Halloween is just around the corner and you know what that means! Oodles of costumes and candy coming your way. Sometimes the scariest part about Halloween for parents and pediatric dentists alike is not the ghoulish grins, vampires, or werewolves on every street, it’s the tooth decay and cavities that lurk in the bottom of those trick-or-treat bags. While cavities are pretty scary, it’s important that your child banishes tooth decay every day. Just because they get an overload of sugary treats this time of year, doesn’t mean that you’ll stop slaying cavity-causing bacteria. Here are a few things you can do to remind your kiddos to keep their teeth healthy while in a caramel craze.

Brush and Floss Those Chompers –

Just because it’s Halloween doesn’t mean you can skimp on brushing and flossing those teeth, especially when you’ve been bingeing on fun-sized candy bars. Brushing teeth twice a day for two minutes at a time removes the sugar and bacteria that leads to cavities. Flossing is especially important to remove any gooey or nutty remnants from between the teeth. By making sure your kids brush and floss the sugar off their teeth before they fall into a caramel coma, you’ll make sure no cavities comes a long.

Provide Lots of Alternatives –

While it’s no surprise that candy is the belle of the ball on Halloween, by providing your kids with healthy alternatives you’d be surprised at how often they reach for the tangerine jack-o-lantern, banana ghosts with chocolate chips for eyes, and mozzarella stick mummies. There are lots of Halloween-inspired healthy snacks you can fill up on before going trick-or-treating.

A few more tips

• Keep your child’s candy in a safe spot (safe from chocolate looters that is) that’s not in their room to discourage late-night snacking.
• Remind them that their Trick-or-Treating treats are just that, they don’t need to eat 10 candy bars, four lollypops, and a bag of gummy bears. Limit them to a few choices each day.
• Remind them to not chew on hard candy as well, biting down on suckers and jaw breakers can crack their teeth. As much as we love to see you in our Palm Harbor office we don’t want your child to have a Halloween dental emergency.

Having a healthy Halloween is easy and doesn’t mean you have to skimp out on any of the fun. So, get dressed up, collect as much candy as those little arms can carry, and remember that the candy will get eaten or become stale before you know it but healthy teeth are forever!

From Dr. Maggie and our entire staff, Happy Halloween!!!