starts drooling lots, usually around three months. Thus I think of teething in two phases. There's the "pre-teething" and then there's the "true teething." Because teeth don't usually come in until about six months, give or take a couple, and most babies start drooling around three months, we don't really consider this three months' drooling as teething. So I tell parents: "Yes, from three months on your babies are going to drool, they are going to stick their hands in their mouth, they are going to gnaw on things", and this is that sort of "pre-teething' phase, but it's not true teething. They're doing it because they've found their mouth, they're becoming more oral and it's soothing to them. Then when the tooth pops through the gum (and all you have to do is rub your finger along the gums and you feel the edge of the tooth) that's what true teething is. That's when the gum gets swollen, and they keep drooling even more and gnawing on things because it feels good.
