One day there is smooth gum, and the next there is a small white edge that was not there before.

What eruption actually looks like

Before you ever see white, you can often feel it. A spot on the gum firms up, sometimes looking a little puffier or shinier than the gum around it, days or even a couple of weeks before anything breaks the surface.

Then, usually without much warning, a thin white edge shows through. Most babies meet a bottom front tooth first, but plenty meet a different one, and the order varies from child to child without meaning anything on its own. What follows is less a single event than a slow reveal, a little more visible each week until the whole tooth has cleared the gum line.

The drool and gnaw signs

The signs usually arrive before the tooth does. More drool than you are used to, a hand or a toy that goes straight to the mouth, and a baby who seems to want to gnaw on anything within reach, your finger included. Some babies get a little clingier or sleep a little worse for a stretch. Others barely seem to notice.

Comfort at this age stays simple. A clean, chilled, not frozen, teether gives something firm to gnaw on. Gentle massage over the gum with a clean finger helps too, and so does plain patience on a rough night. No aspirin on the gums, and any question about a teething product or medicine belongs to your pediatrician, not a home remedy.

Worth marking, not just enduring

Somewhere between the drool and the fussing, it is worth pausing to notice that this is a genuine milestone. A photo for the baby book, a call to a grandparent who will absolutely want to know: all of that is allowed, even on a night when the gnawing has worn everyone thin.

The first tooth is also proof that the plan under the gums has been working the whole time. A full set of twenty baby teeth is typically on its way over the next couple of years, each one arriving on its own separate schedule.

Starting to brush, from tooth one

The day a tooth is visible is the day brushing starts, even if it is one small tooth surrounded by gum. Twice a day is the aim, especially the last brush before bed, with a small, soft brush sized for a baby's mouth.

The American Dental Association's general guidance on toothpaste amount at this age is a rice-grain smear before age 3, and a pea-size amount after, with an adult doing the brushing or supervising closely. Gentle circles on the tooth, front and back, with a light pass over the gums covering the rest of the mouth, is most of the technique. It will not look tidy for a long while, and that part is fine. The habit matters more than the polish this early.

When the timing is worth mentioning, not worrying about

Most babies meet that first tooth somewhere around the middle of the first year, but ordinary stretches wide on both ends of that. A tooth arriving at three or four months is still inside typical range, and so is one that has not shown up by ten or eleven months.

What is worth doing, at either extreme, is mentioning it out loud at a visit rather than deciding on your own that something is wrong. The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry recommends a first dental visit by the first birthday, or within six months of the first tooth, whichever comes first, and an early or late starter is exactly the kind of detail worth bringing to that appointment. It is a mention, not a diagnosis, and most of the time the answer is simply that this is how your child's mouth works.

What follows the first tooth

More teeth tend to follow in loose clusters rather than one at a time, often with a matching tooth on the opposite side arriving within a few weeks of the first. Expect a few calm months between clusters, not a steady one-a-month drumbeat.

The routine you build around this first tooth, brushing twice a day and a first dental visit on the calendar, is the same routine that carries your child through the rest of the first year. If bedtime brushing turns into a nightly negotiation, the free story Goodnight, Reef ends with the two-minute brush built right into the plot, which can do some of the convincing for you. More on what that first visit involves lives on the infant and toddler care page.