Toddler’s First Dental Check Up

Those little teeth seem to cause us a lot of troubles. They move up and down in our little ones’ gums, causing discomfort, leaving everyone exhausted and feeling the pain until they finally break through to join ranks in that tiny mouth. But the struggles don’t stop there.

If you’ve never had a baby or toddler with teeth that need maintaining, you probably don’t know the joy that is trying to get a toothbrush in there to give these important little chompers a good brushing. Every day, we seem to wage the war that is oral care for our little Z. It’s not easy, and to be perfectly honest, sometimes it’s just impossible to get any brushing done whatsoever. But we try.

Here are some tactics we’ve tried to make the brushing of the teeth more effective and less frustrating for all of us:

• Letting her have a turn brushing first. Great idea. Unfortunately, she could keep chewing on the toothbrush for hours and not feel like giving mom or dad a turn.

• Letting her have a turn brushing after. Switching things up often helps, but this was even less effective that the first trick.

• Giving her my toothbrush to brush my teeth while I tried to get at hers. Little Z thought this was hilarious. The laughter was actually kind of helpful in that she opened her mouth, but not exactly what I was hoping for. Between her smacking my toothbrush around in my throat and on my face, I’m not too keen on this trick, but I learned that humour is helpful.

• Tag-teaming. If you have two parents at home during tooth-brushing time, this seems to be a favourite trick for some of the parents I know. We really should try this, but we try to divide and conquer during bedtime routine to get dinner put away and the dishes started, so this hasn’t been attempted yet by us.

• Brushing in the bathtub. Another trick passed down by other parents, this seems to help sometimes.

• Holding both arms back. Now, I’m definitely not one for restricting a child’s movement unless it is a safety concern, but each personality is different, and our little one seems to enjoy being strapped in to her car seat (once the straps are on, she calms down and often falls fast asleep for long naps there, where she has a lot of trouble sleeping in her crib). I thought I’d give this a try, and it has worked. Once. To be fair, I’ve only tried this twice (Dad does most of the tooth-brushing during bedtime routine). The first time she seemed happy and let me brush her teeth no problem, the second time she struggled and let me know she didn’t like it, so I didn’t force it. I don’t think anything can be gained from forcing children to do what you want them to do. There are so many better ways.

Before booking the appointment I had seen a wide range of recommendations about when to take a child in for the first time, ranging from a year to 3 years. I decided sooner rather than later, and now was the time for my toddler’s first dental check up. I was worried about the state of my 17-month-olds very important little teeth, whose health will be important for years, and will support the health of her adult teeth. I wanted to get her in to see the dentist sooner rather than later. It would be helpful for me to know if what we’ve been doing has been working, if we should be flossing, what the deal with toothpaste was (fluoride or no?), and to give our little one a relaxed and positive experience with going to the dentist to hopefully help her feel easy about going there in the future.

To make the experience as pleasant of a memory as I could, I tried a trick I like to call the “playground sandwich”. First, I took the little bean to play at the playground by the dentist’s office for a while, then we popped over for the check-up, and came straight back to play at the park again when it was over.

Here’s how the appointment went:

Filling in the paperwork was the most stressful part of the whole trip. In hindsight, I should have filled them out last week when I filled out my own papers for my personal dentist appointment. Trying to keep a busy toddler occupied and there while you’re looking in your wallet for care numbers and trying to scribble your info, with her very curious and wanting to explore in the back where she hears all sorts of funny dental work sounds, it’s not easy. If you can get in to fill out the papers when you don’t have your little one around, I recommend doing this.

When we went back, the dentist had me sit in the big chair with little miss on my lap. They met and talked to her, then turned on the big light, gave Z a new little toothbrush to hold, and tried to take a look in her mouth. She actually did much better than I expected her to, being familiar with how little my Z will open her mouth for anyone.

The most important thing the dentist said he wanted to check was her front teeth, as often when a child is nursing on demand and nursing during the night in a co-sleeping arrangement (both of which fit our lifestyle), he might see some issues arise with the front teeth from having milk sit on them. This did not seem to be the case for Z’s teeth, as he found them to be in great condition. Phewph!

This is what the dentist shared with me about caring for our little one’s teeth. First, he said to make sure that we (the parents) are the ones who are doing the brushing of the teeth, and not leaving that up to Z to do. This sounds fairly obvious, but I can understand how some parents might give up and let their little one have at it when they put up such a fight.

Next, he talked about toothpaste. He recommended that we shouldn’t be using fluoride toothpaste until she is old enough to spit out all of the paste, as fluoride swallowed can actually cause the developing teeth to be “mottled” and discoloured. I was relieved to hear this, as I had been concerned that we should be using fluoride on her teeth as recommended in some other places, but erring on the side of caution we’ve been sticking to a fluoride-free toothpaste. He mentioned that we really didn’t need to be using any toothpaste at all for her right now, and that a simple wet-with-water toothbrush would work just fine.

When I asked about flossing, I was told that there was enough space in between the teeth Z has that regular brushing should be able to get everything out from between them. No need to floss now. When her second set of molars come in (she already has one complete set of four), though, we could try to floss between those. Hopefully this won’t be for a long time, as I have a feeling this will be harder than just brushing alone.

So all in all, I’m very happy that we went in for my baby’s first dental check-up. I feel much more confident that we’re doing right by our little one and her oral health, and it’s good to know that everything looks good in that little mouth.

What age did you first take your little one to the dentist, or when do you plan to? Any tips for how to get through tooth-brushing without fighting to get in there?