It might surprise you to learn that summer can put your child at a higher risk of cavities. Summer is full of fun activities and treats, but taking a few steps to maintain your child’s oral health can help them avoid needing treatment during one of the most exciting times of the year. Here is what to know about cavities and summertime, as well as how our team can help at Sprout Kids Dentistry.

Why Do Cavities Peak During Summer?

An increase in cavities during summer isn’t just a myth. It has a lot to do with summer diet changes. Summer is a season when we enjoy more sugar-laden treats, from popsicles to candies and lemonades. All this excess sugar can build up and wear away at tooth enamel, resulting in cavities.

During the summer, your kids may also fall out of the habit of brushing their teeth as regularly as they do during the school year. This combination can result in a significant increase in cavities over the summer.

How to Prevent Cavities During the Summer

While occasional indulgence is fine, striking the right balance is the key to maintaining good oral health during summer. Regular dental check-ups at Sprout Kids Dentistry can be crucial in preventing and detecting cavities. Our team can check for any developing cavities and explore ways to remineralize them, as well as prevent further decay. Of course, taking steps at home is key to preventing future problems, too. Here are a few additional steps you and your child can take:

1. Maintain a regular routine, including brushing your teeth twice daily.
2. Limit sugary treats and opt for healthier alternatives like fruits, cheese, and yogurt.
3. Ensure kids drink water after every meal or snack.
4. Don’t skip dental appointments!

What if My Child Already Has a Cavity?

If cavities have set in, there’s no reason to panic. At Sprout Kids Dentistry, we offer comprehensive dental services, including gentle tooth extractions and sedation dentistry options. Our primary focus is managing your child’s oral health while providing a comfortable and fear-free dental experience, ensuring your child’s peace of mind during their visit.

Pediatric Cavity Treatment in Quincy, MA

Our team at Sprout Kids Dentistry is ready and equipped to help your child maintain a healthy smile for years to come. To meet with our team and learn more, contact our Quincy, MA office by calling or filling out our online form.

At Sprout Kids Dentistry, we believe that cultivating good oral hygiene habits from a young age is essential for lifelong dental health. In this blog, we will explore how regular brushing, flossing, and dental check-ups can prevent cavities, gum disease, and other dental issues. By instilling these habits early, we help ensure that your child enjoys a healthy smile and a strong foundation for overall well-being.

Why is Regular Teeth Cleaning Crucial?

Regular dental check-ups and teeth cleanings are essential for everyone, particularly children. These activities enable the early detection and prevention of dental issues, ensure healthy growth and development of teeth, and foster good oral health habits in kids. Ignoring these can result in painful dental problems that might necessitate more extensive and costly treatment.

Summer, while being a season of relaxation, also brings an increase in the consumption of sugary delights like ice-creams, popsicles, sodas, and other snacks, all of which can adversely affect children’s oral health. Therefore, regular teeth cleaning becomes more crucial during this period.

The Role of Pediatric Dentistry

Developing good oral hygiene habits early in life is imperative for long-term oral health. This is where pediatric dentistry steps in. At Sprout Kids Dentistry of Quincy, LLC, Dr. Michelle Anderson, DMD, and her team are dedicated to offering a comprehensive and gentle teeth-cleaning approach specially designed to meet the unique needs of children.

Benefits of Regular Teeth Cleaning for Children

Engaging in daily oral hygiene practices is not just for keeping bad breath at bay, but by make an effort to give your teeth the attention they deserve each and every day you can experience a myriad of other benefits.

Prevention of Tooth Decay

Cavities, a common issue in children, are primarily caused by plaque build-up. Regular teeth cleaning helps remove this build-up, preventing tooth decay.

Ensuring Healthy Gums

Daily oral hygiene, including brushing and flossing, helps remove plaque and food particles that can lead to gum disease in children. By maintaining these habits consistently, kids can reduce the risk of gum inflammation, gingivitis, and other oral health 

Promotion of Good Oral Health Habits

Regular cleaning sessions act as practical lessons for kids, teaching them the importance of good oral hygiene habits. When these habits are established early on, they become skills that kids will carry with them for the rest of their lives.

Ensure Your Child’s Oral Health this Summer with Sprout Kids Dentistry

At Sprout Kids Dentistry of Quincy, LLC, we are firm believers in making every child’s visit to our clinic a fun-filled learning session all the while ensuring the most delicate care, especially during teeth cleaning procedures. In an atmosphere of gentleness and encouragement, Dr. Michelle Anderson invokes trust and imparts valuable lessons to embed robust oral hygiene habits in children.

