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Toddler/Kid Dentist Visit Recaps- Dental Series Part 2 of 2

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Welcome back to my exciting Two-Part Dental Series…haha! 🙂 Here is Part 1 in case you missed it.

Since one of my goals with this blog is to make your life just a tad easier, I’m including a summary below of our three dental visits along with references to check out prior to the fun dental cleanings. I always find it’s helpful to hear what others have gone through. I hope this serves you well.

THE BIG FIRST DENTAL CLEANING (Daughters’ ages: three and two years old):

PREP WORK
1. I called the dentist office about two weeks ahead of time. I asked them these questions:

-What will the experience be like for them?

-Will I be accompanying them?

-Do you have any suggestions on how I can prepare them for the visit?

2. Started talking to the girls in a positive manner about going to the dentist a few days prior to the visit

3. My pediatric dentist has a few pictures of what the office looks like on their website. I showed the girls how cool the office looks.

4. We played dentist together for three days prior to the visit. (THIS WAS HUGE for the first visit….highly recommend doing this!)

-I explained our dining room is the waiting room or lobby. When I call your name that means it’s your appointment time.

-I called my oldest’s name, greeted her like I was the technician, “Hi. How are you? You’ll be sitting right here today.”

-Led her to our Ikea Poang chair (or if you have a recliner or just laying flat on the couch…I tried to find a chair that somewhat resembled a dentist chair that is currently in my house).

-Showed her my dentist tools, which at the time, I had a little dental mirror and I actually used a cuticle filer to pretend it was a scalpel thingy.

-I asked her to open her mouth wide and told her “I’ll now be checking your teeth with my tools”. Basically, I just used the mirror and tapped her teeth a little and moved it around in her mouth all the while telling her that she was doing a great job keeping her mouth open! I should have brought some floss out and practiced that too, but as you can probably guess, I don’t do a good job of flossing, so the thought didn’t even occur to me.

-Said “The dentist is now going to come and look at your teeth.” Left the room and returned as the “dentist” and since our dentist is a man, I talked in a deeper voice and explained that they’ll have a man dentist (kinda like daddy).

-Checked her mouth with the tools again and said “Great. You’re all done.”

-Then I repeated the same process with the youngest. She had been waiting in the “lobby” the whole time.

-After the youngest was done, then I had them repeat the whole thing, except now the roles were reversed, and they each had a turn being the dentist for mommy. (They loved that)

DAY OF VISIT
-Talked positive about the upcoming visit (excited even)

-Since I had already called the dentist office, I knew they’d get a few prizes after they were done. I played this up to them.

-They brought their favorite stuffed animal or blanket with them.

-I let my oldest know that because she’s such a big girl and three years old, they said she can go by herself. She was a little hesitant, but she was up for the challenge.

-I let my youngest know that because she’s not three years old, I’d be with her for her cleaning.

SUMMARY OF FIRST VISIT
It went so good. All the preparation really paid off. (now, the next recaps are not so great)

 

2nd Dentist Cleaning (Daughters’ ages: four and three years old)

PREP WORK
-I didn’t do as much prep work for this one. I told them about a week before the appointment that we’d be going soon, and they were so excited about going back.

-I reenacted the first visit prep work with my youngest, since she was now three and would be able to go back by herself.

SUMMARY OF SECOND VISIT
-Terrible. It was not as fun the second time a year later.

-My oldest was a lot more aware that she didn’t particularly like what they were doing in her mouth.

-My youngest would not go back by herself. Not for a second, and definitely knew this was not her normal day-to-day thing.

 

3rd DENTIST CLEANING (Daughters’ ages: five and four years old)

PREP WORK

-Told them two weeks ahead about their upcoming appointment. Then reminded them at one week, three days, and then each day after that.

-In a panic, purchased Peppa Visits the Dentist book at the school book fair that day. Read book in the parking lot of dentist office. Ha!

-Reminded my youngest that she’s a big girl now and that she’ll be going to her cleaning by herself while Mommy waits in the lobby.

-Let my youngest bring one of her favorite stuffed animals and reminded her that George (Peppa’s little brother) was nervous about the dentist, but that it ended up ok. His dinosaur even got a check up! She liked that part.

SUMMARY OF THIRD VISIT

-Better than the second visit. (progress!)

-Really both kids were rock stars. There was even a dental emergency going on, so our wait was longer. Given the fact this cleaning was scheduled for late in the day and all the sitting around they did, I’m so proud!

