feeling guilty - dd 6 has had to have a filling

[janx]

She doesn't eat sweets very often, brushes her teeth regularly. DP took her for a check up and she had to have a filling - feel really guilty - but also quite surprised

honestly - don't feel guilty. Many many children have one or two fillings, however great their diet and their tooth brushing. Dentists don't usually need to drill young children's teeth and will probably use a white filling, so her tooth won't look any different. The important thing is to take her for regular checkups (as you obviously have been!) so that any little problems can be dealt with early and easily.

I felt exactly the same when DH brought DD2 home aged 6 and she needed one. It's only been that tooth, all the others appear to be perfectly healthy so I have to wonder if it grew with some sort of fault in the enamel.

The dentist has only given it a brush over and filled it. No drills or jabs and it's come out a couple of times so she's just re-done it. She says there's no point in doing anything too invasive because its a baby tooth. Hopefully the same will apply to your DD.

Thanks for your replies - it is a white filling and I can hardly see it. Am going to make sure we keep on top of check ups

DD had to have one too and is just like yours, brushes her teeth twice a day and hardly eats sweets. The problem is that we had been reassuring her that she wouldn't need one because of this fact, so now she's had one, we can't get her near the dentist again. DH said it was just like Finding Nemo and you could hear her screaming in the waiting room. She sobbed for ages afterwards too. So I can't help but wonder if it was all neccessary as it's just put DD off going the dentists and she can't be sure anymore that cleaning your teeth is good enough to keep fillings as bay.

DP told me that the dentist was horrible and was really insensitive - luckily dd was a bit oblivious to it but dp was really pissed off at his manner. Apparently she has been really good with keeping all the other teeth clean, but seemed to have missed this back one

Your poor dd chicaguapa

Does she have a lot of fruit juice and dried fruits? Apparently this is a big cause of tooth decay in children now as parents are more careful with sweets.

Not really - I water down any juice and she doesn't like dried fruit

DD1 had to get one at age 6 too, I was equally surprised because I am very strict about brushing etc. We got her chewing surfaces coated with fissure seals after that - hasn't had a filling since, nearly 6 years later.

I have dreadful teeth; my parents gave us apple juice and orange juice all the time because they were told it was healthy, and we ate raisins/dates a lot. Now I only let my kids have juice with meals, and it has to be water down.

I don't have great teeth either and drank lots of juice. Are those seals expensive Alfa

They were free, done by the HSE (Irish public health board) dentist in the local health clinic. School age kids are entitled to it here.
I shouldnt think it's expensive though, it's just daubed on and doesn't take long :)