Your Child’s Development

Your child’s mouth and teeth are changing almost constantly as they grow up. Let’s talk a bit about development and when teeth will fall out and be replaced.

A child’s first set of teeth come through between the age of 6 months and 3 years. After that there are no changes for a while. Around the age of 6, the first adult teeth will start to come through. Often, these will be adult molar teeth that come through behind all of the baby teeth, without any of the baby teeth falling out.

At the same time, the first baby front teeth will fall out and be replaced with grown up incisor teeth. These first changes when the front teeth are all swapped to adult teeth, generally happen between the age of 6 and 7 years old. Once the front teeth have swapped over, nothing really happens for a little while.

An important point. When the first adult top teeth come through, they generally look massive. That’s because they are adult sized teeth in a 7 year old. Don’t worry that they will always look like this; they won’t. As your child grows, the teeth will then appear to fit into their face much better.

It is then generally around the age of 10 to 12 years old that suddenly all the remaining baby teeth drop out in quick succession and are replaced with a mouth full of big, strong, permanent, adult teeth. Your child will also get some extra molar teeth at this time. These are not wisdom teeth. Wisdom teeth will not generally appear until late teens, early twenties or perhaps even later.

I’ve put a summary in the table below. This is just a guide. Everyone develops at different rates. Girls develop ahead of boys in general. Your child’s development should be monitored by a dentist at their check up every 6 months.