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Your Child's Teeth
Our aim as a preventive dental team is to get your child to adulthood with as few fillings as possible (ideally none).
Once your child has its first tooth, it's time to encourage them to brush twice a day. Use a small headed toothbrush. Make it into a game, and by establishing this good habit early you will have set them up for life. It is always best for you to finish the brushing to make sure their teeth are clean.
Do not use toothpaste until the child can spit out, then use a small "pea" sized bit of toothpaste on the brush. A child's toothpaste is a good idea.
Avoid sugary snacks and drinks between meals. Look for alternatives such as fruit, raw vegetables, milk or water. Use sugar free squashes.
It is not the amount of sugar that you eat that leads to tooth decay, but the frequency that you eat it. Each time you eat a food containing sugar your teeth have an "acid attack". So if you restrict sugar to mealtimes you should have only three "acid attacks" a day. The more acid attacks you have the more tooth decay you will cause. So sweets are eaten as part of a meal they will not then add to the decay.
More than three acid attacks a day gives rise to tooth decay. If you were to take twins and give them a bag of sweets each. One ate a sweet every half hour during that day and the other ate the whole bag quickly, the first twin that made it's sweets last would get more decay, the other that ate them fast would get less. Quite the opposite from what my parents told me!
Around 5 to 6 years of age the first "baby" tooth will start to loosen as the adult teeth start to come through. Adult teeth also appear right at the back (no baby teeth are lost ). This is the time to change to an adult toothpaste like Colgate Total.
"When should my child first see a dentist?"
Between 24 to 30 months is the ideal time for a first exam, although we are happy to look at any age should you have a worry. We like to seem them seated on your lap first, although if they have older brothers or sisters they will often want to get into the chair.
If a child refuses an exam we will not push the point,(unless it is an emergency) but simply book them back in another day.
"Why do we call out numbers and letters during an exam?"
Baby teeth are given letters and adult teeth numbers so we can simply record the teeth present.