Dentition is the dental word for a child's whole set of teeth, not just one.

In kid words

"Dentition is just a fancy word for your whole set of teeth, the whole team working together." It is not the name of one tooth, it is the name for all of them at once. Grown-ups reach for this word whenever they want to talk about your teeth as a group instead of pointing at just one.

The parent version

Dentition is the plain clinical term for the arrangement and set of teeth in the mouth, the whole picture rather than any single tooth. Dentists sort a child's dentition into three stages along the way.

Primary dentition is the complete set of baby teeth, before any of them have been replaced. Mixed dentition is the busiest stage to watch, the wiggly-tooth years when baby teeth and adult teeth are sharing the same mouth at once. Permanent dentition is the adult set that eventually settles in once every baby tooth is gone. Exactly when a child moves from one stage into the next varies quite a bit, and your pediatric dentist can always point out which stage your child's mouth is in right now.

Where you might hear it at our office

Mixed dentition is when growth and alignment watching earns its keep. That wiggly-tooth stretch, with baby teeth and adult teeth sharing space, is exactly the stretch our orthodontics team pays closest attention to, since spacing and alignment are already part of what gets checked at every routine visit.

You do not need to know which stage your child's dentition is in before you call us. Just describe what you are noticing, a loose tooth, a new one arriving early or late, and we will take it from there. This entry is one small piece of the larger Kids' Dental Dictionary, built to translate whatever word came home with your child.

Related words

Deciduous teeth. Eruption. Bite.