Four year old grinding teeth in sleep

[NiteNicole]

Is this fairly common? One of my brothers used to do it and the sound is...gah...it's AWFUL. He had a mouth guard he never used. Do they do something like that for a four year old? Will she grow out of it?

She still hasn't seen a dentist (we have had other stuff going on, but it's on the list) and I will bring it up then but I was wondering how other people handle it.

[CrazyCatLady]

My five year old grinds her teeth loud and hard every night. Started when she was 3 or 4? Makes me cringe. She's visibly worn them down a lot by doing it too. She did see a dentist and all they could recommend was a mouth guard. And with my dd and her sensory issues...yeah right.

Since we sleep together at night I rub her cheek or something to get her to stop when I hear/notice it going on.

Otherwise I'm just praying for a miracle before she gets her real teeth in.

I will be subbing here for advice though.

[Alisse]

They recommended a nightguard? Are you kidding me??? There's little chance you'd be able to even get one made given that your LO's gag reflex is probably still too strong. Even if they could get the gunk in the mouth to take an impression of the teeth, there'd be little chance she'd wear the bulky thing in her mouth. Ridiculous!

Grinding in children is totally normal. They can really wear away those teeth a lot and still they grow out of it, (which is great because there'd be nothing you could do about it anyway). Grinding in adult teeth is another story...

[Mama Mko]

Yeah it's normal. My 5 year old does it too. I was told by the pediatric dentist that they don't do mouthguards for kids and they usually outgrow it. It sounds horrible though!