You may or may not know this about me: I have very healthy teeth and have never had a cavity. I needed a check-up, so I made my appointment and scheduled L to be with the kids.
Jellybean is 3 now, and that's the recommended age for a first dentist visit (according to our more lenient pediatrician; some say age 1, which I think is insane). So I thought this would be a good time to talk to her about the dentist and how easy it is, to get her primed for her first visit.
I explained that a dentist is a doctor for your teeth and told her how my appointment would go. I'd go in and open my mouth, and the dentist and the "nurse" would look in my mouth and see all my teeth. Then the dentist would tell me, "Your teeth look great! See you next time."
Except (and you may have figured this out by now) that's not how it went for me at the actual visit. Yes, I had a cavity. A tiny one, but it still counts. In all my efforts to care for my toddler and newborn in the past 18 months, I had neglected my dental hygiene a wee bit too much. And now I was going to pay for it -- literally, because we don't have the best dental insurance.
So I had to schedule my filling visit, which I did. Then I had to figure out how to handle this with Jellybean. I have a feeling that her first dental appointment will fill her with a great deal of anxiety -- a new place, people sticking fingers in her mouth. I don't want her to think that she'll have to come back the following week like I did and then, on top of it, have a numb weird mouth for a few hours like I did. So we did what we thought we had to do: We lied. When I was gone last week to get my filling, we told her I was running errands. I don't like covering up things like this, but it's for her own good -- and all the rest of us too.
Jellybean's appointment is in a few days. I told her about it today, thinking she would be excited because she had been so interested in the dental topic. For a second she smiled, then she got a worried look and whimpered, "Mama..."
All I can do is hope for the best. And maybe a little bribery. I don't ever resort to that, but I think a dentist visit is the ideal such occasion.
1 comment:
We took Theo the day after he turned 3, and our normally mild-mannered little guy went apesh*t. He seriously freaked out like they were chewing off one of his limbs, and they couldn't do anything but glance in there with all his screaming -- no cleaning or anything was possible. So at his next cleaning 6 months later I tried a new pediatric dentist who had visited his preschool, and she was awesome! She takes them at age 1+ (other one is 3+), so we had Max start too at a little over age 2. That really helped to have both of them getting cleaned at the same time--safety in numbers--they even have side-by-side chairs and make a HUGE deal out of being there, far more so than the previous ped. dentist, the same one I went to as a kid (hasn't he retired yet?). They've both done wonderfully at each of their two visits so far--even allowed bite-wing X-rays. Tristan is deathly afraid of dentists (I'm talking sedation dentistry and panic attacks), so I didn't want his fear to rub off on them, plus my own first-ever visit was chock-full of cavities. By starting them early (mostly Max with his sweet tooth to rival my own!), I'm hoping to avoid a mouth full of metal like I have.
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