permanant teeth coming in behind baby teeth???

[AbbieB]

My 7 year old DD has had a loose tooth for 3 weeks now. Although she has been wiggling it to help it along it has not gotten any looser.

So yesterday, I asked her to let me look in her mouth while she wiggled it because I wanted to see if the bottom was visible just to get an idea of how things were progressing. Surprise! She has 2 permanent teeth fully erupted behind her bottom baby teeth. They take up the space of almost 4 baby teeth, only one of which is even loose. She's been wiggling like mad since then and there has been no progress.

We have a dentist appointment next week for a cleaning. When I made the appointment and discussed what is typical for loose teeth (can't remember how fast my teeth came out after they started to wiggle) the dental assistant mentioned that the dentist may decide that it's best to pull the baby teeth if they have not come out by themselves. When I made the appointment and had the discussion I did not know about the permanent teeth behind the baby teeth.

So now I am wondering what is best to do. DH says no way to letting the dentist pull them ($125 per tooth) and to just let nature take it's course. DD is nervous about getting a shot and/or laughing gas because her last appointment was to have a small cavity filled. I am concerned about messing up her permanent teeth and infection.

Anyone been there done that? What's the typical course of action in this situation? What's the crunchy course of action?

[lindberg99]

That happened to my son. The dentist noticed at a cleaning and she told him that he'd have to come back in 3 weeks if he couldn't get them out. I told him I'd give him $5 if he could pull them himself. He kept at them and got them out before 3 weeks. The dentist told me the main problem with having both sets there like that is that the child can't brush the permanent ones and they could get cavities in them. I also wonder if it can affect the permanent tooth position.

Anyway, I think you can reassure your DD that they won't be pulling them out at her cleaning because the dentist won't have scheduled enough time. Have you tried pulling them out for her? I've pulled some teeth out for my kids before.

[Aaronridge]

This happened to my dd, too.  The baby teeth fell out just a couple of weeks later and her permanent teeth moved naturally into their spots.  I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry to get the dentist to pull them.  Just keep wiggling and they should fall out soon.

[AbbieB]

Just an update in case anyone else is looking for info.

We saw the dentist, and did an xray to see what we were dealing with. Based on the info I made the decision to go ahead and pull the baby teeth. One was not coming out or getting looser despite some intense work to try to do it at home, and the other was not loose at all.

The dentist had time to do it that day (normally this would not be the case.) I had expected to, and was prepared to have to make a decision on the spot. When I made the appointment I knew there were spots open that same morning for extractions and or fillings if they were needed.

I'm glad we did pull them because both baby teeth had a significant (to me, not the dentist) amount of tooth below the gum line still.

3 weeks later, DD's permanent teeth have moved forward and all is well.

[Stacey12]

That's happened to one of my daughters too.

[Llyra]

I was just getting on here to post about this, asking for advice. In our case, DD1 only has one tooth growing behind like this-- we call it her shark tooth. What I'm hearing is that it's necessary to pull if the milk tooth isn't loose, right? Her milk tooth is extremely loose, enough that we can twist it sideways. All we need is for her to get up the courage to finally give it one good pull. The main issue with her is that she's afraid of wiggling her loose teeth, so they stay in WAY longer than they should. She had another tooth that was flapping loose for EIGHT MONTHS before it fell out. No shark tooth that time, though.

I'm concerned, though, because the space left for the permanent tooth to move into doesn't seem very wide-- but with our family history, I guess she's going to need massive orthodontic work anyway, so I'm figuring I won't stress about it too much at six years old.

Anyway, I'd love some advice, if it seems like I'm not getting this right.