Calming Children"s Fears: Making the First Dental Visit a Fun One

As soon as a child grows his or her first teeth, a trip to the dentist’s office is warranted. The child may be barely two years old, however, so any examination by a stranger is an intimidating experience. Make the first dental visit a fun one by trying these basic tips. Children’s fears will fade away.

Choosing a Kid-Friendly Office

Perform some research by visiting several pediatric dental offices in your area without your child. Walk in and survey the interior space. Try to put yourself in your child’s shoes. If you don’t feel instantly comfortable in the office, your child will have the same sensation. A kid-friendly office won’t look like a dental facility. Brightly colored walls, toys and even playground equipment might dot the waiting room. These distractions make the facility look welcoming to every child.

Trying a “Visit” First

Making a traditional appointment with a dentist may not work for your child. The act of physically walking into the office can be stressful enough for some children. Think about making an appointment where you and your child merely visit with the dentist. A short chat is a great way to create a relationship. The meeting doesn’t feel intimidating. The child simply learns the dentist’s name and favorite things to do. The next visit can entail some evaluations.

Stepping Into the Dental World

Explain to your child that the next appointment will involve an evaluation of the mouth. Because the child sees the dentist as a friend from the first meeting, an evaluation isn’t too stressful to think about. Make your second appointment and show up a little bit early. Allow the child to play and enjoy the surroundings. You might introduce the child to the dental chair as you walk into the backroom. Creating a casual atmosphere puts everyone at ease, including the child.

Finishing off the Appointment

Leave the child with a positive feeling after the first dental visit is over. The dentist should give the child a treat or prize from a treasure chest. Rewarding the child healthy foods that improve dental health can be a very positive gesture. During the next appointment, the child will have practically no stress regarding the visit. The dentist’s office is a fun place to go. If you’re wondering if there’s a kids dentist near me, be proactive and perform an online search in your area. Many dental professionals gear their practices toward children, which makes your visit an easy one to complete. Simply try a dentist that you’ve researched as thoroughly as possible. You may find the perfect individual after only one try.

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Dentist Serving Children With Special Needs

Do you have young children with down syndrome or social phobias? If so, then it is important to find a special needs dentist who is prepared to accommodate you and your child. If you search online for a “kids dentist near me,” how can you know if the dentist will be one who is trained to serve children with special needs? There are several items you can look for to assess whether the pediatric dental group will be able to support your family.

1. Offers pre-appointments. A pre-appointment is a time for your child to discover that the dentist’s office is a safe place. Your family will get the chance to see the spaces your child will encounter, meet the special needs dentist, and familiarize yourselves with any tools that the doctor utilizes to help children through the appointment. This experience will allow your child to feel comfortable in the dentist’s environment.

2. Provides a dentist with specialized training.Only a few pediatric dental groups in your area will have a dentist who is specifically trained to work with children who have special needs. You could even ask the dentist what types of special needs children is he or she accustomed to working with.

3. Maintains accessible office space.If your child is in a wheelchair, accessibility is most likely very important to you. Visit the office prior to your 1^st appointment to ensure that your child can get around the office space without too much disruption. Check that the office has adequate thresholds, doorway widths and stability equipment to care for all your child’s needs.

4. Gives sedation if needed. Often, a special needs dentist offers various levels of sedation to adequately care for your child during should anxiousness or proceed complexity appear to be an issue. Options range from mild sedation to general anesthesia. Discuss your needs and preferences with your dentist.

5. Cites various experience. If the dentist and staff have worked extensively with a range of children with special needs, they may have strategies to handle common and unexpected needs. They will be more likely to have the ability to support your child. The pediatric dental group might even offer advice on oral care at home for your child with special needs.

Special Needs Dentist in Bucks County

The special needs dentist that is right for you is willing and eager to serve your family. Find someone who will meet you, who shows training and experience, and who operates in a supportive space with the sedation options your child needs. Search “kids dentist near me,” and check out the results to find the pediatric dental group that is right for you.