 

Here are some resources for you to keep your internet searching to a minimal:

Well, that’s it. I don’t think I have any other dental advice for you. 🙂 If you have any advice for me or for any other readers, please leave a comment. Have a great week!

 

This post contains affiliate links. You don’t pay any extra, and I earn a small commission.

How Peppa the Pig Saved The Dreaded Dentist Visit- Dental Series Part 1 of 2

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Well, as you can probably infer, the girls visited the dentist for a teeth cleaning. A time that we all equally dread. For them, it’s the fact that someone is putting stuff in their mouth. For me, it’s the “you need to be brushing their teeth at night. Let them do the morning”, “Didn’t you say last visit you purchased a kids’ sonicare tooth brush? If you used it, you wouldn’t have these issues”, “Do you ever floss their teeth?”. The looks of “We know you aren’t feeding your kids a healthy diet” and “Do you even care for your children?” (granted those could be a little self-inflicted). Regardless, the pediatric dentist office is not my favorite place.

It has its perks though, with the balloon animals, the toy machine, and they get to watch Disney movies the whole time. But, my goodness, it’s very short-lived when your children are sad they didn’t get the blue sticky hand toy and when the dog balloon animal’s head comes undone, turns into a giraffe, and then pops on the way home. Oh the tears, oh the yells, oh the very tired sweetheart.

The girls started going to the dentist when my oldest was three and youngest was two. When the dentist office told me that, at age three, they have the kids go back on their own for the teeth cleaning, my face looked extremely puzzled. “You want my three-year old to leave me, walk back their on her own, sit in a chair with strangers, and she’ll open her mouth for you and you can clean her teeth….without me? You’re nuts!”

And guess what, she did! My little oldest three-year old at the time walked back there so proud, so brave, with her head held up high, basically shouting to the world “I am my own person. I am capable of greatness. I can rule the land!”. Now we did a lot of prep work before that happened, and I’ll share that in Part 2, but honestly a lot of that is her personality too.

My youngest, on the other hand, had a lot more struggles with this, and that could be a little more fitting of her personality as well. BUT, like we all do, we work on it, and she’ll get there. In fact, this past week, she went back there with her older sister without me, and said “Mommy, I was scared. I was about to start crying. I felt tears coming, but I got really brave and did it.” Now that’s amazing! I was so proud of her, and I keep reminding her that she did that when she starts getting anxious about something.

 

 

Our Elementary School had a book fair last week, which just to fully disclose, I will never be writing about book fairs on this blog, because I do not love them, not even a tiny bit. However, when I saw Peppa Pig’s Dental Visit book sitting on the shelf, it’s as if music started to play in the distance, a spotlight started to shine on the cover….the room got quiet, the kids rushing from one book to the next dissipated, the parents following the kids with the looks of “get me out of here with some money left” disappeared from my thoughts.

I saw the answer to my youngest’s fears of knowing that same afternoon, she’d be visiting the dentist, and she flat-out didn’t want to! I would read Peppa to her. I’d read about Peppa going to the dentist. It’ll be a hit. It’ll be the answer to what I’m looking for. I grabbed it, paid for it, and off I left [with only about four other things much to my oldest’s dismay…we will work on gratefulness another day :)].

***SPOILER ALERT*** DO NOT READ PAST HERE IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WITH PEPPA AT THE DENTIST! 🙂

In the book, Peppa is actually not scared of going to the dentist, she’s ready to roll! However, her younger brother George is hesitant, so as I was reading, I really emphasized George’s transformation from scared to happy after his visit. We literally read this in the car, parked right in front of the dentist office. I honestly think this book helped my youngest (who is 4 1/2 years old) as any other cartoon/character would if talking about the dentist. I highly recommend doing a little leg work prior to your kids visit. It’ll be worth it!

Check out Part 2 (posting next week) where I’ll do a deep dive on how I prepared my girls for their first, second, and third dental cleaning visits. I was surprised at the regression, but back to that book…aren’t you dying to get it? The part where George’s dinosaur gets his own teeth cleaning was a real shocker! 🙂

Hope you all have a wonderful week!

 

SUMMARY

Product:  Peppa Pig’s Dental Visit book

Purchase Location: I purchased at a book fair, but Amazon sells it as well.

Additional Links: Phillips Kids Sonicare Toothbrush 

This post contains affiliate links. You don’t pay any extra, and I earn a small commission.