After Rachel's terrible dentist visit over the summer, I asked the dentist what I could do to ensure that Rebecca didn't have the same fear of dentists as Rachel. She told me to go ahead and bring her in the next time I came with Rachel. I didn't want to make their appointments on the same day, because I didn't want to have to wrangle Rebecca while it was Rachel's turn, and didn't want to be dealing with Rachel when it was Rebecca's turn. So I made their appointments separately, a week apart, and left the other girl home with Daddy.
So today it was Rebecca's turn. I had no idea what to expect. How would they clean this baby's teeth, when I can barely get her to open her mouth for two seconds when I try and brush her teeth?
They explained that they do a "knee to knee" cleaning, where the hygienist's knees touch mine, facing each other, and Rebecca is in my lap, straddling me, and I lay her back into the hygienist's lap. She said she would likely cry, and it's actually better that way because then her mouth would be open! So I had to hold her hands and let her cry while the hygienist quickly cleaned her 11 teeth. It didn't take long, and she stopped crying as soon as I sat her back up in my lap and held her for a minute. They said she did great.
Since I expected her to cry, it didn't bother me too much, and thankfully, it was pretty quick. And if it will help prevent her from having a fear later on of the dentist, then I'm all for it.
My husband goes to the dentist next week, and I just made an appointment for myself for later in February, and then we'll be done with the dentist for awhile! Yay!
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