My daughter, like my brother, had a gap in her front teeth. I tried to talk her out of orthodontia, since I remembered how much my otherwise very stoic brother had suffered.
But she insisted so we got her teeth fixed.
I’m still of the mind that it was probably, in the long run, a waste of time and money, but we’ll see. Or she’ll see, because I probably won’t be around that long.
Our problems are not so simple as a gap between the teeth, though I wish they were ;). Their problems interfered with eating and talking.
Oldest had a cross bite, and expander fixed that but she still has an over bite and could use braces.
Younger daughter had what we thought was an under bite, but really her top teeth were tilted back so she had to stick out her lower jaw to close her mouth. Retainer is fixing that.
Youngest daughter looks like an under bite on one side, so she has to slide her jaw to the right to close her mouth. She’s only 2 so we have a few years before fixing anything.
None of them would take a pacifier as babies so that may be the root of the problems. One sucked her thumb-pushing up the roof of her mouth would cause the cross bite and over bite. The other 2 girls kind of sucked their tongue instead and it was pushing their front teeth back as they grew in.
My boys took a pacifier as babies and they have straight teeth.