First Visit to the Dentist

The frequency of "firsts" has gone down dramatically, but we had one today: first visit to the dentist!

From 2012 June

He did an amazingly great job with the cleaning--opening wide, letting her do all the steps with good humor, and kneeling up to be able to "swish and spit" into the sink.  It helped that we had the most kid-friendly hygienist ever.  Not only was she nice to him and explained everything she was doing in kid-friendly terms (for scraping off plaque she said she was taking the germs off), but she also had kids sunglasses for him to wear so he wasn't staring into the bright light and made a balloon out of one of the gloves and decorated it with a Sharpie with his help.  And then she let him choose his flavor of toothpaste (he chose grape), which he thought was super exciting.

By the time the dentist came in for the exam he was a little antsy (he thought it was over I think when the hygienist left) and so was less obliging with opening really wide and sitting still, but for 3 years old and it being the dentist's office, he was great.

More importantly, the report: his teeth themselves are in great shape and the dentist was happy with spacing and cleanliness.  The problem, however, is his bite.  We knew he had an overbite.  Joe had one too and our old pediatrician had seen it long ago, said it was genetic, and we should just start saving for braces.  But the dentist noticed that not only was there an overbite, but it was getting shaped into an arc, which is from sucking his thumb so forcefully and so frequently.  His bottom front two teeth are also bending into a "v" to accommodate his thumb.  So we have our orders: minimize use of the sippy cup, try to get thumb sucking to only when falling asleep by the next checkup, and try to eliminate thumb sucking entirely by his 4th birthday.

The first of those is easy because the sippy cup was our own laziness, not his ability or willingness.  The thumb, however, is a different matter.  Nicholas and I had a conversation and he understood and was really sad.  But then promptly decided that he was going to comfort himself by sucking his thumb.  And any time I asked him to take his thumb out while we were driving today, he just yelled at me to "Stop!" 

When we got home this evening I decided to try a trick I read about somewhere--putting a band-aid on his thumb so sucking it wouldn't feel good.  In fact, he and I each wore a band-aid on our thumbs so we could do it together.  He did pretty well for awhile.  But once the novelty of the Toy Story band-aid wore off and he got sleepy, he just took it off.  So I resorted to bribes.  If he wakes up in the morning and the band-aid is still on he gets "special Sunday breakfast," which is waffles with strawberries and whipped cream.

He fell asleep with seemingly no problem and I've had the monitor on high so I can hear if there is sucking and he has stirred a few times with no sign of the thumb.  So he clearly can be fine without the thumb.  The trick is going to be keeping him from it by force or bribes long enough to break the habit.