How to Protect the Oral Health of Your Child
Children are such precious gems in the world. They bring life and color into rather boring setups. Even then, they pose a big responsibility to parents and guardians, based on how much care they require. All aspects of your child will be your responsibility until they are old enough to handle some of them by themselves.
When it comes to oral health, you have a big role as a parent to not only care for their oral cavity but protect the child’s safety while at it.
Importance of Oral Health for Children
Whether you know it or not, those small mouths of children are a lot of work. Kids are jot particularly careful with what they eat or what they put in their mouths. This makes your involvement in their health that much more important.
To protect the oral health of your child, there isn’t just one thing that does it all. At Kids First Dental, we educate parents on the importance of being proactive and intentional on the different aspects of their kid’s mouths. Besides, you must also account for the fact that growth and development are part of a child’s life. Therefore, even the health of their mouth will need to be cared for differently during the different stages.
When To Start Caring For Oral Health of Children
One of the biggest challenges that pediatric dentists in Conway have is convincing parents that oral health for children does not start or end with teeth. Ideally, this means that whether your child has all teeth or none at all, oral health is paramount.
For kids, the first 6 months of their lives are usually fully dedicated to breast milk or baby formula. At this age, your involvement in their oral health should be regarding their oral hygiene. As they grow up, your involvement is more and the practices also increase.
Important Tips for Good Oral Health
The tips for good oral health work well when you treat the different stages of children’s dental health as they should. This is one of the reasons that makes the involvement of experts like Dr. John Patangan worthwhile. Some of the tips to help you along include:
- Start early – with oral hygiene, you can start early, even before your child has any teeth. At such early stages, consider using a clean washcloth dipped in warm water, to wipe the surfaces of your child’s mouth. This will help rid their mouths of any residues from breast milk or baby formula.
- See a pediatric dentist – it is always best to have a pediatric dentist on standby for your child. There are things about the oral health of your child that you will jot known unless with the involvement of a dental expert.
- Brush the teeth – once your child has teeth, there is no reason for you not to start up a different oral hygiene routine. Use a baby toothbrush with very soft bristles, and be gentle with the motions of the brush. You also need to get a children’s toothpaste and keep the amounts to the size of a rice grain. Before your child is 6 years old, you have to help them with brushing their teeth. Help them learn the techniques of doing so, gradually and gently. You can even make the experience fun for them by brushing your teeth along with them.
- Replace old toothbrushes – they trap bacteria on the bristles and make it nearly impossible to achieve excellence in oral hygiene.
- Consider fluoride treatment – fluoride is a natural mineral, typically found in foods, that helps to strengthen teeth. It is also a necessary mineral for fighting against dental cavities and tooth decay. When your child is between 6 and 14 years old, understand that those are cavity-prone ages. Fluoride treatment can help fight such infections.
- Watch what they eat – most children, if not all, have a sweet tooth. They always seem to grab on to candies, sugary pastries, and soft drinks. While this is fun for them, it does a lot of harm to their teeth. Even though baby teeth will be lost to make room for permanent teeth, they are still important to the oral development process of children.