mouthguard and shin pads for y4 boy

[JimBobplusasprog]

Ds needs a mouthguard and also shin pads for football and hockey. I've seen another thread recommending shock doctor mouthguards but which one? And are all shin pads basically the same?

My friends is a dentist he was frankly stunned to find that I was paying £40+ for a custom made mouth guard for a yr 4 child who was loosing his teeth! In fact he thought it could actually do harm if not checked every 2-3 months. So Ive never brought one since we buy Opro boil (yourself) and fit (yourself) ones there are three different levels according to what sport you do, they're much cheaper, it's doesn't natter if they loose them and you can buy/fit a new one every couple of months.

Just looked at the one it's an opro gold we buy it for £9 from one of those incredibly irritating sports shops and my DC has a broken front tooth with a cap on the easily falls off and it never has and he's even been hit in the face once by a ball.

Thpse Opro ones are great. They're about £6 in Sports Direct. Don't get the super cheap one (bronze?) as they're ikmporssible to mould. We've had silver a few times and they're fine. You can only mould them once though, so when you lose a tooth you have to do it again.

DS used to be a very keen hockey player, at that age most boys will just have standard boil and fit mouth guards. They are quite cheap but still really effective, remember they need to be refitted every so often as their teeth fall out and change.

We use ShockDoctor, about £10 from Sports Direct. I was also advised to buy cheaper and replace regularly rather than buy a custom fit one.
As for shin pads, hockey pads go further round the leg rather than just protecting the shin bone. They also have ankle guards on. I can't see why you couldn't use them to play football as well so if he is going to play a fair bit of hockey I would make sure he has the best protection from flailing sticks. I have just bought a set of Grays pads from an independent shop for a shade over £10 :)

We've been buying cheap mouldable mouthguards from Amazon but I haven't been too impressed with them, never managed a very good fit, will look at some of these others as DS is planning to do hockey camp next month. Also I didn't know there were specific hockey shinpads, he wore his old football ones last year. He refuses point blank to wear the sort with a strap under the foot so that limits the choices a bit.

These would probably be good to get for hockey and football. Who hockey shin pads don't usually have a strap underneath the foot and you can get some that have no straps at all and just rely on tight socks to hold them in place.

I need to do a bit of research I think. DS won't wear them next to his skin, he has to wear a pair of thin long socks, then the shinpad, then his hockey socks, it's the velcro he hates, so no straps sounds good. He also hates the gumshield, but I think they probably all do, they all seem to take them out and start fiddling with them the minute there's a break in training.

The gum shield was a long running battle here who
Luckily DS is not allowed to even train at hockey without one in and I have seen children have to sit out because they have "forgotten" theirs.
Personally I found a quick search of Dr Google bought up a wealth of pictures of smashed teeth due to not wearing a gum shield- this has terrified DS enough that he wears his even at school training now :o

DS is quite compliant about wearing it, at his club have to have it in for training as well as matches too, so he has no choice, but he detests the moulding process when we get a new one.

I cannot for the life of me fit a mouthguard, does anyone have any tips on how to improve the process - every time has ended in disaster.

DS's school has a fitting on about the second day of the school year, for year 3 (7+) upwards. They are OPRO ones, and you can remould them over the course of the year.

I discussed it with our dentist. He asked what sport, and I told him rugby and hockey. He laughed then, and said he thought children of that age should probably be wearing them just for going out to play!

I don't think we've ever done a very good job to be honest, DS can't suck them over his teeth very effectively (he has weak muscles in his mouth due to dyspraxia) and doesn't like it if we push them with our fingers. Then he moans if it's too hot, but if you let it cool they go to hard.

exactly the kind of problems I have too timegoes, which is why I end up forking out for the fitted one. Ho hum, another £40 down the drain.