10 Tips to Keep Your Child's Teeth Healthy by Dentist in Brampton

 

Tip # 1. Proper nutrition

Proper nutrition is one of the main tasks for parents who want to ensure the health of their child's teeth. After eating food, especially one is containing carbohydrates, an acidic environment forms in the mouth. 

In an acidic environment, mineral components are washed out of the enamel, which can cause the onset of a carious process. Saliva has a beneficial property to restore the pH of the oral fluid to normal. Thereby stopping the process of enamel demineralization and enhancing its re-mineralization.

Considering the above features, we can conclude that the occurrence of caries is more influenced not by the number of carbohydrates eaten per day but by the frequency of their use. Therefore, Dentist in Brampton Ontario recommendations regarding carbohydrate intake are as follows:

• Reduce snacks to a minimum while excluding snacks with light carbohydrates (cookies, sweets, rolls, bagels, corn sticks, etc.);
• The minimum amount of time between meals should be at least three hours;
• Give sweet only for dessert after the main meal. In this case, you can adjust the number of sweets at your discretion. If a child eats one candy or ten candies for dessert and then does not eat sweets before dinner, then in both cases, this will not negatively affect dental health;
• Avoid drinking sugary liquids between meals because this is equivalent to snacking on carbohydrates. Sweet liquids include everything except water and tea without sugar and honey. Leave compote, juice for dessert;
• Products useful for teeth are fermented milk products, green vegetables (broccoli, zucchini, parsley, spinach), fish, nuts, buckwheat porridge, butter).

Click to read: Important Information on Child's Milk Teeth

Tip # 2. Nothing but water at night!

After you stop breastfeeding at night, do not give babies anything other than water to drink. The use of other liquids - compote (even if it is sugar-free), kefir, milk, mixtures, sweetened or acidified tea, etc. - leads to the appearance of bottle caries. Moreover, in this case, the leading cause of caries is not the fact that the child drinks from the bottle but the liquid poured into the bottle.

Tip # 3. Teach children to be hygienic from the first tooth

When your child's teeth begin to erupt, wipe them with a gauze pad or a particular xylitol-soaked tissue. With the appearance of more teeth, you can begin to introduce your baby to the toothbrush.

Tip # 4. Brush your teeth two times a day

In the morning after breakfast (this is very important!) And in the evening before bedtime. When the child turns one year old, it is necessary to bring the baby for a consultation with a Family Dentist in Brampton, to teach the correct brushing technique and pick up toothpaste and a toothbrush. 

Tip # 5. Don't forget to clean your interdentally spaces!

In children over three years old, the most common localization of caries is contact surfaces. That is why, starting from this age, it is necessary to clean the child's interdentally spaces with the help of special floss sticks.

Tip # 6: Use mouthwash

Usually, children start using mouthwash after five years of age, when parents can be sure that the child will spit it out completely. The mouthwash contains mineral and antiseptic components and, according to various scientific publications, the systematic use of the mouthwash can reduce the risk of caries by 15-20%.

Tip # 7. Choosing the right toothpaste

It will be more correct if you do not just buy toothpaste in the supermarket by marking the child's age, but if the Dentist in Brampton carries out an individual selection of toothpaste, taking into account the peculiarities of the condition of your child's teeth and gums.

Tip # 8: Chewing Xylitol Gum after Meals

Chewing gum mechanically cleans teeth from plaque. While xylitol inhibits the growth of cariogenic microbes and promotes enamel mineralization.

Tip # 9. Professional hygiene and fluoridation of teeth

No matter how well parents take care of their children's teeth, there are still hard-to-reach places where plaque remains systematic. Therefore, teeth sometimes need to be cleaned by specialists, especially for children who wear orthodontic instruments. 

Tip # 10. Sealing fissures

Most likely, not all parents know what fissures are, so I'll start with an explanation. Fissures are grooves and grooves that you can see if you carefully examine the chewing surface of the posterior teeth. When a tooth erupts, the enamel in the fissure area is not yet fully formed. There are few mineral components in it. The formation of enamel continues for another 2-3 years after the eruption of a tooth. 

It means that there is an increased risk of caries all this time. In addition, the eruption of permanent teeth coincides with the age when a child begins to brush his teeth on his own but does not do it very well.