Oral Hygiene Tips
Learn from Our Palm Beach Gardens Pediatric Dentists!
It’s never too early to start teaching your kids about good oral hygiene. Whether it’s cleaning your infant child’s gums before their teeth have started to emerge or teaching your kids how to brush around their braces, oral hygiene is an extremely important part of life. In fact, developing better hygiene habits at a young age is far more likely to lead to those habits continuing for the rest of your child’s life.
Here are a few valuable tips for teaching your kids how to take care of their teeth:
Choosing a Toothbrush
Toothbrushes come in many different shapes, sizes, and styles. Make sure you choose a brush with soft bristles that won’t lead to increased scratching, wear, and tear on your teeth. Younger children should use a kid-sized toothbrush with a smaller head that’s designed to fit into the smaller areas of their mouth with ease. These brushes also usually have softer bristles than adult toothbrushes, which are stiffer to be able to reach into harder-to-reach places.
Brush Every Day!
Good dental hygiene is more than simply brushing your teeth every day—we highly recommend that children brush their teeth three times per day, and floss at least once daily.
Kids should brush their teeth:
- In the morning after breakfast
- After lunch or immediately after school
- At night after dinner
How to Floss
Floss is a thin thread of waxed nylon string that reaches below your gum line and cleans the area between your teeth. This is an area that regular brushing can’t reach, and as a result is often the site where tooth decay can really damage your teeth. Teaching your kids how to floss from a young age can ensure their teeth remain clean and healthy and tooth decay is stopped in its tracks. Flossing doesn’t have to be difficult either: Floss picks or other tools have made this task easy!
Teach your kids the importance of having their teeth cleaned by visiting your Palm Beach Gardens pediatric dentist every six months. Call Dr. Mimy’s Children’s Dentistry at (561) 220-2601 to schedule a cleaning and preventive treatment!