Dentist in Shelby Township, MI Discusses a Child’s First Dental Visit
Hi. I’m Doctor Heather Pranzarone Stratton with HPS Advanced Dental Care. We’re located in Shelby Township, Michigan on 24 Mile Road, and our phone number is 248-652-0024. I wanted to talk to you a little bit today about a question I get a lot from many of our parents that come to the office. They want to know when they should bring their children in for their first dental visit. The American Academy of Pediatrics tells us that between 7 and 10 months is when they should first bring their children in when they have about 4 teeth or so. Just to get them used to the office environment – we’re not really doing cleaning or anything like that. We just having him come in, get familiar with the office, you know, see all our faces. They don’t usually have that stranger anxiety yet so, that’s a good age to bring them in. Usually what happens at our office though is the parents come in for their dental cleanings or dental checkups and they bring their child in, they watch TV or sit on mom and dad’s lap for the appointment. If they’re a little bit older they can color a picture while they’re sitting in the room with mom or dad. But they just get familiar with the sounds of the office, with the faces of everybody in the office and then the second time, usually around a year to 18 months; they come in for a formal visit. Then we try and look at their teeth. At that time we just count their teeth for them and then they get a prize, they’re usually very excited at that point. So, our goal, at the office is to change peoples’ lives through dentistry and by doing that, we really try and start at a young age with the children. We want to give them the best experience that they can have, so that as they get older they don’t have that anxiety and apprehension of coming to the dentist and getting their teeth cleaned and getting their checkups done, so we can ensure that their oral health care, which absolutely affects their overall health is the best that it can be.
We do strive to do, you know, have a very young age when they start coming into the dentist. Saying that, we have some parents that are upset with us a lot of the time because their kids want to come and see us so often to get prizes and get their teeth cleaned that their parents are like, we can only come every six months. Overall it’s good to have children excited about visiting the dentist. The parents love bringing the kids here, and the kids love coming.
Dentist in Shelby Township, MI Discusses a Child’s First Dental Visit
So, if you want any further information about bringing your kids to the office, you can give us a call. Again our phone number is 248-652-0024. We really do strive to do gentle dentistry as much as possible. Thank you so much.
