Pediatric “Kid” Friendly Dentist

Durango, CO

We are a pediatric dentist office in Durango, CO. We provide comprehensive dental care so that children can stay in excellent oral health. With ongoing, regular appointments, we can identify and treat infections early so that your child can avoid feeling any discomfort or having premature tooth loss. We understand how important it is for your child to remain in good health and do our best to make that a reality.

As a kid-friendly dentist in Durango, we treat young children, including preschoolers and elementary-age children, for their first checkup. We realize that a lot of parents do not bring their children to the dentist until they are much older. This, however, is a mistake. Your child can develop cavities as young as their toddler years and visiting our kid-friendly dentist's office is one way to help prevent them.

Dental Cleanings and Examinations for Children

Our team works with patients of various ages and knows how to help children feel comfortable while visiting the dentist. Families throughout Colorado visit our dentist's office for their child to receive teeth cleaning. We recommend that teeth cleanings and exams start from a very young age. This is important for ensuring that baby teeth grow properly and stay healthy until the adult teeth are ready to come in. People may not realize how important healthy baby teeth are. Children can get cavities and gum disease just like adults do. The difference is that children are less capable of understanding or dealing with discomfort. We recommend that parents throughout Durango bring their children in for dental cleanings and examinations at least twice a year. This way, we can remove harmful plaque and bacteria in order to prevent cavities.

While cleaning children's teeth, our staff will be sure to practice gentle dentistry. By building a rapport with our young patients, they will feel more relaxed during their dental appointments. Thus, visiting the dentist becomes fun instead of intimidating. We also recommend that parents take the time to read stories about going to the dentist and play games by teaching children how to examine their toy's teeth. These little steps can help children to feel comfortable when getting their own teeth cleaned. By doing so twice a year, their baby teeth are more likely to stay in until they are supposed to fall out, and their adult teeth will also stay healthier. If you have questions about scheduling an appointment for your child call (970) 259-1646.

Philosophy of Care

The team at Durango Dentistry believe in the importance of preventative care. We focus on keeping patients in good oral health so that they can live a full, healthy, and enjoyable life that is free from oral pain. This starts by educating our patients on what they can do to stay healthy at home. In our family dentist office we recommend that patients eat a healthy diet that consists of green leafy vegetables, lean protein, nuts, dairy products, and crunchy fruits and veggies. Eating these foods along with drinking water can help to keep teeth healthy and make them stronger. By simultaneously reducing sugar intake, patients can also reduce their risk of cavities.

It is also important to brush and floss throughout the day. Instead of waiting for bedtime to brush teeth, carry a small toothbrush and use it after meals and snacks. This makes it possible to remove sugar and bacteria from the teeth and gums before it has the opportunity to turn into acid that can attack the teeth. This preventative step can greatly reduce a persons' risk of getting a cavity or gum disease. We understand the importance of taking these steps at home and will spend the time necessary to educate and inform patients so that they can stay healthy overall. Education, after all, is essential for living a long and healthy life.

Why Visit a Pediatric Dentist?

Many people ask why it is so important to visit a pediatric dentist, and the answer is simple – experience. While many dentists may treat children if they are not a kid’s dentist, they may lack the experience necessary to keep a child comfortable during their dental treatments. When treating children, it is not enough to get the job done, how it is done is equally important. At Durango Dentistry, we understand that how a child feels during their first several dental visits, will influence how they react to dentistry throughout their lifetime. A positive experience now can set the tone for ongoing, regular dental care throughout their adult life. A negative or scary dental visit can have the opposite effect and make them not want to visit the dentist anymore. In our office, we can treat children and take active steps to ensure their emotional and physical comfort. To learn more or to schedule a dental exam, call (970) 259-1646.

What You Should Know

As a parent, you naturally want what is best for your child. Many parents are unaware of how oral health and dental care play into that. According to the Centers for Disease Control, tooth decay (cavities) is the number one most commonly occurring infectious disease among children. This leads to children experiencing toothaches in high numbers, missing days from school, and experiencing overall discomfort. Tooth decay is not a trivial thing, but a condition that can create significant discomfort for your child and even make it difficult for them to eat, speak clearly, and engage in normal daily activities. If you live in the Durango area and think that this will not happen to your child, statistically, it most likely will. Brushing and flossing at home will help, but it is not enough. You need to bring your child to our kid-friendly dentist's office twice a year so that we can examine and clean their teeth. By doing this, we will be able to remove the plaque and bacteria that can lead to cavities in the first place.

We’re a Convenient Kids Dentist

Our children's dentist's office is conveniently located in Durango. We treat children from a very young age, believing that preventative oral health care is essential for their ability to eat and speak clearly, avoid discomfort, and decrease the need for braces later on. We also know that most families have an extremely busy schedule, and it can be difficult to make a dental appointment in between school, soccer, and ballet. As a kids dentist, we will work with you to schedule appointments for a time that is convenient so that you do not have to pull the kids out of school or take too much time off work. Let us know what your scheduling restrictions are when calling our office so that we can provide you with a convenient appointment time.

