First visit to dentist. How to prepare your child?

First visit to dentist. How to prepare your child?

The experience of first dental visit is most important for little children. Besides forming an attitude to your dentist and to other doctors, it contributes to the whole health care approach in the future. Baring it in mind, even little stress can leave negative feedback in baby’s memory, cause fear and distrust to doctors. There is why we are paying great attention to the psycho-emotional state of child in our practice, providing special treatment to make it positive and longstanding.

What age should be first dental visit?

We recommend that you schedule it as soon as your baby teeth start erupting, but no later than one year after birth. Are you wondering why it’s necessary for us to see your child at such young age? We argue that being familiar with doctor for your child, before he/she becomes older and start thinking consciously is of great importance. We want him/her to get acquainted with us and to make him/her feel comfortable that enables every visit be similar to a funny game or joyful trip.

When your child is older, the most important question is how to prepare him/her for a first dental visit? Here some instruction we recommend you to follow:

1. Tell to your child, who is a dentist and what manipulations he will do in clinic. Play with child ‘the dentistry visit game’ at home, where you will be patient and your child will be dentist. You can use hygienic sticks, teaspoons, and little mirror as dental instruments. Let your baby make his/her own dental checkup to be familiar with procedures. Explain these procedures.
2. Never try to frighten your baby with a dentist or any other doctor.
3. Don’t use phrases like “Don’t be afraid”, “It will not hurt”, “Do not scare”. Child doesn’t know about pain and fear in dental chair, while your using phrase “don’t” will cause subconscious expectation of pain.
4. Tell your own story about Tooth Fairy (especially if you have a girl). You can say that Tooth Fairy leaved her invitation to her kingdom and is waiting for your baby to give a present or something else. Be creative!
5. If you have a boy and he doesn’t like a Tooth Fairy’s stories, tell him, that his favorite actor, hero or cartoon character pay visit to this doctor and left him a little gift there.
6. When you are speaking with your baby, don’t use dentistry terminology. We used to name anesthetic gel as raspberry or strawberry (depends on kind of a gel), prick is freezing water, drill is a bee that expels worms from teeth, dental filing is a plasticine etc.

Thus, what is the plan of first dental visit?

The main aim of our first meeting with a child is to become familiar and to reach a trust point. We usually show clinic, our facilities, dental chair, and dental instruments to your child. We ask child to hold them in his/her hand. We are making a checkup together, looking in a big mirror, while doctor sometimes becomes a patient and your baby – a doctor. Child has a possibility to make his/her own checkup of doctor’s teeth. Thus, a big game starts, where he/she is not an object of a treatment, but active player and contributor. We always try to find an individual approach for every child.

We do our best to create positive and pleasant atmosphere during first visit to us, so child wants to come back again and again to our clinic. That is how we make a difference, using best practices of psycho-emotional adaptation of a child in our dental clinic.  

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