If you have a teething baby you need to lay your hands on a box of Ashton and Parsons Infant Teething Powders, and quickly.
Priced at £5.35 from The Co-operative Pharmacy they're the sort of item that you might not think of picking up and trying unless someone recommended them to you. Which is exactly what I am here to do.
The price might put you off a little too but since you get 20 powders in a box that actually amounts to less than 30p per powder.
Ashton & Parsons Teething Powders are basically a herbal product that can help sooth pain and stomach upset associated with teething in infants.
The little white powders come in small packets of wrapped up paper, and you literally just unwrap the powder and pour it into baby's mouth, or rub it directly onto sore gums.
We first came across these when my eldest child was a baby, almost a decade ago, and now that we're at the teething stage with a new baby all over again they have once again become an absolute essential for the nappy bag.
I love the very old-fashioned product description on the back of the box. They're billed as "intended to soothe the child; check stomach disorders; correct the motions; relieve restlessness, fretfulness, and similar troubles incidental to the teething period, and are useful in delayed or unduly prolonged dentition."
It also says that "Mothers may enjoy ease of mind in the knowledge that these powders contain nothing harmful" although I'd like to see 'parents' referenced rather than mothers. Why the assumption that only mums use teething remedies or care about the ingredients?!
In short, you have to try these powders to believe their miraculous properties. They can turn the fussiest, grumpiest and grizzliest of babies into bouncing, beaming, gurgling ones in a matter of minutes. I've never truly understood whether something in the ingredients really soothes pain or if it's a bit of a placebo effect going on, but they work. End of.
Buy them now!
What do you think?