Pediatric Dental Care

With some children, everything can seem like a battle. If your child doesn't want to cooperate, something simple and small can turn into a bigger issue. Parents have to learn to pick and choose their battles...sometimes going against their child's wishes. Getting your child to brush their teeth can become a struggle. Even if it's difficult to achieve, oral hygiene for your child is of the upmost importance.  We discover why it's important to convince your child to brush their teeth.

Getting Off to a Good Start

When teeth are new, they are clean. Obviously, when they first move into the mouth, they have not yet been exposed to things like sugar and other damaging substances. If you can establish a reliable teeth brushing routine with your children right from the start, you’ll give them a good chance of maintaining oral health for years to come. You can’t protect teeth from everything that is going to come their way during life, but you can take a big step in the right direction by brushing regularly.

Part of a Helpful Bedtime Routine

In the introduction to this article, we talked about how anything can turn into a battle with a child. That is especially true with bedtime. If you are a parent, you probably shuddered at the mention of bedtime battles, as they can be the toughest part of the day for many families. Your small child just wants to keep playing and you just want to get some rest. While there may not be a surefire way to fix the bedtime blues, establishing a consistent routine does help many children.

And, of course, you can include a few minutes for brushing teeth as part of that routine. This will just be another piece of the bedtime puzzle, and hopefully, something that signals to the child that it is time to get ready for sleep. In addition to brushing at night, it is also a good idea to have your child brush his or her teeth another time during the day. For most people, it makes sense to fit this other brushing in sometime during the morning hours.

Those First Teeth Are Staying a While

It may be tempting to think that the care of your child’s baby teeth isn’t particularly important since they aren’t permanent. Don’t make this mistake. While it’s true that baby teeth are going to be replaced at some point, they still have years of work to do, and they should be cared for in that time. Some baby teeth may last as long as a decade before they are replaced, meaning it is important to brush them regularly right from the start. If a tooth is neglected, it can easily run into trouble before it is due to be replaced by an adult tooth.

Establish a Pattern of Overall Hygiene

In addition to the importance of oral hygiene, your children are likely to learn about the importance of overall personal hygiene through a regular brushing habit. There are many more personal care tasks to be handled each day in addition to brushing, such as washing hands, taking a bath or shower, etc. It’s never too early to start establishing good habits for your kids, which should make life easier on all of you as the years go by.

There is also something to be said here for the benefits of learning personal responsibility through hygiene. At first, you need to do everything for your children, but that quickly changes as they grow. As more and more of the responsibilities are passed onto them, you need to be sure they are ready to pick up where you left off. Teaching them the importance of caring for their body is just one way you can help them learn to take care of their own life all the way around. While most parents don’t want to see their kids grow up too quickly, there is also great pride in watching them take care of themselves successfully.

At Lakeside Dental in Moses Lake, we take pride in offering high-quality dental care for the whole family. We think it is extremely important for kids to get off to a good start when it comes to oral health, and we’d be proud to be a part of making that happen. If you would like more information on what you can do to improve your children’s oral health, or if you’d like to schedule an appointment, please contact us right away.