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Four-year-old Leanna knows when to brush her teeth.

“Morning and night,” she says.

But does she know how?

Pediatric dentist Claudia Tomaselli, D.M.D., says few kids Leanna’s age or even older know how to brush their teeth.

“You would be surprised how a 6-year-old doesn’t have the dexterity to get in all the nooks and crannies that you have to get in order to brush your teeth correctly,” she says.

The American Dental Association has a new recommendation for parents of children 6 and under: After your kids brush their teeth, parents should brush them one more time.

“If the child wouldn’t mind it, going up to age 8 or 9 actually would be ideal,” says Tomaselli.

She says that means extra work for parents, work that some say is unnecessary.

“A lot of people give up and just say, ‘Well, they’re just baby teeth so we’re just not going to worry about it and they’re going to get new teeth anyway,’” says Tomaselli.

She says that’s wrong for two reasons.

First, baby teeth serve as a guide for adult teeth. If there’s decay and a baby tooth has to be pulled, the adult tooth may not come in correctly.

Second, the future adult tooth sits above the baby tooth, under the skin.

“If you neglect [the baby tooth] enough where an infection builds up inside the tooth and migrates through the canal into your permanent tooth,” says Tomaselli, “actually you can damage the enamel on the permanent tooth.”

So Leanna brushes once, and then her dad brushes to make sure her teeth are clean.

“Unfortunately I learned it the hard way,” says Leanna’s father, Greg Holden. “I have lots of fillings in my history and I’m paying the price for it now and you just try to do the best for your kids and hope that they don’t have to pay that price.”

What We Need To Know

• Before the child’s first teeth come in, keep their gums clean by wiping them with a wet washcloth.




• Don’t let them use toothpaste with fluoride until you’re sure they know not to swallow it. Swallowing it can cause discoloration in their adult teeth.




• Some baby teeth may stay in a child’s mouth until the age of 12.

Resources

• American Dental Association

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