It’s no secret that most children have a sweet tooth. This means that parents are constantly fighting to minimize sugar intake while ensuring their children do receive treats from time to time. It’s a difficult balance but an important one.

You’ve only got to look at the facts to know that you need to do more to look after your child’s teeth. It’s estimated that one in ten children have cavities or are missing teeth.

You need to make sure your child understands and implements good oral hygiene procedures.

The Right Dentist

Good tooth care actually starts with a good dentist. You’ll find it beneficial to use someone who is practicing holistic dentistry. This means they are doing more than looking at the state of your teeth, they are looking at your overall health and prescribing the best possible care for both in one package.

Remind Them

Children are very good at ‘forgetting’ things they don’t want to do, and there is generally little appeal in brushing their teeth. However, building a good dental routine while they are young isn’t just a good way to stop childhood cavities, it will also help throughout their lives.

In other words, remind your children on a daily basis to brush their teeth and make sure they do it.

Using Toothpaste

Toothpaste helps to remove bacteria and other nasties inside your child’s mouth. However, you can’t just use toothpaste, you also need to adopt the right brushing motion. The best approach is to only use a pea-sized amount of toothpaste.

This can then be brushed around tour teeth, making sure you brush all of them in the process. It should take at least 2-3 minutes to brush all your teeth.

Brush Right

Brushing is important but you can overdo this. When you’re brushing your teeth you need to cover all the teeth and where they join the gum line. However, you don’ need to brush too hard, if you do you may damage the gum line which increases the tooth’s exposure and makes tooth decay more likely.

While brushing it’s a good idea to do the tongue as well, this will help to wipe any bacteria off your tongue and keep your mouth healthy.

Floss

Children don’t generally need to start flossing until their teeth start to touch each other. However, you don’t need to wait to introduce the art of flossing. Let them see you doing it and help them to try it. If the teeth aren’t touching it will have very little effect, but it will serve as good practice to help ensure your children floss properly as they become adults.

Inspection

 You’ll need to go to the dentist regularly. But, that doesn’t mean you and your child shouldn’t inspect your own teeth. After all, you probably know them better than anyone else. Regularly inspecting them will help you to realize there is an issue and get a dental appointment. That’s actually one of the best protective measures you can take.