Monday, September 15, 2014

When Your Child Loses a Tooth

You’re sitting with your family at the dinner table enjoying homemade burgers. Everyone is talking, laughing, and enjoying dinner when suddenly, your little one’s eyes widen and he stops chewing. He drops his burger, brings his hands to his mouth, and starts touching a tooth – just one tooth. Congrats, mom and dad! It’s loose!

If this is your child’s first loose tooth, it might cause a little bit of confusion and worry for him or her. Make sure to encourage your child not to try pulling the tooth out prematurely. It will hurt and exposing a root before it’s ready can lead to infection. Instead, teach them to gently wiggle loose teeth to help them along the process a little bit more quickly.

Don’t worry if your kiddo complains about pain. This is most likely caused by back molars starting to come in and is completely natural. However, if teeth start falling out before 4 years old, you should probably pay a visit to your dentist as it may be due to something else, like tooth decay.

At first, your little one is going to look pretty silly with missing teeth – be warned, they may look even sillier when adult teeth actually come in since they will look slightly out of proportion with the rest of their teeth and the size of their face. Don’t worry – he or she will grow into them!

While we don’t like that Santa encourages cookie eating, one legendary figure we can stand behind is the tooth fairy. Losing baby teeth means becoming one step closer to a beautiful, adult smile and the tooth fairy knows the importance of healthy teeth! If you think your kiddos need orthodontic treatment, you don’t have to wait until all of their baby teeth fall out. In fact, sometimes preventative measures can be taken before to make treatment less extreme in the future.


Take lots of photos during this stage of your child’s life. Toothless photos make for great albums!


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