This morning I finally got the girls in to the dentist. We haven’t been in a few years since the dentist we were seeing in Colorado retired and I definitely procrastinated on finding a new dentist for them and getting it scheduled.
Recently, though, I was chatting with a friend who had just taken her kids in and had great things to say about the dentist. I’m personally weary of the dentist. I’ve not had good experiences and even though I have very healthy teeth (I’ve never had a cavity), I always feel like I’m being attacked because I’m not a regular flosser. So I didn’t just want to pick a dentist off of a random list and hope for the best, I needed to feel secure that it would be a great, non-judgey experience for me and the girls.
And it was fantastic. Both the dentist and hygienists were so calm and great with the girls. They talked to them appropriately and gently and made us all feel at ease.
Both girls had their teeth cleaned and checked, had a fluoride treatment and had x-rays taken. Honeybun gagged on the bitewings (which I didn’t even know since I was in a different area with Sugarplum) so she got to do a 180 x-ray instead but Sugarplum did awesome with the x-rays!
No cavities for either girl and we just need to be more diligent about flossing (obviously not surprised) and careful with brushing Honeybun’s new molars until they are all all the way in and can be sealed.
I’ve been concerned about Sugarplum’s bite for quite a while. She’s always been a super slower eater and has had trouble with chewing things that require a lot of grinding. When she was younger she had a tendency to keep eating/taking bites even though she hadn’t chewed and swallowed her last bite which led her to end up with a full mouth of food that she didn’t know what to do with (we actually stopped letting her have nuts for awhile because she would end up with a mouth full of nut pieces that she couldn’t chew or swallow).
The problem is that her bottom teeth rest in front of her top teeth which I think makes it hard for her to chew sometimes as she can’t move her bottom jaw front to back. The dentist explained that there is what she called a crossbite and it is worse on one side than the other. She started talking about permanent retainers and planes and all sorts of other scary devices they could use to correct the problem and I started to panic a little.
Thinking of having to do all these major things to my poor little four year old’s tiny little mouth is a scary thing! But luckily she didn’t see it as a major concern and thinks the best course of action is to wait and see. She said that the way the adult teeth come in will determine a long-term course of action so we will see how she looks at her next check up in 6 months!
