Baby Teething Timeline: When Teeth Come In and How to Help
Somewhere around the half-year mark, the drooling ramps up, everything goes in the mouth, and you start squinting at gums like a prospector. Here is when teeth actually tend to arrive, what teething does and does not cause, and what helps on the rough nights.
When baby teeth come in
Most babies cut their first tooth between 6 and 10 months, almost always one of the two bottom front teeth. From there, teeth arrive in loose pairs, and the full set of 20 is usually in by around age three. Here is the map, with each tooth numbered by its typical arrival order. Tap any tooth to jump to its row in the table:
This is the same map you tap in Tiny Footprints when a tooth appears. The exact windows are the standard pediatric dental expectations the app uses, and the letter IDs are the official universal notation for baby teeth, the same A-to-T labels your dentist uses:
| # | Teeth | IDs | Typical window |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lower central incisors (bottom front) | O · P | 6–10 months |
| 2 | Upper central incisors (top front) | E · F | 8–12 months |
| 3 | Upper lateral incisors | D · G | 9–13 months |
| 4 | Lower lateral incisors | N · Q | 10–16 months |
| 5 | Upper first molars | B · I | 13–19 months |
| 6 | Lower first molars | L · S | 14–18 months |
| 7 | Upper canines | C · H | 16–22 months |
| 8 | Lower canines | M · R | 17–23 months |
| 9 | Lower second molars | K · T | 23–31 months |
| 10 | Upper second molars | A · J | 25–33 months |
Wide windows are the point. A first tooth at 4 months or a gummy grin at the first birthday can both be completely normal, and late teethers catch up without any help. If there are no teeth at all by around 18 months, mention it at your next checkup.
What teething really looks like
The classic signs, and the ones you can log against each tooth in the app:
- Drooling, often impressive amounts, sometimes with a mild chin rash
- Biting and gnawing on hands, toys, spoons, you
- Swollen or tender gums, occasionally with a visible bump
- Fussiness, usually worst in the day or two before a tooth breaks through
- Sleep disruption around eruption days
- Ear pulling on the same side as an incoming tooth
- Reduced appetite, especially for sucking feeds when gums are sore
Just as important is what teething does not cause. Research is consistent that teething may nudge temperature up slightly, but it does not cause true fever (38°C / 100.4°F or higher), and it does not cause diarrhea, vomiting, or a body rash. Those symptoms mean something else is going on, usually an ordinary illness that happened to show up alongside a tooth, and they deserve their own attention from your doctor rather than being filed under teething.
What helps
The remedies that hold up, and that you can track in the app to learn which one actually works for your baby:
- Cold, not frozen. A chilled teething ring or chilled teether from the fridge soothes gums; freezer-solid ones can bruise them.
- A cold washcloth, wet and chilled, is the cheapest teether ever invented and works remarkably well.
- Gum massage with a clean finger, firm and slow.
- Frozen fruit in a mesh or silicone feeder for babies already established on solids, with supervision.
- Pain relief on the hard nights: infant paracetamol/acetaminophen or (from 6 months) ibuprofen, at the dose for your baby’s weight, checked with your pharmacist or doctor.
Skip these, whatever the reviews say: amber teething necklaces (a strangulation and choking risk), benzocaine numbing gels (an FDA warning for infants), and homeopathic teething tablets. None are considered safe for babies.
Finding your baby’s pattern
Every baby teethes differently, and the pattern only shows up in hindsight unless you write it down. Log teething in Tiny Footprints against the tooth map and the Teething tab in Insights builds your baby’s eruption timeline against the expected windows above, then surfaces the pattern: which symptom shows up most for your baby, and which remedy you actually reach for. By the time the molars arrive, the app knows the playbook: you will already know it is two rough nights, the chilled washcloth, and out the other side.
And log the payoff too. That first gappy, two-tooth grin is one of the great photographs of the first year. It belongs in the Journey Book.