Candy | Morris Park Dental

The silly season of Halloween festivities might be over, but the lingering affects off all that sugary candy certainly isn’t. For young kids, Halloween is a lot of fun dressing up in costumes and receiving a whole range of sweets and candies from across the neighborhood. However, this form of fun certainly has long term consequences for young and growing teeth if they aren’t cared for properly after the post-Halloween sugar binge. While the Trick or Treating might only last a night, the stash that your kids collect will last a lot longer than that, meaning you’re going to have an ongoing problem of how to handle all that sugar for the coming days in November. Your children will think it’s a good idea to eat candy just about every day, but their teeth are going to disagree with that.

Here at Morris Park Dental in the Bronx our Board-Certified Pediatric Dentist is concerned about the healthy development of your children’s teeth and understands that after all this candy at Halloween you will have many questions about what exactly you should do to ensure there aren’t long term cavities and other problems caused in those young teeth. This article is here to help you take proper care of your kids’ teeth, and perhaps your own teeth for that matter, to make sure they remain happy and healthy.

One of the best things you can do for your kids’ teeth after Halloween is to take them to a dentist to get a regular check-up. In the meantime while waiting for an appointment, there are some things you can do at home during the post-Halloween season to keep your kids teeth healthy and well. When it comes to teeth care for your children, take these six important tips into consideration.

Timing is important. Give your kids some of their Halloween stash shorty after meal time, as special dessert treats. This is an ideal time because the saliva production in your mouth increases during meals and helps to cancel out the acids which are produced by bacteria. This helps rinse away food particles, especially sugary substances from candies.
Avoid sticky stuff. Odds are, your kids don’t really know what it is in their Halloween stash. Take a moment when they aren’t around to remove any extra sticky candies, such as taffy and gummy bears. These stick to your kids teeth and weaken the enamel because they take longer to get washed away by the saliva.
Brush teeth twice a day. This is something your kids should already be doing on a daily basis, but it is extra important when they are having extra candies and gummies in their diet. For extra caution, it is helpful to get kids to brush their teeth a third time after lunch, just to be sure that sugar isn’t sticking around their teeth and gums.
Clean between the teeth. Flossing becomes extra important when kids are having more sugar in their diet. By flossing, your kids are removing plaque and food particles between their teeth and preventing a build-up sugar and acidic substances which cause nasty cavities.
Drink more water. Drinking water is always a good idea after sugar to prevent headaches, but it also prevents tooth decay. Water essentially washes away the sugar from your kids’ teeth. It is also worth keeping in mind that sugar drinks should be avoided during the post-Halloween binge as these will only increase the risk of tooth decay.
Schedule a Post-Halloween Check-up and Cleaning with Our Office. If it has been more than 6 months since your child’s last cleaning and check-up, they are overdue and should come in as soon as possible. It takes about 6 months for a cavity to develop, which is why it is important to bring your child in regularly to make sure nothing new has come up since their last visit, especially if they have been snacking on a lot of sugary sweets lately, or they are complaining of tooth pain or sensitivity.

Allow some binging to occur, as bizarre as this may sound. When your kids eat sugar, there is sugary acidic damage occurring. Whether the kids eat a handful of candy all at once, or spread it over a few hours, this damage is inevitable. Bunching sugar sessions together in quick succession won’t alter the time it takes for the acid to dissipate. However, when a candy bar is eaten once every hour, it will take an hour each time for the oral pH levels to return to normal. This means that when you give your kids three candy bars and let them gobble them down all once, you’ll be doing their teeth a favor as well as earning points as best parent of the year. After the candy is consumed, make sure your kids brush their teeth almost immediately after to keep extreme acid damage from occurring.

Don’t make candy forbidden otherwise it will become all the more appealing for kids. It is a good idea to take the candy bounty away from your kids and store it somewhere safe so that they don’t have round the clock access to it. But it isn’t a good idea to make this secret location completely off limits. Children work in reverse psychology and as soon as something is untouchable, the more they are going to want it, especially when sugary sweets are involved. Make sure your kids know that the candy is theirs and they will get to eat it, but just not all at once.

Serve the candy in moderation and encourage some sort of healthy eating beside it. When your kids come running and begging for some of their hard-earned Halloween candy, there is only so much denying you can do. Use it your advantage and keep the Halloween stash as a sort of bribery for healthy eating. For example, allow the kids two pieces of candy alongside them eating some carrot sticks or cut up apples. This way, although they are getting sugar in their system, they are also having something healthy to balance it out, as much balance as can occur in the post-Halloween sugar sessions.

Get creative with the candy and encourage your kids to use it in different ways. Now that you have more candy that you ever imagined, try to get your kids thinking in different ways about how to use it. Rather than just shoveling it into their mouths, this is a great way to get kids creative in the kitchen and experiment with some cooking ideas. For example, you can use some of those M&Ms to create colorful cupcakes, or make a three-dimensional house out of Tootsie rolls using Hershey’s kisses as clouds above. This is a great way to get the kids in the kitchen, using their imagination, while having a side treat of candy snacks along the way. You can also encourage your kids to make baked gifts for special people in their life, such as their grandparents, which gives them a chance to learn valuable skills like sharing and concern about other people.