Schedule a Consultation

To learn more about the power of daily oral hygiene and how you can help your kids establish good oral hygiene habits this summer, schedule a consultation at Sprout Kids Dentistry today! Head to our website to fill out an online contact form.

Life as a parent is a journey filled with an array of ‘firsts.’ Each milestone plays a crucial role in their development, from your child’s first steps to their first words. Equally important, though often overlooked, is the milestone of mastering independent tooth brushing. It’s about more than just fresh breath and bright smiles; it’s about nurturing habits that lay the groundwork for lifelong dental health.

Understanding the Basics: Tooth Brushing Before Age 7

The early years of your child’s life offer the perfect opportunity to instill the importance of good oral hygiene. However, children under the age of 7 typically need more manual dexterity to brush their teeth effectively. This is where your role as a parent comes into play.

Just as you’d teach them how to tie shoelaces,  or button their shirts, or fasten a necklace, you can also guide them in learning the proper tooth-brushing technique. Demonstrate by brushing your teeth alongside them, making sure to highlight key practices like using gentle, circular strokes to clean every tooth surface, including those hard-to-reach molars at the back, the inside of the teeth, and right down to the gum line. It’s a practical and engaging way for your little ones to learn.

The Transition Phase: Developing an Independent Brusher

As your child grows, their abilities evolve too. Usually, between 7 and 9, children start showing signs that they’re ready to take the reins of their tooth-brushing routine. However, the shift from supervised brushing to independent brushing is not solely an age-based transition. There are vital skills and traits your child should demonstrate:

Dexterity

If you’ve noticed your child skillfully tying their own shoelaces, knots or bows, cutting soft foods with a knife, write in cursive, or draw detailed pictures, it’s a promising sign. The fine motor skills required for this are similar to those needed for effective tooth brushing.

Responsibility

An essential part of becoming an independent brusher is demonstrating responsibility. Evaluate how your child handles daily tasks such as routine hand washing, combing hair, or making the bed. If they manage these tasks independently and consistently, they’re likely ready to take on their tooth-brushing routine.

Spitting Skills

While it may seem trivial, mastering the act of spitting is a critical component of tooth brushing. Younger children often struggle to spit out toothpaste, which can lead to swallowing excess amounts. Encourage your child to spit into the sink and ensure they’ve mastered this skill before graduating to independent brushing.

Validating Independence: The Plaque-disclosing Test

Even after your child demonstrates the necessary dexterity, responsibility, and spitting skills, gauging how effectively they’re brushing is useful. A simple and practical approach is the plaque disclosing test. A plaque-disclosing mouthwash such as Listerine Smart Rinse is readily available at grocery stores like CVS, Walgreens, Target, and Walmart. It stains the plaque on teeth, making it visible and showing how well your child is brushing. Successfully passing the plaque disclosing test indicates that your child is ready to brush their teeth independently.

Schedule An Appointment Today

Remember, every child is unique, and their ability to brush independently may vary. At Sprout Kids Dentistry in Quincy, MA, our mission is to work alongside parents to ensure children develop sound oral hygiene habits.

If you still have questions or concerns about your child’s dental health, our pediatric dental experts led by Dr. Anderson are always ready to assist. Schedule a consultation today to help your child achieve the brightest smile! Together, we can help your child navigate the path to dental independence.

As a parent, you may worry about your child having a serious sweet tooth especially if they can’t seem to get enough sweet treats. Generally, children have a stronger affinity for sugary and salty foods than adults, and they don’t need to learn to like these flavors. According to recent research, children’s sweet tooth and desire for sugary foods may increase during growth spurts, when their bodies require more calories and energy. Although there’s no harm in giving your kid a treat occasionally, constant access to sugary sweets might damage their teeth and gums. Let’s dive into how sugar may damage kids’ teeth and how you can help them develop lifelong, healthy dental routines.

How Sugar Impacts Dental Health

Although it’s commonly known that overeating sugar may cause cavities, this mechanism may be unclear. There are a lot of bacteria in our mouths. Therefore, if your child doesn’t brush their teeth thoroughly after consuming something sweet, the bacteria will utilize the sugar to latch on to the tooth’s surface and feed. As these bacteria feed, they rapidly multiply, creating plaque and producing acid that gradually erodes the tooth enamel. Cavities arise when these acids bore through the tooth’s surface, creating holes. If cavities go untreated, they can progress beyond the enamel and into the deeper parts of the tooth such as the nerve resulting in pain and potential tooth loss.

