That first wiggly baby tooth, followed by that characteristic toothless smile, is a huge milestone for both kids and their parents. The process of losing the first milk tooth can also be a somewhat scary experience, and one that brings a few dilemmas with it. Should you pull wiggly teeth out, or should you wait until they come out by themselves? What should you teach your child about dental care once she starts losing her baby teeth? Do you need to take a trip to the dentist now?
Transitioning From Milk Teeth To Adult Teeth
Baby teeth, milk teeth, or deciduous teeth — whatever you want to call the first set of teeth humans and many other mammals gain, they are very important to a little one's development. Baby teeth help with speech, eating, and the transition to adult teeth. Believe it or not, baby teeth actually start forming under the child's gums while she is still an embryo! Baby tooth formation starts at six weeks gestation, and continues right until those teeth start erupting once a baby is around six months old.
By the time a toddler reaches her second birthday, she will have gained all of her baby teeth. Children have 20 milk teeth, which will eventually be replaced by 30 adult teeth — 28 regular teeth and four wisdom teeth, which are often pulled out. (Since wisdom teeth are a now useless evolutionary remnant, it's interesting to note that not everyone grows all four wisdom teeth, but that's a story for another time.)
Humans have several different kinds of teeth — incisors, canines, premolars and molars. The word “incisor” comes from the Latin “incidere”, which means “to cut”. These teeth cut food, and your child's incisors may well be quite worn by the time they start to wiggle. Molars chew, while the canines serve to hold pieces of food in place, so they can be torn apart.
Most kids lose their first baby tooth at age six or seven, and the process of tooth replacement happens roughly in the same order in which the baby teeth also came in. Are you and your six- or seven year-old child looking out for wiggly teeth? The top or bottom front incisors (“number one” teeth, as the dentist would say) are the ones to keep an eye on.
What does that process mean for the child? The root of a milk tooth will actually dissolve, and will then gradually come out. That nerve will hang on for a while, so it's possible to see a whole tooth hanging by a “little thread”. I asked my six-year old daughter, who has lost two baby tooth so far and who currently has another loose tooth, to tell me all about the experience.
She actually lost two baby tooth in a fall when she was five, so comparing the two experiences was interesting (the first two teeth we keep in that special tooth box do have roots, and having tooth knocked out in a fall obviously hurt a lot).
So, here's the experience from the child's point of view:
“When I fell, two of my teeth came out. It really hurt. My first tooth to become wiggly was the one next to the teeth that came out during the fall. It started wiggling, and it was hard for me to eat some things, like bread. It was scary to brush that tooth when it wiggled. Then it just came out one day. When I got another wiggly tooth, mom pulled it out. That didn't hurt at all. We put the teeth in a special box. I love looking at my teeth in the box.
I am very proud of my new adult tooth. It is taking a long time to come out completely. It is about half-way done at the moment. I look in the mirror to see it all the time, and I take very good care of it because I don't want it to get decayed. I want my picture to be in mommy's article because I think my tooth looks so great.”
What Next After The First Baby Tooth Came Out?
OK, we have one issue to deal with before we can move on to all those great traditions surrounding the loss of baby teeth, throughout the world. It's this — should you pull loose tooth out, or leave them to complete the process by themselves?
One should ideally wait for a loose milk tooth to come out by itself, because pulling teeth out can be quite a scary experience for the child, especially if the tooth was not yet extremely loose. If you engage in old practices like pulling bits of string around the tooth and slamming the door to get it to come out, your child may be very scared, and it will hurt if you pull the tooth before it is truly ready. There will also be a substantial amount of blood in that case.
When, however, the tooth is so loose that it is merely hanging on by its nerve, you may want to help nature out a little. You can encourage your child to pull her own tooth out, or do it for her instead if she agrees. This prevents teeth getting swallowed or lost in bits of food, which would be a shame if you are hoping to preserve these teeth as a keepsake.
What can you do to celebrate the loss of baby teeth? You know all about the tooth fairy that leaves money under the child's pillow in exchange for the tooth, but you may be interested to hear in some other traditions from throughout the globe:
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In some Asian countries including Korea and Vietnam, children throw their lower teeth onto the roof while making teeth from the upper jaw disappear in the ground. They may also loudly recite a request that their new tooth will be like a mouse's tooth, because mouse teeth never stop growing and thus can't wear out.
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In some Islamic traditions, children throw their old tooth up at Allah and ask for it to be replaced. This tradition has been going on for centuries now.
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In Britain, they used to burn baby tooth and recite a blessing over them.
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In some countries, the “tooth fairy” is a little mouse.
In my family, we don't engage in these traditions and instead have a lovely little box in which we keep baby teeth. We also take the kid in question on a trip to the dentist, for a check-up and some great advice on how to keep caring for those lovely new adult teeth, so they will last a lifetime.
I'd like to use this opportunity to say that a “lecture” on dental care doesn't mean that kids and their parents should not look after their baby teeth. Decayed baby teeth can cause a lot of problems. Severely decayed teeth can also affect the adult tooth, which will already have formed underneath the gum. And lost baby teeth can cause problems with the location of the new adult tooth, which in turn may cause the need for braces.
Enjoy this time. While your child's first baby tooth may come out at age six or seven, the last one may not be shed until age 12 or even 13 — by which time your child probably won't want your help and will have been rendered brave by previous experience. When your child loses her first baby tooth, you can celebrate this milestone on the way to being grown-up in a festive atmosphere, and cherish the memories.