Orthodontics. Tongue Crib anyone?

[Peaceonearthplease]

An orthodontist has recommended a 'tongue crib' for my DD (5.5 years). She has a tongue thrust which causes a slight lisp and an open bite. For the past 6 months she has been wearing a night-time retainer for a cross bite which has been successful. Her two front teeth are wobbly & will probably come out within the next few months at which point the 'tongue crib' will be fitted to retrain / stop her tongue poking through gap. Any parents / dentists out there with experience of this contraption? I've got a mouth full of snaggle teeth and really want my DD to have beautifully straight smile but it looks like the thing Hannibel Lecter wears

One of my DC have had this for a number of years for the same reason, and it's worked amazingly well. Downsides are it really does look very Hannibal Lecter, and it did make their speech less clear, and you have to take it out for eating.
However, from going from theoretically needing jaw surgery for one of the worst open bites the orthodontist had seen, DC now has lovely straight teeth with a very minimal gap.

Itlante, that sounds like an amazingly good outcome. DD's will be fixed until her front teeth have grown so no taking out. I'm a bit worried that she could cut her tongue on it if she fell down hard etc. At least 6 year olds have never seen the movie

I'm surprised it's going to be fixed, especially at such a young age. My DC is now a teenager, and still has a removable brace, even though they have their adult teeth for a long time. I can't think of a way that my DC would have been able to eat with it in - the tongue guard went all the way from the top of the front teeth to the bottom of the bottom teeth so there was no gap at all. Which is why the orthodontist has kept going with a removable brace. Hopefully yours is different!

Regarding the way it looks, the kids at school never made any comments, it was just the adults