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Growing Smiles
Roughly when baby teeth arrive and when they go. This page gives the stage ranges the AAPD publishes and says clearly what a timeline can and cannot tell you. It cannot tell you whether your child is on track — only someone examining them can.
Baby teeth arrive over the first few years and are lost over several more. The AAPD describes the primary dentition as beginning in infancy with the eruption of the first tooth, usually about six months of age, and complete from approximately two to six years of age when all primary teeth are erupted.
That is a stage range rather than a schedule for individual teeth, and the site publishes it at that level deliberately. A per-tooth chart implies a precision that does not exist and invites a comparison that is not meaningful.
Your first tooth probably arrived when you were about half a year old, and the rest turned up over the next couple of years. Everyone is a bit different, and that is completely fine.
The most useful thing on this page is the least satisfying: variation is wide and normal. The AAPD writes “usually about six months” and “approximately two to six years” because that is genuinely how much spread there is. A child outside those ranges is not automatically a problem, and a child inside them is not automatically fine. Neither conclusion can be drawn from a chart.
The AAPD sets out four stages of occlusal development, and its own wording carries the hedging: usually about, approximately. Those words are doing real work.
Notice what is missing: any statement about which tooth should arrive in which month. The AAPD frames development in stages and monitors it by examination, which is a better guide than a calendar.
Three things worth knowing about timing.
Teeth do not always arrive or leave in a tidy sequence, and an unusual order is not by itself a concern. The AAPD monitors the developing dentition at regular examinations rather than against a fixed schedule.
Nor is early. What matters is the whole picture — which teeth, which stage, what else is happening — and that is exactly what an examination assesses and a chart cannot.
Losing a baby tooth much earlier than expected raises a different question, about whether the space needs holding. See Space maintainers.
Watch, mostly — and watching is the treatment. The AAPD describes evaluation of tooth development and eruption as ongoing throughout the developing dentition, at all stages.
Raise timing questions at a routine checkup rather than making a special appointment. Bring what you have noticed — which teeth, roughly when, anything that seems different from your other children or from what you expected.
Ring sooner if there is pain, swelling, a tooth loosened by a knock, or a permanent tooth that seems to be arriving in the wrong place. Those are not timing questions.
My child has no teeth yet and children the same age do. That comparison is the one this page most wants to loosen. The AAPD’s own range for the primary dentition being complete is approximately two to six years — a four-year span. Raise it at a checkup, and let someone who can look tell you whether it means anything.
The AAPD says the primary dentition begins with the eruption of the first tooth, usually about six months of age. “Usually about” is the operative phrase. If your child is well outside that and you are concerned, raise it at an appointment rather than against a chart.
Charts exist, and this site deliberately does not publish one. The AAPD frames development in stages rather than per-tooth months, and a chart tends to be read as a schedule rather than an average. Your dentist can talk you through your child’s own pattern.
Not a question this page can answer. It is exactly the kind of pattern a dentist assesses over successive visits, which is why the AAPD describes evaluation as ongoing at all stages.
Worth mentioning, because early loss raises the separate question of whether the space needs holding open. See Space maintainers and Baby tooth extractions.
Yes, and there is a fuller answer on What is a cavity?. Briefly: they hold space for the permanent teeth, and decay in them has consequences the AAPD documents.
Every clinical statement on this page comes from the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry documents below.
This website is for education only and does not replace care from your dentist, physician, or emergency services.