Dentist

Today Katherine had her first dentist visit. There is a lot of difference of opinion on when a child should have their first dentist visit. A pediatric dentist says age 1. A regular dentist says age 3. My pediatrician said it was time to take Katherine at her 2 year check up - over 7 months ago. So, I finally thought it was time to do it. My dentist said to bring Katherine with me to one of my visits shortly before her fist visit so that she would be familiar with a dentist and what they do, hopefully helping her to not be as scared. So, she went with me a few weeks ago and met Mr. Tickle (the electric toothbrush), Mr. Thirsty (the suction thingy), and Mr. Squirt (the water sprayer).

Today we went to a pediatric dentist that was recommended to me by a friend with a daughter the same age as well as my dentist. His office is very close to our house which is a plus. He also is an orthodontist which is not common but also a plus since I am sure we will have braces in our future.

First I met with the hygienist to get our history and so she could educate me on oral health and care for kids. We are doing a lot of things right and she was impressed that Katherine will let me floss her teeth. I need to improve on the amount of juice I let Katherine drink between meals.
Then the dentist came in. We did what he called a "lap exam" where Katherine sat on my lap and leaned back so he could look at her teeth. They find that to be more successful for the first visit with a 2 year old than taking her back to a real dental chair. She did not want to do it and her posture was so tense. All he did was look at her teeth with the mirror and then poke at the back ones with the metal hook tool to make sure there were no cavities. Katherine was a little stressed and had big tears but did not really cry. He said that she did well and was a typical 2 year old. Katherine has no cavities so that is good. He commented that her teeth are close together with no spaces. I thought that would be good as she has a perfect smile. He said though that you actually want spaces in between your baby teeth because that indicates that there is enough room in your mouth for your adult teeth. Katherine will probably follow in my footsteps of having a mouth that is too small for all of the teeth. I had 4 permanent teeth pulled at age 11 before braces and later had my wisdom teeth pulled as well. Oh, well. We better start saving for orthodontics.

Katherine told everyone that she went to the dentist. She told me that she wanted to go again. But, she also said that she did not like it when the dentist counted her teeth. "I not like that."