Does your 4 year old have fillings?

[Fennel]

DD1, aged just 4, has to have 2 fillings. We are really surprised as we've gone overboard on not allowing sweets or puddings much, most people think we are obsessive about healthy eating, and she does clean her teeth twice a day, though not very thoroughly maybe. We have avoided sweetened drinks (apart from natural fruit juice) and even sweetened yoghurts and ketchup cos of the sugar content.

Is this normal? It seems really young to have any problems? what else can you do? does anyone give their children fluoride tablets?

Dd2 has the same problem. Cleans her teeth regularly, eats well etc, but still has quite a few fillings aged 7. Her dentist (special needs one) said some people just have weaker teeth. She does have a collagen deficiency which can make enamel weaker.

I'm surprised too. Mine are 6 and nearly 5 and haven't needed fillings. We've mostly brushed teeth for them until they were 4.5, then 'supervised' brushing. I still have to send them back to do them 'properly' most days.

Is the water fluoridated in your area? Ask your dentist what level of flouride toothpaste to use. (Some have children's toothpastes have very low levels, may not be appropriate in an unfluoridated area).

Other things to watch ... don't clean teeth within 30 mins of eating, especially if having fruit juices, as this can be damaging, (or so I've heard).

I've forgotten what else I was going to say!

Are these early fillings in baby teeth? (That will shortly be replaced by adult teeth).

fennel, my 4 yr old dd also has a filling in her back molar. i felt SO ashamed!!! we are very strict about brushing and never even let the children do it themselves, she only drinks water or milk, and eat healthy foods. anyway - our dentist was very nice about it. he said that her molars have very deep crevices and that it's pretty much impossible to get them clean enough to avoid cavities. we should have had them sealed but the dentist we were with before didn't mention anything about sealing to us (great! particularly it was the horrendously pricey Boots dentist).

Fissure (?) sealing is a pretty awkward and uncomfortable process anyway...ds2 was supposed to have his molars done when he was quite little (but older than 4 - 6 or 7 maybe), it was not a very good dentist and he struggled to keep his mouth open, his tongue away from the business end and to keep still - the tooth has to be completely dry for the sealant to stick and it just didn't.

He has had to have a couple of little fillings in his back teeth, mostly because he has poor enamel there. Don't feel bad, Fennel and geekgrrl -you're doing the best you can for them!

Fennel - could it by the timing of her food and drink? Your teeth are exposed to an acid attack for about 20mins after you eat or drink (can you tell I'm a dentist's daughter?) so if she drinks her fruit juice in little sips over the course of an hour or so then she will have more decay than if she drinks the whole thing down in one go. You could also try following any food or drink with a mouthful of water swished round the mouth (she could either swallow or spit), though it only helps a little.

Why not just give her water to drink?

my nephew has just had his 5th b'day and also needs 2 fillings - he's not at all a big sweet eater, and has never touched ribena, squash or any drink apart from juice, water and milk. His 3 year old sister sister has a much sweeter tooth than him (she nicked his easter eggs and scoffed the lot!) but has perfect, obviously stronger-looking teeth.
such is life

Apparently if you take anti-biotics while you are pregnant, it can weaken the baby's teeth. Also, my daughter has 2 fused teeth (among other oddities!) and it is very hard to clean between them (she is 2.5). My dentist said he won't do anything until she gets her adult teeth through and, if any of these are fused, then something can be done. He said that he thinks some of my DD problems with her teeth (build up of plaque) could have something to do with the various medications she takes. He said that dentists are having lots of run-ins with pharmaceutical companies about the amount of sugar they put in children's medicines.

My DD is always on some medication or other, at the moment trimotheprin although I am restricting the amount I am giving her and seeing how she goes (has trimotheprin which is a decongestant as she is always chesty, sometimes (!) has glue ear, gets styes/cysts where she always has a cold and it affects her eyes (colds give her a sticky eye).

My nephew, has very soft teeth. By the age of 6 he had literally warn away his front 8 teeth so that they were only just above the gum line. The dentist has said that this can sometimes happens, but isn't necessarily a charateristic that will be inherent in the adult teeth.

Sounds like you have taken great care of your DD teeth, and hopefully this won't happen with adult teeth

Thanks for the feedback, it is the back molars, like geekgrrl's dd. I am feeling very guilty, convinced it's cos I've been pregnant all winter and too tired to care about teeth brushing by bedtime. We're not in a fluoride area, our dentist thinks fillings are normal at this age cos we are in Manchester, bad child teeth capital of the country.

we can cut down on the fruit juice, yes, though dd1 drinks very little water and virtually no milk so I worry about her not drinking enough (she's had urine infections in the past).

Bumblelion, 2 of my 4 had fused baby teeth as well! Dd1 got her second teeth through and none of them were. Am still waiting for ds1's to come through.

From what you have said it can't be your fault. My kids eat quite alot of stuff they shouldn't and have somehow never got any fillings (neither have i for that matter).
Don't know how they have got away with it really, although i am quite strict about teeth brushing.

Fruit juice is full of natural sugar and terrible for teeth. Try slowly watering down her juice with water until finally she has almost no juice, or even just water. Teeth brushing should always happen before bed but AFTER dinner and bottles/juice. However, some people do just have soft teeth. I was always a good brusher, never had sweets or juice, grew up in the usa where the water has flouride and still have a mouth full of fillings. I've been told several times by dentists when they were drilling my teeth that they are so soft they are like butter...
I gave my ds flouride drops when he was younger, but in the end the mumsnet dentists seemed to think that actually brushing them with an adult toothpaste that has 1000-1500ppm of flouride (some children's toothpastes do too) and then making sure that they didn't rinse out too much would be just as effective as the drops.

Fennel agree it doesn'tsound like it's yr fault. My DS1 has had fillings in his back teeth (baby teeth) and I was mortified and very upset as like you, have brushed teeth, introduced cups as soon as poss, limited sweets and juice etc etc. Anyway, my lovely dentist said it's just how it goes, some children have weaker teeth, esp if you were ill during pg (I was). Juts trying to eat as healthily as poss and not eg give sweets after school (so many people do this, it amazes me) so as to limit damage. But don't blame yourself.

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Some mums told me that their children had 2-4 fillings already at age 4. The mums were teling me that the dentists told them that their children had so many fillings because of malnutrition during pregnancy; one woman had morning sickness all the way through, so she suffered from Calcium deficiency and so did her babies. The other woman was in and out of hospital with pre-term labour for the last 3 months of her pregnancy, and the dentist said something similar, this somehow caused tooth decay in her child 4 years later! I forget which woman said what, but one said her child had a green line on her teeth when the teeth came through. And another child had no enamel on his back 4 molar teeth!

Supposedly the permanent teeth should be uneffected by the pregnancy problems, just not the first set had predictable problems.Has anyone heard of all this?? I get really bad morning sickness in the first half of my pregnancies, am a bit worried now.

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