One thing that everyone who is single and dating that also wears a nightguard has to contend with is the question of what to do when there’s eventually a sleepover?

For myself, I grind my teeth prolifically enough that even one night without a night guard risks chipping my two front teeth, both of which have repairs from a field hockey accident many years ago. So in my case, the choices are: high likelihood of waking up with chips of my teeth in my mouth, and needing an expensive visit to the dentist. Or I have to wear a nightguard in front of my date.

The next question is whether you can stealthily pull this off without your date noticing that when you’re actually going to sleep you’re putting one on. You could not disclose that you wear one, bring it with you and leave it out of sight until the moment you’re falling asleep. In my case, I can get the guard itself into my waistband so I can put it in my mouth at the last possible minute.

It would be much easier to just disclose to your date that you have to wear a nightguard, but it can be presumptive to even show up to a date with your mouthguard “just in case” you end up sleeping over.

This is a complete nightmare to navigate in dating, so my sympathy goes out to anyone living it. For my part, I have an over the counter night guard that is slim in profile and doesn’t cover my front teeth, it just holds them apart. So the night guard is small and inconspicuous and the case is also really slim line and fits in my jeans pocket no problem. This makes it super easy to carry around, but you still have to figure out if you want to go the disclosure or stealthy route.

The other relevant thing to think about is bad breath from wearing your nightguard. Especially if it causes you to sleep with your mouth open, you’ll likely wake up with a dry / gross mouth, even more so than normal. So make sure you’ve got access to the essentials to take care of that cottonmouth!

In my experience, it’s worth bringing the mouthguard, and just making a joke about the presumptiveness if you do end up having to use it (i.e. sleep over). Folks who don’t wear night guards won’t understand how important night guard compliance is for us, so you do you!

As things progress with someone you’re dating, you may also just want to buy a cheap over the counter night guard from a pharmacy or online and mold it at home to then leave at their place for future use. That way you don’t have to remember to bring yours, nor do you have to carry it around all the time. At this point I’ve got a ton of different cheap nightguards lying around so I never get caught out by forgetting it (although there’s always the occasional late night trip to a pharmacy to pick up one of the boil and mold night guards when I’ve forgotten mine on a vacation).

Ultimately, it seems like teeth grinding is getting more and more awareness with the general public. If you wearing a mouth guard during a first sleep over is an issue to your date, perhaps you should rethink whether they’re the right choice for you!