This blog is about Halloween and dental tips to help your children. Americans buy about 600 million pounds of candy each Halloween. That’s a lot of candy and that’s some serious potential for tooth decay. These are some things that parents can do to reduce the risks of decay.
At WinningSmiles in Fontana, we recommend the following Halloween Tips:
- Limit the time that your children can eat candy. As far as your teeth are concerned, it’s all about the length of time that they are exposed to the sugar in candy and not “how much” candy is eaten.
- After they’ve eaten their candy, I recommend that they chew some sugarless gum for a couple of minutes. Gums with Xylitol are preferable. Chewing gum stimulates salivary flow which helps wash the bacterial acids from the teeth. Saliva also has antibodies in it that help offset the cavity producing bacteria.
- Help your children brush their teeth. If they are small enough, you can sit “Indian Style” on the floor and have them sit in your lap facing away from you. Cradle their head in the nook in your arm and brush their teeth with toothpaste that has fluoride. For older children, monitor their brushing, making sure that they are being thorough.
- You can also be a bit sneaky and remove some of the candy from their stash so that they don’t gorge themselves. If you are like me, I used to steal the Snickers and Reeses from my kids’ bags for my own personal enjoyment.