Tips For Safeguarding Your Child’s Oral Health

Maintaining good dental hygiene is essential for everyone, but it’s especially critical for children because of the sugar and corn syrup they ingest in their meals and beverages, respectively. The following are some measures to safeguard your child’s teeth and smile from tooth decay and cavities if you’re concerned that their sweet tooth may put them at risk for developing cavities.

Increase Their Water Intake

Water is the healthiest beverage option for your toddler. It’s fantastic for their teeth and overall health and keeps them hydrated. Also, your child may reduce their risk of developing cavities by drinking fluoridated water after eating sugary or acidic meals.

Encourage Flossing

Plaque doesn’t pick and choose where it attacks; it builds up equally on the teeth’s surfaces and the spaces between them. Therefore, by helping your child to floss daily, you will assist them in breaking up all that plaque and removing it before it develops into cavities or possibly gum disease.

Regularly Brush Their Teeth

You can effectively eliminate plaque from your child’s teeth by encouraging them to brush twice daily for two minutes with fluoride toothpaste. An electric toothbrush can work wonders if your child is willing to use one. In addition, remember to remind your kid to clean their tongue to eliminate germs that may lead to foul breath and other dental problems.

Use Fluoride

According to the American Dental Association, fluoride is an effective and safe way to prevent and treat tooth decay. Thus, ensure your kid gets lots of fluoridated water, uses a fluoridated mouthwash nightly, and routinely brushes with fluoride toothpaste.

Set Up an Appointment

Taking your child to the dentist early improves their long-term health and happiness and also helps to catch and prevent dental issues early. Give Sprout Kids Dentistry a call today or submit an online form to schedule an appointment with Dr. Anderson.

At Sprout Kids Dentistry, we want your child to have the healthiest smile possible. To ensure your child’s teeth stay healthy, sealants are sometimes needed. But what are dental sealants and are they necessary for your child? Let’s find out.

What Are Dental Sealants?

Dental sealants are thin, clear plastic coatings that are placed onto the chewing surface of your child’s premolars or molars to form a protective shield from food debris, bacteria, plaque, and acids. It’s essentially sealing the tooth to prevent cavities and tooth decay. They can also be placed over spots of early decay to prevent further damage.

According to the CDC, sealants prevent up to 80% of cavities in molars. 

Why Are Premolars and Molars More Prone to Developing Tooth Decay?

The chewing surfaces of the molars and premolars have pits and fissures that food, plaque, and particles can sit in. This can provide cavity-causing bacteria a food source to grow. And as the bacteria feed and grow, they produce acids that can erode the tooth’s enamel and result in tooth decay and ultimately, cavities.

Are Sealants Right for Your Child?

Sealants can work for all children but especially ones who are prone to developing cavities. The age of six is usually when sealants are applied for the first time. This is when the first set of permanent molars are just starting to come in. 

Protecting these early teeth from tooth decay and cavities reduces the chance of a child developing future cavities or other dental problems.

What Is the Sealant Procedure?

Applying sealants is a simple, safe, and painless procedure that can be completed in one visit to the dentist office. Your child won’t need anesthesia and there is no drilling involved. 

The procedure begins by cleaning your child’s teeth and then drying them completely. From there, we prepare the chewing surface by roughing it up with an etching solution. This helps the sealant to bond to the tooth. Next, the sealant is painted on the pits and fissures of the molars. Finally, a special light hardens the sealant. It’s that simple.

How Long Do Dental Sealants Last?

Sealants typically last 5 to 10 years but your child’s dentist should evaluate the sealant for chips and wear every time they have an appointment.  If needed, we can reapply the sealant so the tooth remains protected. But remember, sealants do not mean your child doesn’t need to brush and floss. Sealants are preventing further tooth decay. They are not meant as a replacement for proper dental hygiene.

Should Your Child Have Dental Sealants?

Whether your child should have dental sealants or not is a decision that should be made between your dentist and you. You’ll want to consider your child’s daily lifestyle, what they eat, and how prone to cavities they are. Your dentist can help you make the right decision for your child.

Schedule A Consultation

Looking to learn more about sealants for your child or think  that they are right for the procedure? Schedule a consultation today by calling Sprout Kids Dentistry at our Quincy, MA office or schedule an appointment online. We can help your child feel safe and comfortable with the entire dental experience.