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Preventing Expensive Dental Work Requires Regular Visits as a Child

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, dental caries affect upwards of 25 percent of children between the ages of 2 and 5 in the United States. By the time children reach the ages of 12, half of them are estimated to have serious tooth decay. The state of a person’s teeth when they are young is a fairly reliable predictor of what their teeth will be like when they are older.

If preventative steps are not taken throughout a child’s life to temper cavity development and keep teeth healthy, expensive dental work will almost certainly be required at some point in the future. For this reason, it is important for parents to dedicate themselves to finding the best kid’s dentist near them and start taking their children in for regular visits once they reach the age of four or five years old. Worried about the costs associated with regular dental visits? Regularly taking your kids to an affordable kid’s dentist is actually less expensive than trying to treat years of dental neglect later on.

What You Can Do to Prevent Childhood Tooth Decay

Prevention is the most effective way to keep cavities at bay and prevent them from developing into more serious dental issues.  When children are brought to a dentist for regular checkups, they are less likely to require extensive (and expensive) dental work. This is because it takes time for dental conditions and diseases to develop, and if they are detected early on they can normally be treated with minimal cost and invasiveness. Here are a few things you can do to promote dental health in your child:

• *Religiously schedule 6-month checkups from the age of 4 and upwards.
• *Avoid feeding your child excessive sugar, which has been linked with tooth decay.
• *Teach good dental habits like brushing twice each day.
• *Understand that dental decay is more about dental care than it is about genetics.
• *Feed your child a healthy, balanced diet that will facilitate proper dental development.

If childhood dental diseases are left undetected and untreated, they can develop into more serious conditions that require more aggressive treatments. Allowing a cavity or other dental issue to progress unchecked will not only cause your child unnecessary pain, but can also negatively affect his or her dental and overall health. Find yourself a great pediatric dentist in Levittown or your home town that connects well with your child.

Above all, it is important to realize that proper dental care for your child is well worth the cost. Regular dental checkups will not only help keep your child free from dental pain, but will also help you avoid expensive dental repairs and treatments down the road.

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Do Your Kids Need to Floss?

As an adult, you now know the importance of flossing and good dental hygiene. Imparting that knowledge to your kids who have yet to experience the consequences can be a challenge. Getting kids to adhere to a good oral care routine is even more important. Brushing, flossing and rinsing after each meal should become a habit for your children to combat tooth decay. Just because the baby teeth will eventually fall out should never be an excuse to not teach your children these important lessons during their formative years?


Why Floss at All?

Too many adults struggle with flossing daily. What they fail to understand is that brushing alone only does half the job. While it cleans the easy-to-reach front and back surfaces of teeth, a toothbrush cannot adequately reach the accumulation that builds up in the gaps between them. Only flossing prevents the harmful buildup that, if neglected, can make you more susceptible to gum infections, which can ultimately results in gum disease and, potentially, tooth loss.

This takes us back to the question of why floss between baby teeth if they will eventually fall out? More than protecting your child’s teeth, flossing helps to ensure healthy gums so that when permanent teeth do arrive, they’re coming into healthy gum tissue. Plus, introducing flossing now helps establish an all-important routine.

Teaching Proper Flossing

The ideal time to introduce flossing to your kids is when their baby teeth begin to touch each other. Yet before you can teach them to floss, you need to ensure that you’re doing it properly. Helping your kids to do it will also allow you to correct any bad habits in your own flossing technique. Stick to the following steps when showing them how to do floss:

• - Start by breaking off an 18 inch length of floss and wrapping both ends around the middle fingers until only about an inch of space is left between.
• - Slide the floss in between your teeth, guiding it with your thumb and index fingers.
• - Gently move the floss back-and-forth up the gap to slightly under the gum line.
• - Repeat the process with a new piece of floss with each subsequent tooth.

