Teeth, teeth and more teeth!

We have had a great influx of teeth around here lately.

Katherine held steady at 6 teeth for quite a while but has about doubled that number in the last few weeks. Three of the new six have been big old molars so it hasn't been that much fun for her. There appear to be more on the way as her gums are swollen and bulging as we speak, her appitite is poor and she's rather grumpy.


Nathan and I went to the dentist recently and brought Katherine. I grilled the dentist on what/how we should be treating her teeth (he has 4 kids aged 1-5 yrs old) as my co-worked took his 4 yr old in for the first time and he had 9 cavities and had to be knocked out to fix them.

He very confidently told me we need to be brushing her teeth after breakfast and dinner, flossing (which we have yet to start because really, I don't even floss like I should!) and making sure she isn't snacking all day/drinking juice through out the day (at a meal is fine) as that's how they get cavities.

He said as long as we're doing those things we don't need to bring her in for her own check up until she's about 4. He personally uses the little finger brush for his kids (you can get one at Walgreen's etc and you side it on over your finger and use you finger to brush the teeth as you know the teeth are getting brushed on all sides and you know how hard your pressing). He or his wife brushes all his kids teeth for them at night while letting them do their own in the morning with a regular tooth brush for practice.

I asked what to do if she doesn't want to brush her teeth as we figured it was bad to force her and make her hate it. He said absolutely force her, lay her on the floor and gently pin her arms down if you need to. He said she'll fight you for a week or so and then learn that this is what we do every day twice a day. I thought that sounded a little crazy, but he was absolutely right. She screamed bloody murder the first week (although we knew it wasn't hurting her) and now she's 100% better and her teeth are getting cleaned the way they should be. Hopefully she'll get her Daddy's teeth as they are much stronger/tougher than mine.