ever wondered what to replace your mercury fillings with?

i have.  i know there are composites, but don't they have bpa in them?
when the mercury fillings are removed, don't you consume some?

this area can all be a little overwhelming.  mercola has a brand new article that can help us all decide what to do when we need a filling or want to have a mercury one removed and replaced.

read more here.

photo via here.

hyland's teething tablets recall

on october 23, 2010, the fda issued a consumer safety alert for hyland's teething tablets.  ugh, we use those all of the time.  please read more here or here.

handmade beautiful natural wood teethers and rattles

check out the little alouette etsy shop for organic, unique wooden teethers and rattles.   they even make them in letters if you would like a personalized teething rattle.  i'm not sure about your babies, but my son wanted to gnaw on anything and everything from about 3 months onward.   these types of teethers were great for him...especially the rattling ones with the beans inside.

more on....zzz....zzz....swine flu....zzz

i always love our updates from our wonderful pediatrician jay gordon on H1N1.  because just when the media starts to creep under my skin and frighten me with swine flu statistics,  i have a great calming email in my inbox from him on the topic.  here is a snippet...

"The CDC released fatality data this past week and were quite clear in their assessment of this relatively non-virulent strain of influenza:

75-80% of the 76 children had significant or severe underlying medical problems.

Any child's death creates an extremely difficult public discussion but of the 300,000,000 Americans there are 45,000,000 children and teens and there have been 76 deaths of younger people. About 15 of these deaths occurred in seemingly healthy children and teens.

Please put all of these numbers in the proper perspective and realize that there are many important lifesaving topics for the media to publicize but none which sell papers and create TV viewership quite as well as this new flu."
read the entire message on his very informative website here.

additional teething relief : molars and middle teeth

i realized that in my teething post last week, i left the middle teeth and molar kids in the dust.  being a naturalist, i always prefer to start as far away from plastic as possible, but if all else fails, and baby's in pain, it's worth a shot. if i do give my son plastic, i try to only do bpa, phthalate, pvc free.  here are some ideas....

natural:

cold carrot or celery

good plastic:

middle/back teeth:
bpa, pvc, phthalate-free toothbrush (use with supervision). another here.
born free teether

middle teeth:
philips advent teether

back teeth:
born free teether. you can add teething gel to it.
philips advent teether

sleepless nights during teething...

ok, yes.  this is an all natural blog, but we succumbed to infant tylenol last night (gasp!).   my son has had his first taste of big-pharma--ha! we do bed-sharing, so after 6 sleepless nights of him waking and readjusting himself to latch onto my breast every hour, i assumed this must be because of his discomfort.  he does not show signs of pain at night, but certainly it's the teething that's causing this.  and since he was lying on top of me every night for 2 weeks, my back muscular pain has turned to nerve pain, so i HAVE to get some sleep.

the infant tylenol does help---i'd say his waking was cut in half---so that's pretty good.  and on the upside (i'm reaching here), tylenol does make a dye-free version now---which also does not have high fructose corn syrup (yea!).  as you may know red dye #40 (a strain of which is banned in austria, norway, japan,and sweden), which is in other tylenol infant products, has been know to have negative affects on children such as hyperactivity, hives, eczema, and aggression.

UPDATE -- uck!  it has sucralose (splenda) in it.  i've contaminated my child--seriously, this stuff really bothers me.  what is so bad about just putting natural sugar in?  gosh guys....

the teething is waring me down...

my son's first two teeth, on the bottom, came in at 7.5 months and were a breeze.  he's a little over 10 months now, and the top two teeth have started breaking through in the last couple of weeks.

ever since the arrival of the first 2 teeth, he became more snuggly---happy enough to cuddle up to me an hour after waking and just hang out on my boob until naptime.  this was cute, and so was the ridiculousness of him sleeping/nursing while lying ON TOP of me at night in the last couple weeks.  we do bed-sharing, so this wasn't so bad, plus it clearly was soothing him during an uncomfortable time. ok, well, now my back is officially wrecked---go figure.  it ends up that having something a fifth of your body weight lying on your chest all night for a week can do some damage.

so, today i will dedicate this post to all things natural that help for soothing during teething:

camilia drops--homeopathic drops that help with irritability and pain.

hyland's teething tablets--similar to above, but i also notice a calming effect that helps baby fall asleep.

amber necklace--popular in europe.  has pain relieving energetic properties.  and my husband keeps saying how "groovy our son looks in his puka shell necklace."

feeding pouch--you can do ice chips in these, but any fruit or veggie in here seems to make baby happier all around.  make life easier, buy a few of these.

teething rings--der.  this other cold one or this chewy silicone one is good too.