How Long Do I Have To Wear My Retainer At Night. When you wear your retainer can vary widely; For this reason, you won’t have to wear your orthodontic retainers as frequently to maintain your beautifully straight smile.
You may be thinking — “wait, i thought i was done!” — and yes, you’ve done the difficult work of perfecting your smile through braces and successfully had them removed (congrats!), but don’t you want to keep it that way? With this new phase, it may be that your retainers just need to be worn at night (like while you sleep). After that initial three months, you will wear your retainer for 12 hours a day (or night) for the next nine months.
After that, you will likely be able to transition to only wearing your retainer at night while you sleep.
By the end of this first year, your teeth should be more securely placed and less likely to quickly relapse. When you complete a 9 month period of night only wear continuing to wear your retainers will be at your discretion however, we always recommend that you wear your retainers consistently and for long as possible. No matter what treatment option you choose to go with, you will always need retainers. The frequency and length of time you wear it can depend on the type of retainer you have and your dentist’s recommendation, but many dentists recommend wearing a retainer indefinitely.