diff --git a/src/app/modules/form/admin-form/admin-form.service.ts b/src/app/modules/form/admin-form/admin-form.service.ts
index e5ebdddb72..a2466c32b3 100644
--- a/src/app/modules/form/admin-form/admin-form.service.ts
+++ b/src/app/modules/form/admin-form/admin-form.service.ts
@@ -105,6 +105,7 @@ import {
   checkIsApiSecretKeyName,
   generateTwilioCredSecretKeyName,
   getUpdatedFormFields,
+  insertTableShortTextColumnDefaultValidationOptions,
   processDuplicateOverrideProps,
 } from './admin-form.utils'
 
@@ -652,8 +653,10 @@ export const updateFormField = (
   fieldId: string,
   newField: FieldUpdateDto,
 ): ResultAsync<FormFieldSchema, PossibleDatabaseError | FieldNotFoundError> => {
+  const _newField = insertTableShortTextColumnDefaultValidationOptions(newField)
+
   return ResultAsync.fromPromise(
-    form.updateFormFieldById(fieldId, newField),
+    form.updateFormFieldById(fieldId, _newField),
     (error) => {
       logger.error({
         message: 'Error encountered while updating form field',
diff --git a/src/app/modules/form/admin-form/admin-form.utils.ts b/src/app/modules/form/admin-form/admin-form.utils.ts
index cb7efd448f..8b6537fd1c 100644
--- a/src/app/modules/form/admin-form/admin-form.utils.ts
+++ b/src/app/modules/form/admin-form/admin-form.utils.ts
@@ -4,9 +4,12 @@ import { err, ok, Result } from 'neverthrow'
 import { v4 as uuidv4 } from 'uuid'
 
 import {
+  BasicField,
   DuplicateFormBodyDto,
+  FieldUpdateDto,
   FormResponseMode,
   FormStatus,
+  TextValidationOptions,
 } from '../../../../../shared/types'
 import {
   reorder,
@@ -586,3 +589,36 @@ export const mapGoGovErrors = (error: AxiosError): GoGovError => {
       )
   }
 }
+
+// TODO: remove once we upgrade to Mongoose 7.x
+/**
+ * Manually insert default validation options for short text columns in tables.
+ * Due to a bug in Mongoose 6.x, default values are not inherited for discriminators.
+ *
+ * See https://github.com/Automattic/mongoose/issues/12135
+ *
+ * Fixed in Mongoose 7.x
+ * @param newField
+ * @returns
+ */
+
+export const insertTableShortTextColumnDefaultValidationOptions = (
+  newField: FieldUpdateDto,
+) => {
+  if (newField.fieldType === BasicField.Table) {
+    const defaultValidationOptions: TextValidationOptions = {
+      customVal: null,
+      selectedValidation: null,
+    }
+    newField.columns.map((column) => {
+      if (column.columnType === BasicField.ShortText) {
+        column.ValidationOptions = {
+          ...defaultValidationOptions,
+          ...column.ValidationOptions,
+        }
+      }
+      return column
+    })
+  }
+  return newField
+}