Call (718) DR-SMILE (718-377-6453) or click here to schedule a post-Halloween check-up and cleaning with our Bronx dental office today!

It is getting close to Valentine’s Day in the Bronx and the candy is coming! Sweet and soft caramel, truffles, and red hots are just some of the tasty treats that are coming our way. Let’s talk about how to protect the teeth and help prevent tooth damage during Valentine’s Day in NYC. Don’t forget to call our local convenient Morris Park Dentist office and request a dental appointment as soon as possible. Call (718) DR.SMILE (718-377-6453) today! Right now you can get $50 off ZOOM Teeth Whitening as our Valentine’s Day gift to you!

There are the different textures that have different effects on the teeth. Hard Candies can damage the teeth by chipping them or just giving them an extra dose of sugar. Soft and chewy candies are hard to remove from the teeth and get into the gums, causing further opportunity for tooth decay. Chocolate that is not well made can contain oils as their first ingredient and then the cocoa. These oils are really bad for the tooth enamel and hard to remove. Cupcakes and cookies can also contain chewy oils and lots of sugar. Brownies are another good source for lots of sugar in a chewy form. They stick to teeth and gums long after they have been eaten. It is very important to floss and brush after a day of sweets.

Choosing sweet treats for your family can be difficult. Try finding chocolates and candies made with Xylitol, a sugar substitute that really tastes like sugar without being harmful to the tooth enamel. High-quality chocolates that are 50% or more cocoa are better for the teeth than the cheaper kinds. Buying hard candies for the kids is not good either. There are some healthy Valentine’s Day Snacks, heart shaped cheese and strawberries. There are many Bronx Valentine’s Day alternatives for health treats that still say Valentine’s Day loud and clear.

Hard candies are often made up of mostly sugars and can cause damage to their teeth from the chewing. There are so many sugar substitutes available today in the grocery store. You can use most of them with the common Bronx Valentine’s Day recipes for sweets and pastries. They have the measurements for replacing the sugar on the bags most of the time. You do have to be careful because some chocolate and cookie recipes might not turn out well with the sugar substitutes. The trick is to find the recipes online that are already changed around and adapted for the sugar free substitutes. There are plenty to choose from and most of them taste better, if not the same as, the one’s with sugar.

When it comes to staining, it is not just the candies. The cupcakes and cookies for Valentine’s Day normally contain some strong red food coloring’s or at least pink food coloring that can easily stain the teeth. It is easy to walk by a table at a party or work and grab a nice cookie with red frosting in the shape of a heart, but it could end up ruining the last teeth whitening that you had done. Be careful to clean the teeth really good at night if you end up eating a lot of sweets. Brush your teeth two times if you think they are not clean the first time. Floss really good to get all of those red hot cupcakes out from in between your teeth.

Controlling yourself around candy and cupcakes is hard enough, controlling kids is a whole other issue. If the have a lot of candy and sweets from Valentine’s Day, tell them that they can split it up over the next couple months to have a little after a healthy meal for desert over time so they are not getting hit with a big sugar rush on their teeth. It is hard not to let them go a little nuts on Valentine’s Day, but the leftover candy is what needs to be controlled. Explaining this to children can be simple. The more sweets the body gets, the more it wants, so spreading it out over time can help the body not crave so many sweets.

Splitting up the leftovers is healthy for the rest of the body too. Store their candy in the freezer and thaw out completely as needed, this can help hide it and keep it fresh. This is also something adults can do for themselves.

You can also give kids other things for Valentine’s Day that they need and to show them you care. You can give some stickers, gift cards to their favorite stores and a nice Valentine’s Day card, something they have been wanting that is not costly and wrap it up in red, and maybe a new toothbrush and toothpaste.

The time of day that we eat candy and sweets can really effect our teeth. It is a common no-no that people end up eating a few pieces of candy or a sweet cupcake before bed. This is the worst time to eat sweets. Make sure if you slip, to brush and flush to get all that sugar off the teeth before bedtime. Moderation is also a good thing when it comes to sweets.

Sweet foods that we may get for Valentine’s Day such as, strawberries or oranges, drenched in chocolate. The acidic juices can erode the enamel on the teeth. Brushing at the right times can prevent further damage. Don’t brush right after eating acidic foods and juices. Wait at least thirty minutes to make sure you are not brushing away your enamel. If you eat a whole lot of acidic foods and drink a lot of juices, try enamel strengthening toothpastes designed to help with the enamel protection, but these acidic foods should always be eaten in moderation just like sweets.

Valentine’s Day does not have to be all about the candy. You can make heart shaped healthy foods or even things like heart shapes biscuits and pizza. Here is a link to some heart shaped foods on Pinterest that can give you some ideas on what to make: https://www.pinterest.com/explore/heart-shaped-foods/ . Adults and kids will love some of these ideas. My favorites are the heart shaped pepperoni, the heart shaped eggs, and the heart sandwiches. These little shapes are great way to put some love into your food for Valentine’s Day!

And now through Valentine’s Day, show your teeth some LOVE and get $50 of ZOOM Teeth Whitening. (Offer good until midnight February 14^th 2015. Call our Morris Park Dentist office and request a dental appointment as soon as possible. Call (718) DR.SMILE (718-377-6453) today! Right now you can get $50 off ZOOM Teeth Whitening as our Valentine’s Day gift to you!