One of the happiest times in your child’s growing years is after wearing their braces faithfully, and taking extra good care of their teeth during the orthodontia, the day comes when the brackets come off and they can finally see the results of all that hard work!
To ensure that those beautiful pearly whites stay in their hard-won places, the next step will be wearing a retainer. This custom-made device may be a fixed metal wire bonded to a row of teeth, a custom-fitted plastic and metal retainer to fit the mouth, or a clear plastic retainer to fit over the teeth.
The best part of the metal retainer bonded to the teeth directly is that your child will not have to worry about losing it! That is the biggest challenge when wearing removable retainers. And of course, while inconvenient to lose the retainer at home, the most likely and frightening aspect is losing the retainer while away from home!
There are things you can do to help your child keep their retainer safe. The most obvious is to have them keep the retainer in a container the moment they remove it (for lunch at school, or if removing it to snack away from home). The most common mistake kids make is taking the retainer out and slipping it into their napkin to try to be inconspicuous. This often leads to forgetting the retainer is in there, and accidentally throwing it out with the leftovers! To prevent this, convince them to ALWAYS keeping it in their container.
The container itself is key to retainer safety, and using one that is bright and colorful is a great deterrent to losing it! You will want to include contact information on the container so that it can be returned if somehow lost. And if something happens and the unthinkable happens, you can ask your child to work off some of the cost of replacing the retainer. This may help them be extra conscientious in the future.
Please contact our friendly staff at Orlando Family Dentistry if you have any questions. We are here to help your child’s smile lasts a lifetime!