My three year old has recently started grinding his teeth at night. It dosent surprise me, I used to grind them when i was a tween. I was also old ebough to where a bite plate at night. It got bad to the point where I was taking ear medicine because the grinding was causing ear aches..ok so thats a little history. ANyways he is to young to understadn the use of the bite plate so i was curious if there was any ways to get him to stop? has anyone had this happen? I know it is pretty common. I just dont want to make a trip into the doc or dentist if there is a way to fix it at home first.
E.,
I don't know if this would work, or is even feasable, but what about one of those sports mouthguards? I don't know if they make them small enough for little guys, and I'd probably ask his doc/dentist first.
Hope this helps,
Melissa
Others have said that about this age thay are just curious about the sound they have learned to make by doing that and that it doesn't last. Your problems were when you were oler. That is ususlly from stress. Grinding contributes to TMJ and headaches. I had to go on Valium at 18. My home life was VERY stressful. If he has nothing to be stressing about, he is just experimenting or if it is because he needs to chew, get him a hard rubber ring and put it on a ribbon around his neck. Teach him when he feels the need to grind, chew on the ring. They do this at Head Start for one little boy. He uses it a lot.
Their is actually a medical term for tooth-grinding and it is called Bruxism. There are several possible causes for Bruxism 1)sensitivity to heat and cold - which would be prominent if there were developing cavities
2) Stress & anxiety - I don't know if this is the case for you but All kinds of things can cause stress and anxiety for preschoolers
3) fluctations in blood sugar levels
Adopting a hypoglycemic diet would be helpful if this is the case - I could give you more info on this if you are interested. The most basic thing you could start with is making sure that no sweets are consumed for at least 6 hrs. before bedtime and giving a protein and fiber snack before bed. This ended up being the thing that worked for my daughter when she was constantly grinding teeth at bedtime. She has really poor eating habits which were causing hypoglcemia, hence the tooth grinding.
Hope this helps. =)
A.
Hi, I thought I would tell you about what I went through with my daughter .She was grinding her teeth at night down to where they were getting flat! I took her to 2 dr's we tried so many things ,nothing worked but then one Dr said,let's try giving her something else to do at night .He said let's give her a toy ,something to play with. He suggested a beanie baby .It sounded crazy to me , but I tried it and it worked! When she went to sleep ,night after night I would check in on her and she would be rolling it between her fingers and squeezing it ,instead of ginding her teeth ! This is back when she was 3 or 4 .She is going on 11 now and her teeth are looking wonderful . Hope this helps you too .
p.s. she still has that crazy little purple hippo sitting on her dresser,It makes me smile whenever I see it.
