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

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

Making our first appointment...

From Mama:

On January 24, I went by Great Smiles to make Emmeline's first orthodontic appointment. I honestly didn't even plan on going in, but something that day reminded me that Dr. Thomas, Emmeline's dentist, had asked me to take Emmeline for an orthodontic consultation. He was pretty insistent about it, actually. You see, Emmeline's top right smaller incisor (nicknamed, The Wiggler) has been loose for about a year. It wiggles and wiggles and then gets set again, only to start that up after a week or a month. We LOVE Dr. Thomas, and I don't think he wanted to be the one to tell us that Emmeline was headed for an appliance, so I am so glad I heeded his advice on seeking an ortho consult.

On January 24th at Great Smiles, Gina, the office manager, set up the time for our next visit. She looked at a photo of Emmeline and could immediately see her cross bite. I honestly had never noticed it before. You won't believe me, but I thought that was just the way she smiled - sort of crooked, but I was wrong.

After ballet class that afternoon, we dropped back by Great Smiles and sure enough, with Gina there to point it out, I could see it. Gina had Emmeline smile with her jaws together and there it was, plain as day. As she explained it to us, your top jaw should fit over your bottom jaw like a shoe box lid. Emmeline's do not fit together that way, so she has nowhere to rest her teeth together. Here smile is about half-a-tooth off. This has led to her grinding her molars, as well as pushing her tongue forward. Both of these actions are involuntary and are just her body's way of trying to find a place to settle.

We set up our appointment for the next Tuesday, the 31st, right before ballet class.  We'll share more about that one soon.