Milk teeth are really important: they enable babies to eat and chew and help with speech development. This site is dedicated to milk teeth and will provide useful information and advice about the anatomy and function of milk teeth, looking after milk teeth and preventing damage and decay.

What are milk teeth?

Milk teeth, also known as baby or deciduous teeth, are the first set of human teeth to develop. Most children start to develop milk teeth from around the age of 6 months old and there are 20 milk teeth in total. Most children have a complete set of milk teeth by the age of 2.

Milk teeth generally start to fall out at around the age of six years old. However, they may fall out before this time if they are not looked after properly and many children also lose milk teeth as a result of an accident or injury.

When milk teeth fall out, they are replaced by adult teeth. Adult teeth usually start to erupt between the ages of 6 and 13 and most children have all their adult teeth by the age of 14. There are 32 adult teeth; the four wisdom teeth do not usually come through until the age of 17 or 18 and some people may never get wisdom teeth.

Caring for milk teeth

It is really important to look after milk teeth in the same way as adult teeth. This site will provide useful information, advice and tips on caring for milk teeth and keeping teeth and gums healthy.

Some parents and carers may assume that it is not necessary to look after milk teeth because they are going to fall out anyway but this is not the case and it’s a good idea to get children used to oral hygiene and looking after their teeth and gums from a very early age.

The following articles will provide tips on making teeth cleaning fun and teaching children about oral hygiene and healthy eating.