Tooth growing behind baby tooth?

[Anonymous]

My son, 7, has a sorta loose tooth. It's his first one. The adult tooth has broken the surface behind his baby tooth.

I'm going to call the dentist in the morning, but what are the chances they'll want to pull it? I really don't want to do that if we can avoid it, but his baby tooth is just barely loose.

[Anonymous]

Wiggle it and remove the baby tooth. Why are you even calling the dentist?

[Anonymous]

Because it's not loose - it barely moves. And he's scared to wiggle it, so it's not going to come out without a lot of force.

[Anonymous]

This happened with my child. Dentist said if it wasn't out in 3 weeks they would pull it. After a week of dc not wanting to wiggle it I flat it told him if he didn't yank it the dentist would. The next week he was able to get it outZ

[Anonymous]

Totally normal.

So says my father (dentist) and brother (dentist) and my daughter's actual dentist. This happened with 3 of her teeth. I pulled one myself and let the other fall out on their own.

7 is a bit on the older side for a first tooth to come out, so no surprise the adult tooth is coming in behind it. Wait until the baby tooth gets all crooked, but it's normal.

[Anonymous]

Quite common. Our dentist has referred to them as alligator teeth. It definitely takes a lot longer for the baby ones to come out when the adult ones come in behind instead of underneath. But they usually will eventually. 2 of my kids who have this issue had adult teeth fully grown in before they lost the baby tooth.

My eldest (9) ended up having teeth pulled on the bottom because of the crowding. She had 1 loose baby tooth, which had an adult tooth behind it, pulled. And she had her 2 baby canines pulled even though the adult ones aren't even close to coming in.

[Anonymous]

Totally common. It is called a an sark tooth. It will cause the baby tooth to come out quickly

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks everyone. My mom said my younger brother had to have teeth pulled because of this, but maybe dentists are being more hands off about it these days (my brothers first tooth would have come out in the early 90s). I'll probably still call the dentist in the morning, and if they suggest pulling it I'll make the appointment for a few weeks from now to see if we can get it out first.

And yeah, it's late to lose a first tooth, but I lost my first tooth in 2nd grade, so he's a whole year ahead of me!

Before going to sleep he was worried that he was going to swallow/inhale his tooth in his sleep and die. Which is why he's afraid to wiggle it. He's also a worrier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Totally common. It is called a an sark tooth. It will cause the baby tooth to come out quickly

"Shark tooth"

[Anonymous]

My son had a shark tooth for 9 months, finally the one in front fell out. My daughter had one for almost a year and she just got it pulled. The root was almost completely intact--that sucker was going nowhere. The pulling was super easy--the dentist tacked it onto the end of her cleaning.

As an aside, braces were required with both situations as the adult tooth had no room to come forward. (Son had another shark tooth that came forward nicely).

Our dentist is pretty conservative with this sort of thing. I myself had 9 teeth pulled as a child so this is not a surprise. They definitely don't pull teeth like they used to!

[Anonymous]

My son has lost 6 teeth, his adult tooth was ALWAYS visible before the old one fell out.

Dentist has never been concerned.

I actually went in b/c his first tooth wasn't very loose but you could see the new tooth. The dentist said while he could easily yank it, especially since it was his first tooth ge wanted the DS to have the experience of wiggling it out himself.

[Anonymous]

I noticed my 6 year old had two "shark teeth" last summer. I asked here and 99% of people assured me that it would be fine and that the baby teeth would eventually fall out on their own, so I didn't rush to call the dentist and waited until DS's regular appointment in October.

In October, the dentist was not alarmed, but gave us 30 days to wiggle the baby teeth and try to get them out, ourselves. The baby teeth did not budge during that time.

After a month, we went back in and the dentist pulled them. It wan't the worst thing in the world, but wasn't a walk in the park, either.

Maybe they would have fallen out on their own our dentist was over-zealous, but and the adult teeth were significantly behind the baby teeth -- they weren't really pushing on the baby roots and the baby teeth were not at all loose.

Good luck, OP.