Too many parents place the bulk of their children’s oral care concerns on questions like “Where can I find a good pediatric dentist near me so they can teach my kids good oral hygiene?” Yet equally as important as finding an affordable dentist for kids is helping your children learn the proper techniques needed to form a good oral hygiene routine while they’re young. Doing so helps to place them ahead of the curve in the lifelong battle they’re destined to face with plaque and tartar. Introducing the concept of flossing now will help put your kids on the path to enjoying a happy, healthy smile when they’re your age.

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It Takes a Family to Raise Young Teeth

If it takes a village to raise a child, that same community can help educate children and their parents of the importance of good oral health. Tooth decay is the number one chronic disease facing American children. Approximately one in four kids ages two to five have tooth decay, and two-thirds will experience a cavity before they are teenagers.

Breaking the Tooth Decay Cycle

A pediatric dentist can assess your child’s teeth, looking for decay, cavities, and overall health. However, your child’s oral health really starts and ends at home and what they are taught in school. That’s why breaking the tooth decay cycle for children is a team effort between the dentist, parents, and schools.

Early Prevention is a Team Effort

Early prevention reduces the risk of tooth decay. As a village, we can all educate families, caregivers, and patients about the importance of establishing and maintaining good oral health. The American Academy of Pediatric Dentist and American Academy of Pediatrics recommend early tooth decay prevention activities beginning when your child is six to 12 months old. Some of these activities should start during those first six months when the first teeth begin erupting and continue into adulthood, include:

• Oral examination
• Oral health education
• Cavity-risk assessment
• Evaluation of oral growth
• Referral to a pediatric dentist
• Assessment of overall development

Communicating and teaching these oral health activities to parents by a pediatric dental group or a child’s school nurse can educate them about the critical nature of sustaining good oral healthcare.

Share This Information with Others

Many parents shrug off early dental care insisting that there is not a kid’s dentist near me. However, even a medical doctor can evaluate your child’s oral health. Healthy teeth for kids starts with educating a child’s caregivers about the importance of oral health because ensuring a healthy smile healthy is a team effort. Children learn healthy habits from their parents, and good oral health is an important part of a person’s overall health.

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Dental X-Rays for Kids Are A Must

There are a number of different diseases and disorders that can start in or be detected within the mouth. It is critical that you keep your child’s teeth as healthy as possible. Having a complete set of dental x-rays is a great way to help safeguard your child’s dental health.

Common Uses

Dental x-rays assist with detecting or viewing a few different things, including:

• The growth of teeth
• Cavities or injuries between teeth
• Gum or bone disease
• Mouth infections

Different Types

Though high radiation exposure is not healthy, low exposure is generally not an issue. When the x-ray equipment is utilized correctly and with proper precautions in place, it can achieve its intended goal with minimal risk to the recipient of the radiation. A qualified dentist and dental assistant will know how to target the intended area in the mouth and how to perform the procedure as quickly as possible. Combined with the use of a lead body apron, the child will receive limited exposure to radiation.

There are a few different low radiation options:

• Bitewing x-rays: This x-ray is also called the cavity detecting x-ray because it can show areas between the teeth and help the dentist detect even very small cavities. It is only needed after the back teeth have grown in.

• Periapical x-rays: To view clusters of two or three teeth at a time to check for adult teeth that are below baby teeth and to check gum health, this is a great option.

• Orthodontic x-rays: When the doctor is trying to decide the best treatment method for correcting tooth alignment issues, this x-ray is used to examine the jaw bone in relation to the skull.

• Panoramic x-rays: These low radiation x-rays for kids do not require a child to hold a film between the teeth, and they produce an image of all teeth. It should be noted that the child does have to be able to sit still for 12 to 18 seconds for the procedure to be completed.

• Occlusal x-rays: Another way to view most of the teeth on one film is to utilize this x-ray.

In deciding the best option for your child, consider all of your dentist options. An easy way to do this is to perform an internet search for “kids’ dental offices near me.” Once you’ve selected the best kids dentist in Pennington NJ or one near you, have the doctor explain which method he or she plans to choose and the reasoning behind it. With you both on board with the treatment process, you can develop a plan to have your child on the road to healthy teeth and healthy living.

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