What should I do if my three-year-old baby grinds his teeth while sleeping?

Babies will always have some minor problems and conditions. Careful mothers can always tell from these small details what kind of health conditions the baby has and can deal with these problems in a targeted manner. So, if you find that your baby always grinds his teeth while sleeping, what conclusions can you draw from this detail and what methods should you use to solve it? Let’s learn from the experience below!

6 reasons why children love to grind their teeth while sleeping:

1. Intestinal parasites There are roundworms in the stomach. Ascaris parasitizes in children's small intestine, not only robbing nutrients but also irritating the intestinal wall, secreting toxins and causing indigestion. If a child often has a dull pain in his stomach, it will cause insomnia, irritability and nighttime teeth grinding.

Pinworms can also cause teeth grinding. Pinworms usually live in the human large intestine. After the child falls asleep, the pinworms will quietly crawl to the anus to lay eggs, causing anal itching, making the child sleep uneasily and causing teeth grinding.

Coping strategy: Deworm your child. Develop good hygiene habits in daily life.

2. Eating too much for dinner or having a snack before going to bed will not only affect the absorption of nutrients but also increase the burden on the gastrointestinal tract. Because when you fall asleep, there is still a lot of undigested food accumulated in the gastrointestinal tract, the entire digestive system has to "work overtime" and continue working. Even the chewing muscles are mobilized and involuntarily contract, causing teeth grinding.

Coping strategy: Don’t let your child eat too much before going to bed. Let your child stay for a while after eating before letting him go to bed.

3. Children with rickets who lack vitamin D will suffer from bone decalcification, muscle aches and autonomic nervous system disorders due to calcium and phosphorus metabolism disorders in the body. They will often experience excessive sweating, night terrors, irritability and nighttime bruxism.

Coping strategies: Under the guidance of a doctor, supplement your child with vitamin D and calcium tablets, and let him or her get more sun exposure. The nighttime teeth grinding will gradually decrease.

4. Mental factors: Some children do not usually grind their teeth, but if they listen to a gripping story before going to bed, or just finished watching scary or tense TV or cartoons, they will grind their teeth at night because their nervous system is over-excited. Another reason is stress. For example, children may not adapt to kindergarten life, be afraid of a certain child in the class, quarrel with parents or family members, etc. These may make children nervous and cause them to grind their teeth when they sleep at night. In addition, some overactive children may also experience nocturnal grinding.

Coping strategy: Don’t let your children watch overly stimulating TV before going to bed. Communicate frequently with teachers and children. If the child has any emotional issues, help him resolve them in a timely manner and relieve his psychological pressure.

5. Misaligned teeth, excessive use of the chewing muscles or long-term chewing on one side of the teeth, as well as poor tooth occlusion, temporomandibular joint dysfunction, can also cause nocturnal bruxism. Moreover, children with irregular teeth often have abnormal positions of their chewing muscles. When they sleep at night, their chewing muscles often contract unconsciously, causing bruxism.

Coping strategy: Take your child to see a dentist regularly and do tooth correction and treatment according to the doctor's advice.

6. Bad sleeping posture. If the child's head often tilts to one side when sleeping, it will cause incoordination of the chewing muscles, causing abnormal contraction of the chewing muscles on the compressed side, resulting in bruxism. When children sleep with their heads covered at night, excessive accumulation of carbon dioxide and insufficient oxygen supply may also cause bruxism.

Coping strategy: If you find that your child has a bad sleeping position, help him adjust it in time. Don’t let your children develop the habit of covering their heads when sleeping.

Doctor's reminder:

Nighttime bruxism is caused by a variety of factors. Only by eliminating the above-mentioned causes and correcting bad living habits can bruxism gradually improve.

For some children, bruxism is closely related to their growth and development; for others, it is actually a response to pain (such as earache or toothache). Just like rubbing sore muscles, children's teeth grinding is also an instinct to relieve pain. As the child grows older, this phenomenon will disappear automatically.

If you often grind your teeth, you should go to the dentist for a check-up, because some oral diseases can also cause nocturnal grinding.

If a three-year-old baby grinds his teeth while sleeping, mothers should analyze the reasons why the baby grinds his teeth, and then get solutions and coping strategies from these reasons. At the same time, we must also keep in mind the doctor's reminders and correct our baby's bad living habits. A healthy body is developed from an early age, and good living habits for babies are also cultivated from an early age.