Bad Habits That Could Lead to Tooth Decay for Children

Having children is an expensive proposition, and bad oral hygiene habits can make it even more expensive. As parents, we do our best to keep them on the straight and narrow, but accidents obviously happen. As one of my old bosses told me, all you can do is control the controllables and do your best with the rest.

Children learn from watching us, too, so keep that in mind, especially where your eating habits are concerned. If you are having a midnight snack, the kids are probably going to want one. If you are taking a soda to bed, they are going to want to do the same.

With all of that in mind, here are a few tips to help avoid your children from falling into a bad oral health routine:

• Drinks Before and After Bedtime – a lot of parents will send their children to bed with a sippy cup rather than have them get out of bed in the middle of the night. Often times, those sippy cups are filled with a fruit juice or soft drink. After they brush their teeth at night, you don’t want them to have anything else that could linger in their mouth and cause tooth decay. If you do send them to bed with a sippy cup, make sure it only has water in it.
  
• Brushing Before Bed – this is often the fight of the day, so you need to find ways to make brushing fun. Try using a themed toothbrush and a flavored fluoride toothpaste. Most of the big companies will have them with only a mild flavor, but it is just enough to take that pasty taste out of the toothpaste so they don’t mind brushing as much.
  
• Eating Sweets Between Meals – packing a snack for kids is common practice and most parents will let their children have a snack after school, before dinner. It is not so much the small snack that is bad, but rather the type of snack they are given. Try to keep them away from candy and sugary drinks between meals. If they have a sweet tooth, you are much better off giving them a sweeter fruit than candy.
  
• Missing Dental Appointments – repetition breeds habit. That is one saying in life that holds true no matter what. In addition to what can happen if you allow your child or children to miss a dental appointment, you are also teaching them at a young age that dental appointments are merely an option rather than a necessity. Furthermore, making every appointment assures you of catching any problem they may have early, meaning you will be able to keep those dental bills down.
  

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