So my youngest is standing in the kitchen eating an apple, when he stops chomping away and looks at me in horror, bloody apple in hand and top front tooth on the floor. I was pretty freaked out myself - I mean, he’s only 3! My other kids didn’t lose teeth until they were six.
We figured that he must have hurt his mouth somehow or another, but no, the dentist said the root was gone and the adult top central incisors are coming down (so this poor little guy is going to lose another tooth - it’s loose already). Dentist said he’s never seen it this early in over 30 years of practice.
Poor kiddo - he was totally not prepared for it (neither were we!) but he’s a real trooper and found out that having the only missing tooth in the whole daycare gives him some kind of big kid cred.
Anyway, I was curious if my kid is really that much of an oddball. When did you lose your first tooth (not a traumatic loss)?
My oldest didn’t lose his first tooth until he was between 7 and 8. He barely had the beginnings of two little teeth on his first birthday and the rest came in fairly slowly.
My middle child, who is three now, had almost all his baby teeth in before he was a year and finished up with molars by about 15 months. I anticipate that he’ll start losing them in the not too distant future.
Dentist here. In 27 years I’ve only had one 3 year old exfoliate teeth. Four year olds, it is fairly common and I don’t give it a second thought. It is five or six for most kids. I also don’t worry about a child not having lost teeth until they are nine. I see hundreds of kids a year and there is a lot of variation.
Rsat3acr can I ask a question - my 4 year old lost her front teeth traumatically just after 2 (fall necessitated the removal of them surgically a couple of months afterwards with 1/2 and 1/3rd roots gone). What should we expect to see when the adult teeth start to grow in? Will it be just like when her baby teeth came in, slow and fairly painless eruption, or will it be a little more painful/disruptive?
I’ve never seen a child have a problem with the adult teeth erupting due to premature loss of the baby teeth. Spacing can be a problem but very seldom in the anterior. As long as the other teeth aren’t shifting I wouldn’t worry a bit. If posterior teeth are lost that early it is a whole different thing andwe always recommend a space maintainer.
Nine for baby teeth? Wow. I had my first Wisdom tooth start to come in when I was nine. They surgically removed it before it emerged because they didn’t think it was going to fit.
nine for wisdom teeth, man that’s the earliest I’ve heard.
There is a lot of variability in teeth, I’ve seen a fair number of 10 year olds with all their adult teeth except third molars and I’ve seen 14 year olds that have only lost their eight baby incisors and still have their other 12 baby teeth.
I don’t recall losing my baby teeth earlier than normal, but two of them hadn’t fallen out yet by the age of 10, so my dentist pulled them so I could get braces. No idea why they wouldn’t fall out on their own.
My wisdom teeth were pulled when I was 15 so they wouldn’t come in and mess up my dental work.
Is there anything pathological associated with early erruption? The dentist didn’t say anything and the pediatricians I worked with said this was likely a variation of normal, but I’m paranoid. I can take him looking a little strange for a few years, i’m just worried that this is a sign of worse things to come.
Not to the best of my knowledge. The biggest thing I see is younger children can’t care for permenent teeth as well as older children so decay can be an issue.