Dental Care for Toddlers -- Mom's Role

Obviously, once a child starts getting teeth in, it's important to bring them to see the dentist at least every six months. The dentist's role in checking up on the toddler's teeth is pretty obvious -- but first-time parents may well ask themselves where their part in their child's dental care is.

The answer is actually pretty simple, too. It's largely a matter of instruction, routine, and observation.

Instruction
The first step in toddler dental care is teaching them how to take care of their own teeth. By the time a child is three, they should be able to at least pretend to brush their teeth. Your job as the mom is to turn that pretend tooth brushing into the real thing. That means teaching them the same basic technique described last week -- but as toddlers who actually have teeth, you want to increase the amount of time they spend on each surface from 2 seconds to 4.

It should take about a minute and a half to brush your teeth -- for second on each of the 24 surfaces inside your mouth. That's 12 on the top (three for each of the two molar surfaces, two for each of the two canine areas, and two for the front teeth), and 12 on the bottom.

Routine
Your second job is to make sure that your toddler brushes their teeth every morning when they wake up and every night right before they go to sleep. If you want to make this easy on yourself, start the routine the day they start eating non-breast-milk foods (see last week's post) and don't vary the routine ever. Kids love routines, and if you get it into their head early, they'll actually remind YOU that they need their teeth brushed.

Observation
The last thing you need to do as the mom is keep track of your child's dental and oral health. Watch to see if they suddenly start favoring one side of their mouth over the other, if they start talking differently (which can be a sign of pain in one part of the mouth), or if they start being distressed at eating particularly hot, cold, or chewy foods. If you catch any of these or any other sign that they may have a problem with their mouths, schedule an appointment with their dentist immediately.

Happy Mother's Day!