Resources You Can Use at Home

In addition to visiting our kid-friendly dentist's office, it is important that you practice good oral hygiene at home and teach your child to do the same. In our dental office, we work with a lot of children under the age of eight and understand how challenging it can be to get them excited about brushing their teeth. Kids are busy and asking them to stop riding bikes, building Legos, or playing dress up to brush their teeth can lead to conflict fairly quickly. We get it. At Durango Dentistry, we can work with young children and are under no illusion that they are fascinated by oral health. Our job, however, is to change their opinion of dental care and show them that it can be fun and interesting. This way they will want to brush and floss their teeth, even without being told. With that in mind, we have a few resources that we have found to be helpful, and suggest that you try them at home.

If you live in or around Durango, we invite you to schedule an appointment with our dental office so that we can examine your child's teeth and teach them how to brush properly. Even if your child is already brushing, there is a good chance that they are doing it wrong and missing a lot of the plaque that has built up on their teeth. A simple video tutorial is a resource you can use at home. You can find one on the American Dental Association's website or even on YouTube. Playing a video that shows your child how to brush is a good reminder for them and, since they are used to receiving information this way, they are likely to receive and digest it better than if you reminded them.

Once your child is brushing correctly, it is time to turn your attention to how long they are brushing. At Durango Dentistry we encourage all of our patients to brush for two minutes, twice a day, regardless of how old they are. This, however, can be difficult for young children that find it hard to focus on a task or to stay still. As a kid-friendly dentist, we want them to brush their teeth but staying still isn't a requirement. Try making it fun to brush your teeth by playing their favorite song for two minutes and letting them dance and brush. You can also play a two-minute video clip or cartoon for them while brushing. The American Dental Association has an entire section of their website devoted to these short videos and watching them will get your child used to brushing for the full two minutes. We have worked with families throughout the Durango area and have found that using media works far better than standing there with a stopwatch. The goal is to create positive associations between dental care and having fun so that your child will continue to brush their teeth as they grow.

Prevention

As a kid-friendly dentist office in Durango, we are focused on preventative care. It is far better for your child to visit us for regular teeth cleaning than to see us with a toothache. Fortunately, by using preventative care methods we can help your child to avoid experiencing any dental discomfort. In addition to cleaning their teeth, one of the ways that we do so is with dental sealant. Many children have deep ridges in their teeth. When they bite down and chew food, bacteria, food particles, and plaque can become trapped in those ridges and eventually, they will create tooth decay. These areas are particularly difficult to clean with a toothbrush alone, so even the most fastidious of parents may find it challenging to keep cavities at bay. By using dental sealant, a protective layer is placed onto the teeth so that nothing can become stuck in these ridges. The procedure is painless and fast since all we need to do is brush a material onto the teeth and allow it to harden. At Durango Dentistry, we have found this to be a simple way to prevent our young patients from getting cavities.

Regular Fluoride Treatments

Another tool for prevention is our regular fluoride treatments. We recommend that all children have this throughout their teenage years. If you aren't on public water, this is particularly important for preventing cavities. Statistically, if your child has a fluoride treatment in our dental office, their risk of getting cavities decreases by thirty percent. This is significant when you are considering the overall health and well-being of your child. With that in mind, we use whatever tools are at our disposal to ensure that your child is as healthy and as comfortable as possible both now and as they age. If you live in the Durango area, we invite you to schedule a dental exam by calling (970) 259-1646.

Pediatric Dentistry Procedures

We offer a variety of pediatric dentistry procedures that can help your child to stay in excellent oral health. While it starts with a dental exam and teeth cleaning, this is only the beginning. As a children's dentist's office, we can also complete fluoride treatments and seal the teeth when necessary. These two procedures can help to strengthen and protect teeth so that they are less likely to become infected or get a cavity. While simple and fast, these two procedures can work together or separately to prevent your child from experiencing any unnecessary dental pain that can be caused by a cavity.

If your child does get a cavity or an infection, we can treat it right away so that they can feel comfortable again. Even baby teeth need to be treated because of the discomfort that they can cause your child. Fortunately, we can work with young children, and though the teeth are smaller, the procedure can be completed with precision so that they get the care they need without further complications. In order to help children relax and remain comfortable during this type of treatment, we offer sedation dentistry. This may be as simple as providing your child with laughing gas to relax, or if they are very small, they may need to be put to sleep while we complete the procedure. As a kids' dentist, we only use sedation when necessary. Simultaneously, it is dangerous for a child to be wiggly when dental tools are in their mouth. As such, it is better for a small child to be put to sleep than risk them moving and getting a secondary cut as a result.

As a children's dentist, we will discuss all of these treatment options, including the possibility of sedation, with you. This way you can make an informed decision as to the dental work you want to have completed and the timing of it. In some cases, parents prefer to postpone treating minor cavities for a few months if they feel their child may experience a developmental milestone, for example turning four years old, that may make them more prepared for the treatment. At Durango Dentistry, we will work with you to ensure that both you and your child are confident in the decisions that you make regarding their oral health care.