5 Tips From Dentist to Improve Kids Health

Kids health is important. Good habits are best formed early and this is no more true than with oral hygiene. Learning how to take good care of your teeth as a child makes it much easier to keep them healthy as an adult.

Today we’ve gathered together some tips from dental experts to help make sure your child’s oral health is as good as can be!

1. Watch for Fast, Lazy Brushing

Most parents are somewhat cognizant of the fact their children need to brush their teeth. Right before bed, they get in the habit of sending their children off to brush but this is where issues can start.

Many children (and adults) treat this as another rote, boring part of the day. Forgetting why we do it, they may quickly brush their teeth with little force and maybe without even using toothpaste. Brushing should take about two minutes, always be done with toothpaste containing fluoride, and should involve the brushing of every accessible tooth surface (including the backs of teeth).

If you’re looking for child dental care tips, this one may be the most important. If a child isn’t brushing right, it doesn’t much matter how regularly they do so. 

2. Don’t Forget Flossing

It’s something of a stereotype for dentists to call out bad flossing habits but it’s important. Children need to floss and most don’t. 

Most dental experts recommend children floss each evening before bed. That’s because one of the best times for bacteria to multiply is as we sleep. Cleaning your teeth before bed helps prevent this.

If you’re rusty on the ideal flossing technique, review how to do it both for yourself and the sake of your kid’s oral health. It perhaps isn’t as straightforward as brushing (which may explain why we don’t do it enough) but it is important.

3. Find a Pediatric Dentist

It’s recommended a child have their first dental visit sometime between when they get their first tooth and when all their primary (baby) teeth are visible. As a rule, you won’t want to wait much past their 2nd birthday.

We recommend considering this pediatric dentist if you’re on the hunt for someone who can maintain your own child’s oral health. Dr. Rhonda C. Hogan and her team are experts and more than capable of handling your child’s oral health needs with both skill and quality bedside manner.

As a rule, kids should be seeing the dentist once every 6 months. This is in addition to seeing the dentist within just a few days if they complain of tooth pain or other dental issues. This helps ensure a dentist both catches bad habits and can fix any oral health issues before they become serious.

In fact, this brings us to our next tip.

4. Never Ignore a Child’s Dental Issues

If you want to know how to take care of teeth with cavities the answer is that you don’t. A dentist does. If a child experiences even mild dental issues, it’s time to see an expert.

Ignoring a dental health issue, even if it is not serious, almost ensures it will get worse over time. A dentist is needed to look at the relevant teeth, fix any issue that’s found, and then correct the habits that lead to the issues in the first place. 

It’s also worth acknowledging that children often don’t like the dentist. They may downplay issues to avoid going. While it makes sense to empathize with a child’s anxieties, you can’t let them ignore problems with their teeth or gums just because they don’t like going to get them fixed.

5. Choosing a Toothpaste and Brush

When it comes to choosing toothpaste for a child, you have quite a few options. At the end of the day, you want a toothpaste containing fluoride, but that covers most major brands. (While some people believe fluoride causes cancer, there is no evidence of this and it is in fact one of the best ways we can protect our teeth.)

If you have a more discerning eye, you can focus on toothpastes that have the American Dental Association’s seal of approval. The ADA even has a helpful tool for searching products they approve of. If a product doesn’t have its seal, it doesn’t necessarily mean it is bad, but the seal is often held up as the gold standard for what to look for in a product.

As for what brush a child should use, there are two schools of thought on this. You don’t need to buy an expensive, feature-rich toothbrush but good electric toothbrushes can be more helpful than we might realize.

Colorful “fun” brushes can help make brushing teeth a less stressful process. For younger children, this alone may be worth a brush with fewer features, since it can encourage good habits and reduce bad feelings about maintaining oral health. At the end of the day, most toothbrushes can do the job if one’s technique is right.

That said, electric toothbrushes can make thorough brushing much easier. Brushes with timers in them, that play music or buzz at important intervals, can also help a child’s (or adult’s) timing. 

Help Your Kids Health Tomorrow With Good Practices Today

Much of medicine is about prevention. Good habits save money and can prevent serious medical issues from occurring in the first place. If you value your kids health, now is the time to think about their teeth and gums, not when they start hurting.

If you found this article helpful, we have plenty more content full of childcare tips! Explore the rest of our blog for more informative articles like this one.