It was our little guy’s second time at the dentist’s clinic. The first time was a year ago, when he just turned two years old. Although he graced it with ease , it wasn’t the ideal to give him the full stretch of a prophylaxis procedure. That would have been pushing the baby too far and could have caused trauma of sorts. You can view the videos from last year here and here.
It was just sweet that he readily agreed when I told him that we will be visiting Tita Ganda (which he fondly calls Dr. Len) again today and will have his teeth cleaned. There are a lot of kids that he sees without teeth and full of caries and he says he does not want that. This is what gets him to move and brush his teeth before his afternoon nap and before he sleeps at night. This is one of the benefits of routines. Babies and toddlers need routine. They do not know any better and leaving them to figure things out for themselves spells out d-i-s-a-s-t-e-r. It was what helped him sleep through the night from the second month of his life. He was never under nourished even if he did not feed at two in the morning. A baby need not be such a burden, you just have to handle him right. Okay, that deserves a different post altogether.
Going back to this dentist’s visit, I was just amazed by our little guy all over again. My baby was just wonderful all throughout. I was almost anticipating some kind of tension here and there, but there was none. I did not push him toward the dental chair, I just thought he’d figure out from the first visit he had. During his first visit, the hubby and I had to alternately have him sit on our laps. The chair was a little too cold and big for him then.
During today’s visit, it was just lovely when Dra. Len had him participate in the “cleaning process” by handing him the saliva ejector and have it stay in place. Jed loves that! (helping out and participating) Although toward the end of the possibly twenty minute “teeth cleaning process,” we saw the saliva ejector doing this “sword fight” with the other dental tool that Dra. Len was using to clean his teeth, but even then he was still okay. To have a three year old in a supine position with mouth wide open for twenty minutes without whining and no sign of impatience, that is still something. I am one proud mama! We will go back to see Dra. Len again after six months. 😀
