SISU Mouth Guards Junior 1.6mm Custom Fit Sports Mouthguard for Kids

When I first got this, I tried many times to form this around the teeth of my 6 year old. While its easy to do as an adult, its much more difficult to work with your child. He was trying his best but we could not get it lined up right.Here is what finally happened... and why I give the product 4 stars after all. We finally got a form that I thought was close enough. So he used the mouth guard for his martial arts class. But the instructor noticed that there was a ridge that had formed and could scrape his inner lip. I decided to try and reform the mouth guard one more time.However, instead of dropping the entire mouth guard into a cup of hot water, this time I used a small shallow sauce holder. This is a tiny saucer that you could use to put soy sauce into at a sushi restaurant. With such a small container, it was easy to heat a small amount of water in the microwave in less than 1 minute. I was able to just dip the portion of the mouth guard with the wrinkle into the water. So the mouth guard retained its over all shape but I was able to soften the plastic in just a small area, put the guard in my son's mouth and had him smooth out the wrinkle with his fingers. In a few minutes the guard re-solidified into a perfect shape.Use the small saucer tip for minor adjustments once you've got the form close and you will get good results for your kid!

Our 7 year old has used these SISU mouth guards for just over a year and I highly recommend them for elementary school-aged kids who are in mixed dentition. I was assistant coach of her lacrosse team last year and am head coach this year and have told all of the parents of my players about SISU. We have a hard time getting our girls to keep boil-and-bite mouthguards in their mouths; they end up chewing on them all the time! They're bulky, so the girls need to take them out to drink water or even talk. When the guard isn't where it's supposed to be, it's not protecting the teeth. Players are strongly encouraged to have two mouth guards molded and ready to go at all times because of damage caused by chewing, or losing a mouthguard during a water break - a few of our girls went through 6+ boil-and-bite guards over the course of the season!In our daughter's first year of lacrosse we went to a local orthodontist who offers the first mouth guard for free. They had to do impressions, which I rapidly discovered is no picnic with a 5 year old. Those dentist-molded mouthguards can be expensive and once a child starts losing their baby teeth and getting adult teeth in their place, the guards can't be re-molded. We switched to the SISU guard and didn't look back. Our daughter keeps her guard in her mouth and she can drink water and talk clearly with it in. She says it's comfortable and she feels no need to chew on it because it fits so well. When she loses baby teeth and gains adult teeth, it's easily re-molded to accommodate her new mix of teeth For these reasons, I recommend SISU to the parents of the girls on her team.I won't lie, there's a learning curve on molding these on a younger kid. Our first SISU guard went through a solid 10 re-warmings of the plastic before we got a reasonable fit and the effort ate up around an hour of time, during which both the 6 year old and I became quite frustrated. It didn't help matters that at the time she was missing 3 of her 4 top incisors due to having recently lost baby teeth; there just wasn't much to "anchor" the guard in the front of her mouth. That said, once you get the hang of it, subsequent moldings and re-moldings to accommodate new adult teeth will go smoothly!Some tips for molding them on kids: The junior size may still be too big in the arch for a 6 or 7 year old child - I use scissors to trim several millimeters off of the ends of the arch before molding. Have your child practice sucking in their cheeks and pushing up with their tongue before you warm the mouthguard to mold it. I used the example of "fish lips" and that seemed to work for her. If you have an electric tea kettle, it's ideal for heating the water. I've found that because it requires some handling from an adult to maneuver the guard into the child's mouth, molding goes most smoothly when the water is close to boiling temperature. Use tongs or a fork to lift the guard out of the hot water.

Night Grinding Gone! I am ordering 2 more right now to have spares because our 5 year old has been wearing this for 2 months to stop grinding her teeth at night. I’ve spent over $75 trying to find a mouthpiece to help her stop. You can trim the mouthpiece if it is a little too long and then file it down a bit if needed. It’s completely shapeable, re shapeable, and very thin and light. I don’t know how it would work with contact sports but it has been great for us and teeth grinding!

UPDATE: We've been using these for two of our kids over a year. They have held up very well! And what I love most is that any time they say it starts to feel tight or loose, or they lose or grow teeth, I can reheat it and shape it again. We have reshaped these more times than I'd like but I love that it's possible. There is some visible wear on the plastic from grinding, but that's the point! Functionally they are still perfect. When they finally poop out we'll be ordering more.ORIGINAL REVIEW: Can't beat the price! Dentists totally over charge for their fancy "real" night guards. Having used both, I see no need whatsoever to get one from a dentist. This guard has been great for my 6 year old. It was a little tricky to shape at first, but we figured it out. It's good that it can be re-shaped if you mess up! In the instructions it said to use warm water but we found that it actually had to be very hot to soften the plastic. Just be sure to hold it out of the water for a few second before putting it in your child's mouth!My son loves wearing this thing and even wears it during the day at times (he thinks it's cool). He sleeps comfortably and says it doesn't bother him at all. Of course, he also loves accessories of any kind. My other boy is a minimalist and would probably hate wearing a night guard. Each kid is different. We got him a little denture cleaning container and tablets and he happily sets it up for cleaning all by himself each morning.The bottom line is that he no longer has jaw pain from grinding his teeth at night and we have successfully stopped the wear on his teeth. I could see this needing to be replaced in a year or so, but will gladly buy another one. I'm glad we discovered that he needs a night guard before his adult teeth came in!