Milk teeth matter

We have made tooth cleaning part of the nursery day for many years but since this week is the National Day Nursery Association’s ‘Healthy body, happy me’ week I thought I’d explain why we do it.

Oral hygiene is extremely important for life and even though baby teeth do fall out when a child is around 5 or 6 years old they are very important. Decay of the milk teeth can cause problems with nutrition, delayed speech development and, in addition, habits for tooth care last for life, creating good routine in the early years is vital.

Tooth decay and abstractions are the main reason for hospital admissions for children aged 5 to 9 years old. In the 2016/17 year 43000 operations in England alone. A quarter of children will have tooth decay by the age of five and we used to see it every year in a few children at Beach Babies.

We aren’t tooth brushing daily to replace the daily morning and evening tooth-brushing that parents do with their children. We use it as an opportunity to education the children about why tooth brushing is vital. We instil it as a regular part of our daily routine, we model how to brush teeth using various props and we use apps and timers to show the children how long two minutes is. Many parents have found that when their children start brushing their teeth at nursery that they find it easier to get the children to do it properly at home, to the point where the children are the ones instructing their parents!

Childsmile is a program which has very successfully promoted oral health in Scottish children and has gone a long way towards reducing inequalities in this area. We use those guidelines for tooth brushing in nursery, so children in the preschool rooms brush daily for two minutes using children’s brushes and fluoride toothpaste.

How to help your children

· Two minutes can seem forever when you are three years old, there are many apps which can help you and can help the youngest children stay on task for the whole time.

· Bottles and cups that don’t allow the free-flow of liquid mean that the teeth ‘bathe’ in the liquid and stay in contact with the liquid for longer periods of time. Stop using bottles and cups with restrictor valves at 6 months old, use free-flowing cups or open cups from this age.

· Steer clear of juices and fizzy drinks or cordials, all of these hasten tooth decay, give your child only milk or water. Remember that milk contains sugar, so even milk in a bottle after 6 months old will hasten tooth decay.

· All children can and should visit a dentist every 6 months, free of charge, from when they get their milk teeth. This allows them to be comfortable and familiar at the dentist and they still do stickers for children 😊

· Help your children clean their teeth and supervise this routine until they are around eight years old.

· Under threes should start as soon as their teeth appear and use a smear of toothpaste.

· Over threes need a pea sized blob of normal fluoride toothpaste.

· Clean twice a day and model good tooth cleaning with and in front of your children.

· View oral health as important as eating well and taking exercise , educate your children and have fun along the way.

For more information on the Healthy Body Happy Me campaign, follow this link.

https://www.ndna.org.uk/NDNA/Campaigns/Healthy_Body_Happy_Me/HBHM.aspx

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Tracy