Pesky little teeth!

Will has finally cut his first tooth!!! Should I be excited or scared??? As a breast feeding mom I am voting for scared. So far I haven't run into too much trouble but the tooth has just barely broke through the surface of the gums and I am anticipating a rough time ahead. Right now the goal is to breast feed until I go back to work and then introduce milk during the day and breast milk at night. But this plan did not take into consideration that my cute, sweet, angelic little Will would soon have a mouth full of razor sharp chompers just dying to get a hold of something to chew on with little thought of the pain they are inflicting.
So what's the solution...I don't want to stop breast feeding but I also don't want to be in constant pain. Friends have mentioned a plethora of techniques via the fabulous facebook...most of which i am willing to try (if things get unbearable). My first step however, is to introduce some juice to the water in Will's sippy cup. He has never had juice before so I am hoping he loves it. The ultimate goal is to slowly wean Will off of day time feeds with sippy cups filled with either breast milk, water, or watered down juice. I am not a huge fan of all the sugars in juice...even the pour stuff is packed with natural sugars so juice once a day might be all he is getting for now.

I was chatting with my dear friend Sheri today about introducing snacks during the day to replace breast feeds and yet another concern popped into my head. What is an appropriate snack for my one toothed wonder? Right now Will has Baby Mum Mums (which I might enjoy even more than he does) and they are great...but what is the next step?? The thought of giving Will finger foods scares me to death. What if he chokes? Can't I leave him on pureed food forever? What if he doesn't chew? How do I teach him to chew? The list goes on and on. My biggest concern is that eating mum mums all day can't be the healthiest for Will but he isn't ready to mow down on an apple either...looks like I am going to have to get researching again!

Guess that is all for now.

PS - Today Will stood by himself...well he was holding on the his jumperoo but we weren't holding him!!! What a big boy!

Jenn