Mixed Dentition

As a parent, you probably have a lot of questions about what teeth will come in for your child, and at what age. You want to know if your child’s baby teeth are falling out, and their adult teeth are coming in, at the right time. And, you want their adult teeth to erupt in the right place!

When your child has a mix of baby and adult teeth, we dentists call this period mixed dentition. This rotation of baby and adult teeth generally happens from age 6 (when their permanent “6 year molars” come in) to around age 13 (when their last baby teeth fall out). Every child is different, so they may have teeth fall out or erupt at different times. And that’s ok!

This period is crucial for your child’s oral health! Here are a few reasons why:

• Baby teeth are more prone to tooth decay than adult teeth
• If baby teeth fall out prematurely, that can cause adult teeth to come in at the wrong place or angle
• Gaps in teeth can make it more difficult for children to chew or brush thoroughly

During mixed dentition, your child will have 20 baby (primary) teeth erupt, which will be replaced by 32 adult (permanent) teeth. That’s a lot of traffic happening in a 6-7 year period! They also don’t rotate in a perfect front-to-back order, so that can make parents wonder if something is wrong. 

In the beginning of this period, your child will have more baby teeth than adult teeth. But for a majority of the time, there should be an equal mix of 12 baby teeth and 12 adult teeth at any given moment. You can tell them apart because adult teeth are yellower, bigger and less smooth than baby teeth.