Your grandchildren's teeth

I've been shocked by recent reports about the extent of poor dental health in children. Bags is spot on, vigilance, supervision and nagging in relation to children cleaning their teeth is essential. I followed the Bags approach to age 8, but maintained a campaign of terror about teeth cleaning until the children themselves became obsessed with dental hygiene (about age 14 I think).

I suspect one of the problems is that so many children seem to have access to snacks, rather than 3 meals a day, with say elevenses, and something about 4 pm to get them through till the evening meal. Sugar is added to so many foods, and don't get me started on sugary drinks.

I sympathise with people about the shortage of good NHS dentists. One of my pet moans is the fact that schools no longer have a visiting dentist (it's even more irritating than the absence of nitty nora, the bug explorer)

DS sent me a photo on fb last night, it was of the inside of GD's mouth distinctly showing two adult teeth behind her baby teeth. Am I getting forgetful or is 5 years and 1 month old quite young to be losing teeth and getting new ones ?

Has she lost the baby ones Harri? DS2 had a friend who had 6 adult teeth in each jaw, behind the milk teeth, and I think that some of the baby teeth had to be extracted.

GD says the two front ones are loose, she told me a month ago and I thought she was just saying it because we had been talking about the tooth fairy. I wonder if it might be a family thing kitty because my sister and my father grew a lot of adult teeth before losing any and indeed eventually had to have extractions to make room because they were getting crowded.

It is quite young Harri, but of course there are huge variations. Hopefully your DS has a good dentist who will keep a careful eye on things. Your GD may need some help, but there are so many things which can be done, making sure children's teeth are straight and not overcrowded has developed so much. She may when she is older have to see an orthadontist

I'm not sure about all of this. I was terribly upset last year when DGD had to have a filling (and later an extraction) at the age of only 7. All of my DGC eat fresh healthy food. They love vegetables and are not great sweetie eaters. Nor do they drink sugary drinks. They have all cleaned their teeth (or had them cleaned for them) regularly so I was puzzled. My DD (not their mother) is 29. She has never had so much as a filling at the dentist in her whole life. Her teeth are perfect(unlike me or her late father) and although she looks after them, I remember her eating sweeties and drinking sugary drinks as a child. Is it possible that some people have a tendency towards tooth decay ?

I do think that some people are genetically predisposed to tooth decay, however careful they are about dental hygiene.

Although I didn't have many sugary drinks as a child, I did eat sweets every day, and tooth brushing in our house was very haphazard. Although I did have a lot of fillings as a child, at the age of 64 I still have all but two of my teeth and healthy gums (touch wood).

My mum hasn't been to a dentist since she was 9 and has never been careful about dental hygiene but at the age of nearly 94 still has her own (admittedly pretty ropy) teeth. Her 95 year old brother has all his own teeth.