Well, this kinda sucks. My 4 year old son Jacob bashed his front teeth out on the slide at daycare today. Actually, he only knocked out one completely, but the other is pretty loose. According to them, he didn’t even cry (that’s my boy!), but I’m not certain what, if any, my options are. He’s never been to a dentist yet, and we are pretty anal about teeth brushing, but I suppose I need to take him there in case the dentist recommends extraction for the other tooth.
I know its purely cosmetic, but having the “all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth” look for three years seems kinda lame.
My three year old had a root canal because she whacked her front tooth so hard it turned black. But it didn’t seem so bad as it sounds, because at that age they don’t have the deep painful roots.
At least be grateful they weren’t adult teeth… those are much more expensive and have to be replaced. My 8 year old son knocked out his 3 front teeth while skateboarding on the driveway. All those teeth had just grown in as adult teeth and we had to have extensive work done to have fake ones put in.
I was about your son’s age when I fell flat on my face and managed to kill the roots in one of my front teeth. Unlike him, though, I cried my eyes out, I still remember it 28 years later. I don’t remember a whole lot beyond that except that it clearly didn’t look good so my mom took me to the dentist and I had it extracted. I don’t recall it taking three years to grow back in, I want to think it was much faster than that. But then again, like I said, 28 years ago and I was 4.
A good family friend lost his two front teeth falling on the front stoop at about three or four. He walked around gap-toothed and adorable for a few years until the grownup teeth grew in. He’s nearly 22 now, and seems untraumatized by the experience.
When looking up info because my son did much the same they said they might if it is brought in right away, but generally they don’t as the adult teeth will come in eventually.
My son lost his two bottoms first and one of the ones next to his two front teeth (playing at school… it involved rope in his mouth and pretending to be reindeer…) which I am told we’ll have to watch in case the adult front decides to move thataway instead of finish pushing out the front one (which is really loose…). The dentist didn’t make any suggestion otherwise, then again it didn’t bother him his teeth were gone so I didn’t worry since mine is at the age to start losing them.
Of course I did similar, but with one of the top front teeth.
I had a friend take his four year old boy sledding. I’ll make this quick, because even now it skeeves me out. The sledding street ended at a T. At the top of the T was a guard rail to keep cars from going down the hill. It also worked well for little boys.
Knocked out the two front teeth. What was sooo weird is that the four-year-old then looked seven!
I am not a doctor, so I can’t give medical advice. But for this anecdote, I can tell you that it had a happy ending. When he reached the right age, the adult teeth came in fine.
I assume you’ve taken your child to the proper medical authorities for evaluation.
My little girl lost a tooth at three after a swing chain smacked her in the face. She had to be sedated by a pediatric dental surgeon after the dentist tried twice in the office. She just wasn’t having it. He couldn’t even get her in chair! It all went smoothly at Le Bonheur; those people really worked some magic. The only problem was when she was coming out of anesthesia, she stood straight up in her bed and started trying to run. Four grown women had to hold her down for a good five minutes until her head finally cleared.
I think four is a good age to start seeing a pediatric dentist. They usually turn it into a game with the kids and just get them used to their faces and instruments so if something big happens they won’t be so frightened. Now that Bella is five she loves going for her check-ups because she associates it with fun.
Lots, because as a rule of thumb people head for the ED even when it’s a dental emergency, and we are sometimes easier to get hold of off hours than a dentist.
As a rule of thumb, traumatically avulsed deciduous teeth (particularly the central incisors, of which the upper, or maxillary ones, are most commonly bonked out) are not replaced, and the permanent ones come in fine.
Couldn’t they have just been able to tell from the small size of the tooth and the fact that kids in general mostly don’t lose their front two teeth naturally until about 6/7 years old? It doesn’t really matter though…its done…and I’m OK with it as Jacob apparently is too. Despite some soreness, he was able (with my help) to wolf down a bowl of highly nutritious and soft Spaghetti-O’s, a few grapes on the back teeth and a piece of soft bread for dinner tonight. He ain’t suffering.
The weird thing was that the one tooth that did come completely out had s SUPER long root. Which is probably what alarmed the daycare people to immediately put it into a baggie with milk in it. And maybe why they thought it could be a permanent tooth. Or was their protocol in dealing with such a situation. They did seem pretty guarded about the whole thing. Whatever.
I don’t blame them. Jacob had already chipped one of his front teeth from an “Inside the house Bigwheel accident on one of the rare sections of tiling in the entire house” episodes, so…yeah.
When my sister was in preschool, she fell on the playground and apparently knocked her two front teeth out. Upon taking her to the dentist, it was discovered that the teeth weren’t knocked out at all, but actually pushed back up into the gum. As I recall, her baby teeth “grew” back in, but gray because the roots were dead.
When I was about 3-4 I killed one of my front teeth running along the beach and tripping over a rock…straight into another rock. Ow!
It didn’t fall out, but it did turn black. The dentist recommended against taking it out, he said it would still be useful just sitting there, dead, till it fell out of its own accord.
I don’t now recall whether it fell out “early” or at the proper time - anyway, it did so eventually, and never caused me any problems until that point. Only long-term legacy of the experience was a couple of decades aversion to opening my mouth when smiling (and I have reams of photos of me simpering inanely in childhood to prove it). Apparently even at that age I was old enough to care about the black-tooth hobo look.
My 3-year old daughter (1 or 2 at the time) pitched a fit one day at daycare and split one of her front teeth. About a week later the thing split in half so that the nerve was totally exposed. We took her in to our dentist and he was amazed she wasn’t in screaming pain. He knew the thing had to come out, but wanted a pediatric dentist to do it, so we went to one, and I had the memorable job of helping wrap her in a blanket so she couldn’t squirm around, and hold her while the dentist pulled the thing out. I’m hoping one day to completely forget the whole experience.
But we never considered doing anything about the gap. That would just be silly. It’s not like she misses it–it’s more of a conversation piece for her. And she knows it’ll go away when her big teeth come in (even if she didn’t, I think she’d still be ok with it).
I agree with everyone else who has posted. It shouldn’t be a big deal.
My husband knocked his front top two baby teeth out - twice! First he knocked them back up into his head (like Pyper’s sister), and the second time they came out. It was a few years till his adult teeth grew in, and his dentist had given him a spacer thing to keep the other teeth from crowding. When his adult teeth went to grow in, his gums were hardened from the spacer thing rubbing on them, and his gums had to be cut to let the teeth grow in. That was some years ago, and I would hope that technology has improved since then!
And then there are people like me. I didn’t lose a tooth until 1st grade and kept losing baby teeth until the last one fell out in 6th grade. My gym teacher actually mocked me for still having a couple of baby teeth in middle school.
