Teeth grinding...eeek!

So...Nate's a "tooth grinder". Or in the dental field they refer to it as "bruxism" if I'm not mistaken.

He's been doing it for some time now. I suspected it quite some time ago because he used to have the sharpest, pointiest little incisors in his mouth...and slowly they just became flat little "nubs"!

I talked to the dentist about it and sure enough, she confirmed my suspitions. He is definitely a tooth grinder at night.

I've never heard him...thankfully...eeek!

I have been told by my former college roommate and friend Melissa, that I too used to grind my teeth in my sleep. She used to wake me up and say, "STOP"!

Thankfully, Jamie says he doesn't hear me do it anymore.

So, we decided that a mouth guard would be the route to go since he is starting to get lots of permanent teeth in. She said they don't worry about it too much when they only have baby teeth, but since he was putting so much wear on the baby teeth, we don't want to chance damaging his permanent ones.

So...that leads us to NOW.

He is on his THIRD mouth guard.

The kid grinds so much and so hard that he has worn through two already and he's on his third.

Holy moly.

Thankfully they're fairly inexpensive (around $17.99 at WalMart for a two pack). They're supposed to last 6 months per guard. But I think Nate wore through his first one in 2 weeks (although we may have molded it wrong) and the second one in three months!

We are hoping he grows out of this soon...because even at $17.99 per two pack...that's quite an investment!

They're fairly easy to mold...just dip them into boiling water to soften them and have them bite into it to get an impression of their teeth.

He adjusted really well to sleeping with it, which I was worried about.

But here's to hoping he outgrows this issue soon...that sound...EEEEEEK!!!