While the holidays can be a wonderful time to reconnect with family and friends, they can also be stressful, time-consuming, expensive, and even unhealthy. While you’re trying to get everything just right, not forgetting anyone or anything on your lists, and, most importantly, having a nice time, you could forget a thing or two about how to have a healthy celebration, especially when it comes to your children’s teeth.
Fortunately, there are a few things you can do this Thanksgiving to protect your family’s oral and dental health. Establishing strong dental health habits today will make it easier for children to maintain healthy teeth and, by extension, smiles as they grow.
WAYS TO EAT HEALTHY DURING THE THANKSGIVING FEAST
- Include sweet snacks with health advantages, such as a wide selection of fruits.
- While you can indulge in a few sugary baked treats, keep the variety and quantity in check.
- Encourage everyone, particularly children, to clean their teeth at least once a day, preferably 30 minutes or more after eating.
- Insist on desserts after meals, and don’t feel forced to provide only sweet things for “treats” between meals.
- Do not put off dental exams or treatments that are required just before or after the holidays. Dental care requirements Don’t take a vacation in November and December, simply because we do.
- If possible, encourage the entire family, especially the children, to floss after each meal. Flossing is less stressful on the teeth than brushing. It’s a quick and easy way to keep everyone’s teeth clean, especially over the holidays.
- Encourage the family not to abuse their teeth by consuming foods that can harm them, such as nuts, popcorn kernels, ice, bones, and so on.
- Be very picky about the beverages you provide the youngsters. Soda, for example, is acidic enough to badly erode enamel and can weaken teeth in the long run by leaching calcium from them.
- Never allow your children to use their teeth as domestic “tools,” such as pulling plastic strips off containers, opening a box of stuffing, removing staples from a Thanksgiving decoration, and so on.
- Locate a Houston pediatric dentist for your children, so they can have good dental holidays for years to come; normal dentists can treat children, but for the sake of the children, find a dentist who specializes in the unique needs of children.
Thanksgiving is a good opportunity to consider dental practices and overall strategy for maintaining or obtaining a healthy mouth and teeth. West U Smiles is, of course, available to assist you in establishing appropriate goals that will help your child’s teeth remain strong for years to come!
Here are just a few of the benefits of visiting a pediatric dentist:
- Pediatric dentists have specialized training in children’s dentistry, which typically necessitates state licensure.
- Pediatric dentists assist children develop excellent oral habits early in life, and children generally feel more at ease at a dental office full of children their own age.
- Pediatric dentists assist children in developing responsibility by assisting them in making the connection between eating too many sweets and needing to receive sometimes inconvenient dental care.
- A pediatric dentist’s office decor is more likely to be in line with what children expect or feel comfortable seeing–for example, cartoon characters on the walls, toys, bright furniture, and so on.
Make an appointment with West U Smiles today!
