Simply Mother

Is this a real phenomenon, some people just have teeth that are more prone to decay than others? Or is it just something dentists have made up to alleviate parental guilt?

It HAS to be the first, right? Because we really are pretty decent parents in this area. I answered all the dentist’s questions to his satisfaction:

• No soda. (Or pop, if you prefer. Or just “Coke,” as they say down here.) Like, ever. Really, my 5-year-old didn’t even know what it was when he asked her if she drank it.
• Candy and gum, rarely. It only comes into the house when, say, the nursery leader hands out candy necklaces, or a loving grandma sends it for a holiday. And of course Halloween. But still, it’s not frequent or abundant. (The candy necklace was discarded and forgotten about after a few bites.)
• Juice–the only one we buy sometimes is Orange Juice–and it is 100% juice, unprocessed. We do make whole fruit/veggie smoothies, and I know the natural sugars in fruit can be pretty bad on teeth, but as with juice and milk, no one walks around sipping them all day long. (We don’t even have any sippy cups!) They have a bit with a meal, and then it’s over. Most of the time everyone drinks water.

BUT . . . we just returned from the dentist and my Sarah needs fillings of some sort on 6 teeth! And she already has three others from when she was 3. Oh man.

I have been very negligent about getting her in to the dentist, obviously. But most dentist I’ve called have said they won’t even do anything with kids much younger than her unless there are obvious problems–and we couldn’t see any. She didn’t have any complaints and her teeth looked fine to us (the problems are all in the back teeth, in deep crevices.)

Both girls are very diligent about brushing twice a day. We did have a small time period over a year ago when Sarah resisted it, but we recovered from that quickly enough and now she is very concerned about them. Recently Matt took the girls to his parent’s house and they came back late, already asleep. Matt put Sarah in her bed and then I went up to kiss her and she groggily said to me, “I need to brush my teeth. I had ice cream at Nana’s.” And so she did.

The dentist said it is genetic, and I did have cavities when I was younger. Actually I remember being so surprised too. I felt like I did a good job of brushing and was just waiting for the dentist to pronounce my mouth perfect. Then he told me I had four cavities.

So, I’m taking the “soft teeth” explanation and running with it. Don’t burst my bubble.

Surely though, this is exactly what we needed. $600 worth of dental work. On top of a maternity bill. Because we just don’t know WHAT to do with all the extra money floating around here. (Excuse the sarcasm.) (Note to self: Improve mood.)

Filed in: family • health | February 13, 2009