First Dentist Visit

I knew I was going to like this guy when we drove up and the first thing I noticed was a huge Ohio State banner hanging from the porch.

We'd gotten a recommendation from one of my colleagues who has 2 1/2 year-old twins for a good dentist and finally gotten around to making an appointment for R, and for us. We both went to R's appointment, not quite sure what to expect. We'd prepared her a little bit by talking about the dentist and brushing teeth and opening wide, but we didn't make a big deal out of it, either, thinking that if we did it would make her more nervous about it rather than less so.

The appointment went swimmingly. The hygenist was terrific. She let R touch all the instruments (the mirror and the electric toothbrush) before using them in her mouth, and R was excellent about opening her mouth when asked. The cleaning went well. The only real hiccup was that R isn't great about rinsing and spitting out the water--she swallows it instead. The dentist said that until she's good about spitting, we should keep using flouride-free toothpaste, but to have her drink the flouridated city water to get flouride on her teeth.

When it was time for the dentist to check her out, she all of a sudden got really shy, but it was okay since the dentist said there isn't much to do with a 2-year-old other than get them used to the dentist's office, etc. He said we were actually a little ahead of schedule, since we could have waited until 3 to bring her in.