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Thursday, September 16, 2010

Dental Woes

You know those days when you feel like a failure as a parent...well today was one of those days.  Lizzie had her first dentist appointment with a pediatric dentist this morning.  I am out of town so Greg was the one to take her.  Considering what a struggle it is every night to brush her teeth, Lizzie was a star during the appointment.  She let the dentist look at her teeth and take X-rays.  Apparently she was an angel.  That's the good part.

The bad part came when the dentist started rattling off all the things that were wrong with her teeth...cavities, de-calcification, potential cavities, etc.  This is when Greg started to feel the guilt at not having done the right things (and me when I spoke to him on the phone later).  As I said, teeth brushing has always been a massive struggle although it has gotten a little easier lately.  There have been times where we have to had to pin her down to get her teeth brushed.  Because of that we haven't been anxious to get her to brush twice a day.  We also haven't started yet on the fluoride toothpaste she has to spit out.  Nor have we been flossing.

At school she drinks water but at home we've been lenient and let her drink lemonade.  There was also a time where she was really in to the tiny little Dum Dum lollipops (we stopped that while ago).  She is definitely a girl who loves her sweets and we definitely have been far too lenient on that front.

Alas, all of that will be changing.  There is a new regime in the Sly household.  Lizzie will be brushing her own teeth (with a little help from us) twice a day with flouride toothpaste.  Things like lollipops and lemonade will be a special, but rare, treat (as it should have been all along).  We will also be brushing the twins teeth twice a day (Alex is easy, Emily is difficult).  Today I felt like a failure as a parent but at least it isn't too late to learn from our mistakes and change our ways (and thankfully these are just baby teeth).

It's tough to be tough.

2 comments:

Carrie27 said...

I hope your dentist also assured Greg that not all things are preventable, some things are genetics when it comes to teeth.

Parenting is not easy and nobody is perfect.

Unknown said...

You know, just like what Carrie said, not all things are preventable, leniency is okay if there is still a limit on what your children can consume or do. I also had that kind of dilemma, when me and my younger brother visited the Greer SC dentist and he had a dental cavity that needed to be extracted or risk a series of health problems.

A few years later after the extraction, my bro has a complete set of teeth and taking care of them to prevent it from happening again.