Good dental hygiene is one of the most valuable skills you can teach your child. The basic rules are easy to remember, and they should become part of your child’s everyday routine to ensure a lifetime of pearly whites!

Good dental hygiene is one of the most valuable skills you can teach your child. The basic rules are easy to remember, and they should become part of your child’s everyday routine to ensure a lifetime of pearly whites!

• Avoid sugar. Every time we eat sugar, our mouths are attacked by acids for at least 20 minutes afterwards. Replace sugary drinks, cakes and sweets with milk, cheese, toast and vegetables. These contain natural sugars which are less damaging to teeth.
• Check food labels for the amount of sugar they contain. Beware of ingredients such as fructose, glucose, lactose, sucrose and corn syrup – these are sugars too! Processed baby foods can be surprisingly high in sugar too, check out Plum Baby Food’s ways to avoid sugar through weaning and beyond.
• If your child does eat sugar, try to reduce the frequency of sweets. The actual amount of sugar is not as bad as how often it enters our mouths. Therefore, repeated sugar hits will do more damage than eating it all at once.
• Try to restrict sweet treats to mealtimes. The extra saliva produced while eating dinner will help to wash away food particles and reduce the damage.
• Avoid sugary drinks such as fruit juice and squash, and fizzy drinks which contain acid that can eat away at tooth enamel. Replace them with water or milk. If you can’t avoid sweet drinks, give children a straw – it will help to draw sugar away from the teeth. Never give sweet drinks at bedtime – the sugar and acid will damage your children’s teeth overnight. Try to make tooth brushing the last thing they do at night; no food or drink at all after brushing will help ensure the fluoride stays on their teeth.
• Most medications are syrupy and full of sugar. Their consistency makes them hard to remove from teeth, so buy sugar-free versions where available (most brands offer this alternative), and again, give medicines before they brush their teeth.
• Take your child to visit the dentist as early as possible. Reading about dentists together can minimize the fear of the unknown. Usbourne’s Going to the Dentist is a great start  or try character-themed versions like the Dora the Explorer dentist book or the Barney Bear version.
• Bring them along to your own appointments so they grow used to the equipment and atmosphere, and schedule regular appointments from two years, by which stage they should have all their baby teeth. Don’t worry about the cost - all children in the UK are entitled to free NHS dental care until the age of 18.
• The British Dental Association has a nationwide Find a Dentist Service where you can search by postcode or surname.
• Flossing is a vital to remove food particles from the cracks and crevices in teeth. You can begin flossing your child’s teeth at three to four years old, but they probably won’t be able to floss on their own until they are 8-10 years old.
• Parents should supervise their children’s brushing until at least seven or eight. Even 11 and 12 year olds may try to avoid it, so it’s important to develop a strong routine long before they reach this age.

Good dental habits take years to develop, but in 20 years your child will thank you when they still have their own teeth!