A new smile

After an entire of year of waiting and enduring four different orthodontic consults, Lenna finally got her braces! She is so excited to begin the process of getting her new smile.
She has pretty severe crowding on the top and bottom, as well as a crossbite, and overbite, and a very narrow upper palate. She started with an upper jaw expander called a hi-rax, and braces on her top teeth. Lower braces will be put on at the end of this year after those last few baby teeth wiggle out. She should be into a retainer and out of braces in 18 months! One of the advantages of starting treatment when she is this young instead of when she is a teen is that her facial bones are still pretty flexible, so they move quickly to where the orthodontist wants them to be, so it doesn't take nearly as long as it would if we waited. It has been amazing to me to see the difference in her teeth in just under two months. She started with her two front teeth overlapping but they moved apart a little each day until they were side by side and now even have a space between so when the rest of her top teeth grow in they will all fit in a nice little row.
The first week was really hard for as she adjusted to speaking and eating with all that stuff in her mouth, but she is doing great with it now. Our biggest hurdle is sending her to bed early enough that she has enough time to spend 20 minutes brushing and flossing all those purple brackets before bed time.
It makes her look so much older now than she did at the end of the school year. Still my beautiful girl though!