Anyone who’s had a baby remembers anticipating those first teeth with glee only to realise that your (mostly) happy baby soon resembles a drooling, chewing, grabbing, scratching, biting monster! Some teeth come through with not so much as a whimper whereas others seem to take so long with sore gums, soaking wet clothes from dribble, flushed cheeks and a grizzly baby 🙁 If you’re really lucky you get interrupted sleep (that’s if you ever got uninterrupted sleep!).
Teething usually starts around six months of age, but can vary from 3 months to past 12 months, both being normal. It was around 3 months that Baby D started dribbling profusely, so much so that he needs to wear various cowboy style neckerchiefs (any excuse to get neckerchiefs into a sentence) otherwise his tops get soaked. At 5 months he was chewing anything he could get his hands on and now at 8 months everything goes in his mouth – paper, wires and discarded sweet wrappers being his favourite given half the chance – so I was thrilled to be given the chance to try a selection of Gumigem’s award winning teething jewellery and toys. Here’s what I chose:
The Gemini Reflection Necklace
The Pride Wave Bangle
The Bubba Bag Essentials
They come in their own individual bags with instructions and you also receive a handy guide to teething by Gumigem.
Gumigem was founded by a Mum who came up with the innovative solution to the problem of wearing Jewellery with a grabby baby who wants to eat everything – here is a solution that combines style with a way of soothing those sore gums. Teething with style was born!
I love the way the necklace looks like a fashion necklace and it’s only when you feel it that you can guess what it’s use is, it’s very tactile and I enjoyed fiddling with it myself! I went back to work as a community midwife last week (which has been a challenge in itself) and had a bit of a wardrobe crisis but at least I had my Gumigem to wear, I love the bright colours of the reflection but there are plenty of other designs to choose from to suit your style:
And when I’m off duty we had such fun road testing the necklace together, it was great for when we were out visiting our friends, when you have a fidgety baby like mine who doesn’t sit still on your lap it gives you a helping hand and keeps baby close to you for longer. I can see it coming in handy in a restaurant situation!
One of the main reasons I wanted to try out the necklace was I’m a keen babywearer as it’s such a godsend on the school run and for those buggy inaccessible places and I enjoy the closeness, but now Baby D is older he twists around, pinches me and is generally too curious for his own good! The necklace keeps his hands occupied at least and gives him something to chew on.
The other reason was to keep his hands occupied during feeding – I breastfeed and he likes to grab and pinch me, I imagine it would help when bottle feeding too – It does give him something to grab as an alternative to me and he likes to wave it around during feeding. I notice a difference if I don’t wear it now.
The wavy Bangle is so colourful he was attracted to it straight away, it is easy to wear and again there are lots of bracelets to suit your style, the great thing is you can whip it off and let your baby play with it when you’ve forgotten to take a toy somewhere or like I found when you’re in the car and you’re facing a traffic jam moment:
Baby D’s favourite by far has been the Bubba Bag – he has a thing for remote controls, keys and phones (like most babies) but these ones he is actually allowed to chew and play with!
Here is Baby D enjoying his Bubba Bag Essentials, an added bonus is that each toy has a little hole where you can attach a dummy clip so it doesn’t get lost or secure it to the buggy or car seat whilst out and about:
You can also get a Bubba Bag original, which has a little purse in instead of the remote control or a Bubba bag tool kit, they’d make a brilliant Christmas or 1st birthday present.
Disclosure: I received the products free in return for writing my open and honest review.
