Toothbrush kit...

Emmeline had a question on her blog about how she keeps food out of her expander, and what she does to fix it when it happens. Here's a video explaining it all...

Expander check-up...

Emmeline had an appointment yesterday at Great Smiles. She saw Dr. Weissman who showed her photos of how her palate used to look, and then compared those to what Emmeline looks like currently.

After her examination, she realized that Emmeline was going to need to continue the expansion for 10 additional turns, once her original 20 are complete. Miss Friend took it in stride, of course! See this video for her thoughts on the matter!

 We love Dr. Weissman. Coincidentally, she was my little brother's orthodontist as well. She remembers Seth, and is always interested to hear how he's doing (and if he's still wearing his retainer).

Emmeline is doing so well with the expander, and the tongue crib, too. She has maintained a wonderful attitude, and I think that is making all the difference. We haven't been posting much the past week because flu and strep overtook the Glenn household. We will get back to regularly scheduled programming now that we are almost recovered!

Tongue thrust photo history...

Here's a few photos of Emmeline's tongue thrust. Just as I did with her cross bite, I thought that the tongue thrust was just a habit that she might grow out of. Little did I know it was a symptom of her top jaw being a little too narrow.

This photo from May 2015 is the first one that
I found with an obvious tongue thrust.
I believe this is when she began this habit.

In this photo from the Summer 2016,
you can just see her tongue poking out between her teeth.

November 2016.
This fall, her tongue thrust was much more prevalent. 

November 2016.
In the fall, her tongue thrust was much more prevalent. 

 

In this photo, she isn't pushing her tongue forward.
After her first appointment she was more
aware and did it much less. 

I hope this post is helpful. Emmeline is getting used to her tongue crib, so I hope that it will work to train her to break this habit. I have no idea if she could have trained herself not to do this without her tongue crib, but she is adapting quickly to talking and eating with it in place.

~Mama

The halfway point...

Emmeline has an update at the halfway point of her palate expander turns. I've also included a video of my turning the key for any interested parents.

She's developing a gap between her two front teeth, so it looks like its working!

Weekend update...

Hi,I have had my pallet expander for a week now and I 😍 it. It is fun and awesome.It feels tight when mama cranks it.I like it because I get treats like Ice cream 🍦.It also feels weird.It is hard to talk.

If you have not looked up my blog it is smile,Emmeline. You can find me on YouTube or Safari.I have 3 on YouTube.

The bad part about my expander is that I don't like it because it is hard to talk and hard to read out- loud.

I'm going to post a video tomorrow so y'all check it out!

Cross bite photo history...

I thought it would be helpful to show a few pictures of how Emmeline has always had a little crooked smile. I'll do another post with photos of her tongue thrust next week.

This is Summer 2012. Emmeline is almost 3 in this picture.
She was just learning to smile for photos,
and this was what we usually got - crooked, but cute smiles!

This is Emmeline's 4th Birthday - July 7, 2013.
More natural smile, but the cross bite is still evident.

Here's Emmeline, a few days before her 5th birthday.
In this photo, I can really see how her
top jaw and bottom jaw are right on top of each other.

Emmeline lost her first tooth at 5 1/2 years old.
In this photo, I can see how her top and bottom teeth line up,
instead of fitting together like a shoe box.

Emmeline lost a bunch more teeth from December 2014 to August 2015.
Here she is, with a pretty evident cross bit, but missing those two front teeth.

Here she is at age 6, sporting that classic snaggletooth smile!

A year later, her front permanent teeth have come in.
She still had one small incisor in this photo (top right),
which we call "Wiggler." That tooth wouldn't come out, which is what
made her dentist see that we should go for our orthodontic consult.

I'm going to keep an eye on
George and Arthur to see how they are progressing.

I hope this post is helpful. I know hindsight is 20/20, but looking back now, I can see all of the symptoms that our orthodontist pointed out at our consultation. Perhaps these photos will help any of you who are wondering if your child might need to be evaluated for a palate expander.SaveSaveSaveSave

~Mama