How To Care for your Baby’s Teeth

Baby Z already turned 6 months and I am truly excited for this ‘month’ birthday since we will start giving her food! Yipee!

Look at this cute little girl! The doctor mentioned to that we can start with organic brown rice cereal.

But that’s a different story. Today, I’ll be sharing with you some of the tips that I read on caring for your baby’s teeth. Being one of the Lotte Xylitol Gum Brand Believers made me more conscious about caring for my baby’s teeth. I have been researching and reading about baby’s teeth and how I can truly care for them.

Some of the questions in my mind now are when to bring Baby Z to the dentist and how to clean her teeth? I’m pretty sure that anytime soon, she’ll be growing her first tooth. When we went to the doctor to have her check up, the pediatrician already told us that her two front lower teeth were about to come out. I’m so excited to see her teeth. Although, I know that these times will be quite annoying for Baby Z. She has been biting everything and producing extra saliva. When we were in Subic, she loved chewing on Lotte Xylitol Gum…the bottle that is (not the actual gum)!

Now with all the reading and research, I found some interesting articles that answered my question, one of which is this video. Here’s an informative video that I found posted on Babycenter.com: How to care for your baby’s teeth and gums

Most of the sites that I visited suggests that you go to the dentist once you see a tooth popping out from your baby’s gums. You don’t have to go right away, BUT just make sure that you visit on or before your baby turns 1 year old. I read from www.webmd.com that if your child is not bottle fed anymore and is cup feeding and doesn’t drink in the middle of the night, you can skip going to the dentist until your child is two years old. Is this true? Have any of you heard about this before? Once the child reaches 2 years old, then that’s the time you visit the dentist every 6 months until adulthood. It also says that for children ages 4 and 6, dentists usually take the the first set of X-rays to check for cavities between the teeth (ooooh! That reminds me of a toothpaste commercial).

But then again, as I mentioned in my previous post about cavities and tooth decay, babies can already have tooth decay at the age of 9 months: http://mommyginger.com/2013/08/facts-caring-for-your-childs-teeth-infographics.html This is the fact that I am worried about. When Baby Z starts to eat, remnants of food and milk can get caught in the mouth and in between their teeth, thus causing tooth decay.

Hmmm… what other information did I read about? I also didn’t know that there are really pediatric dentists and they are different from the dentists that we go to as adults. But I think, just as long as they know how to deal with young children, then it’s okay to bring them to a regular dentist (but that’s just my opinion). If you feel safer with a pediatric dentist, here is a site of the Pediatric Dentristry Philippines and the Pediatric Dentristry Center Philippines.

For those wondering about when to start cleaning the babies mouth, gums and teeth, I asked my cousin pediatrician and she said that it is good to start as early as 3 months. You can start cleaning your child’s gums with a soft cloth or an infant toothbrush (the one that looks like a huge thimble). For toothpaste, you can use it as soon as you see teeth. You can brush her/his teeth twice daily using toothpaste with fluoride. Just place a smudge of toothpaste on the toothbrush (around half a pea for children less than 2 years old). For the children from 2 to around 5 year old, you an already increase it to a pea-size amount of toothpaste. Be sure that your toddler spits out the excess toothpaste after brushing. Also, be sure to assist your child in brushing since they still don’t know how to go about doing it by themselves.

Also, another thing to do is try to avoid using the utensils of your baby. I know that sometimes, especially when we want to test if the food is hot, we use baby’s spoon and then blow on it. This should never be done, because the bacteria from our mouth can be transmitted through the utensils or food to baby’s mouth. So we, ourselves, should be careful and avoid tooth decay and cavities.

For us, aside from brushing, gargling, flossing and going to the dentist, we can chew on two gums of Lotte Xylitol Gum at least 4 times a day to keep our teeth free from cavities. For those who haven’t read the infographics that I created explaining Xylitol and the benefits, here it is:
http://mommyginger.com/2013/08/facts-caring-for-your-childs-teeth-infographics.html

I hope my tips helped you answer your questions on how to care for your baby’s teeth. On my next post, I will tell you more about the Make It Zero Campaign of Lotte Xylitol Gum.

Mommy Ginger is very proud to be part of the Make it Zero campaign. For more information, please visit LotteXylitolGum.com.