Crossbite means some of the upper teeth close inside the lower teeth instead of outside them.

In kid words

"A crossbite just means a few of your top teeth close inside your bottom teeth instead of outside them, and your dentist keeps an eye on that as you grow." It can be just a couple of teeth or a few more. Either way, it is something your pediatric dentist already watches for, not something you need to check yourself.

The parent version

Crossbite describes a bite pattern where one or more upper teeth close inside the lower teeth, the reverse of the more typical arrangement where the upper teeth sit slightly outside. It can involve a single front tooth, a pair of teeth, or a wider pattern along one side of the mouth, and mainstream dental sources describe it as one of several bite patterns that shows up in growing mouths.

A crossbite does not announce itself the way a toothache might, so it is usually something a dental team notices during a routine look rather than something a family flags at home. What a specific pattern means for your child, and whether it is worth a closer look, is a question for your pediatric dentist.

Where you might hear it at our office

Crossbite is exactly the kind of thing a growth check at a routine visit is watching for, alongside the rest of how your child's teeth and jaw are lining up. For some children, that watching eventually leads to a conversation with our orthodontics team, and the right time for that conversation is different for every child, worked out with your pediatric dentist rather than read off a fixed age.

If another word from a visit is still a mystery, the rest of the dictionary is right here.

Related words

Related words: bite, malocclusion, overbite.