When the time came for us to take our kids in to the dentist for the first time, I was seriously stressing. My kids are pretty timid, and I worried -a lot!- about how they would react to such a traumatizing experience. One of the things that I wondered, and worried, and debated over was whether I should just take them to my regular dentist or to a pediatric dentist.
My BIL happened to be going to school in preparation for dental school, at the time, so I asked him his opinion. I guess...my understanding is that pediatric dentists don't have any special training that regular dentists do not have. I suppose -over time- they become more experienced in dealing with children, but it is not like a regular dentist does not also get plenty of exposure to children as well.
In the end, this is what we did:
I set up my appointment, then booked MJ for the following time slot, and Lala for the following time slot. This takes a lot longer than having us all get done at the same time, BUT my kids feel much less terrified of all the chair and the machinery once they have seen me go through the whole process. My kids did FANTASTIC at the dentist! The first couple of visits, they were still a little nervous, so I sat in the chair with them on my lap. It worked great!
I am not saying that this is absolutely the way to go, but for my kids, the regular dentist --where they could watch me go first--was the only way to go!
Now, in my opinion, not all dentists are the same. I have had some dentists who brag about their new machines that can detect even smaller cavities and then tell me I have all these cavities that need to get drilled and filled. In my opinion, they are just looking to get more money out of us! My current dentist uses good old fashioned eyes and X-rays and that is all. He found a small cavity in one of my teeth some 2 or 3 years ago and said "but it is just small, would you like to just wait 6 months and see how it does?" THAT is an honest dentist! We waited and nothing has happened. It has not worsened one bit and I still do not need a filling! With that in mind, I want to say that your small children do NOT NEED X-RAYS! The dentist can find any major problems with his plain old eyes. Maybe around 5 or 6 you can start doing the X-rays, but there is just no reason to start them earlier than that.
So, on that note: Go find yourself a good, honest, kind dentist! Good luck!
