Many parents search for a baby teeth chart when their infant is teething. This period in a child's life can be difficult not only for the baby, but also for the parents. Consequently, once a baby's teeth start erupting, it is natural for parents to want to see a teeth eruption chart, in order to anticipate what may happen in their baby's mouth.
Unfortunately, while teeth eruption charts can give parents a general idea of when teeth are expected to come in, they are not 100 percent accurate. As new parents will quickly discover after having a baby, each child is different, and each has a different development schedule.
Eruption of Baby Teeth
Typically, teeth begin erupting around six months of age, but for some babies it may happen earlier, for others later. Neither of these situations is a cause for immediate concern. Since parents holding a fussy baby will, of course, try everything to help their infant feel better, they still sometimes turn to a baby teeth chart to help make some sort of sense of what is going on.
Over the course of the next several years, your child will have 20 teeth erupt. These are a child's first set of teeth, often referred to as baby or primary teeth. Many children will start teething around six months old, and most will have a full set of baby teeth by age three.
During the teething stage, the baby teeth chart shows that a child will have four front teeth erupt on the top and bottom arches (a total of eight incisor teeth), in addition to four canines, four first molars, and four second molars. Many times the earliest baby teeth will come in pairs; this can often account for a baby being fussy when one tooth has already erupted, as it is likely that a second tooth is erupting simultaneously.
Early Oral Care Habits Last a Lifetime
As their child's baby teeth come in, parents should work to establish healthy oral care habits. Moreover, they should begin to care for their baby's mouth even before the first teeth erupt. A baby's 20 baby teeth are already present in his gums at birth, and they are important to his lifelong health. Children will begin to lose these primary teeth around age six, at which point their permanent teeth will start to erupt. Most kids will have lost all of their baby teeth by the age of 12.