Child Friendly Dentistry
Robertson Dental Innovations strives to provide high quality dental care in a safe and friendly environment. Our staff understand that going to the dentist can be a daunting experience, particularly for children.
This is why Robertson Dental Innovations aims to be a very child friendly dental group.
Our team is very experienced with treating children of every age.
We recommend for a child to begin to come to the dentist at around 2 years of age onwards. For the first few appointments it is about familiarisation with the child and the dentist/dental oral health therapist and with going to the dentist. These appointments are usually booked in after their parent’s check-up appointment and usually involve sitting in their parents lap while the chair goes up and down (like a ride), then getting used to the dentist/dental oral health therapist’s fingers in their mouths.
These appointments help remove the stigma of going to the dentist and can even make the visits fun. As children get older we continue to keep up the fun with stickers and balloons given to the kids after their visits. Eventually going to the dentist becomes routine and nothing to be afraid of.
For those children who are still nervous we do have the option of using Nitrous Oxide (Happy) Gas or even treatment under a General Aesthetic. Nitrous Oxide Gas has been used in dentistry for decades as a calming agent and is safe for children.
We also try to make the practices easy for the parents as well. Each practice has change table facilities in the toilets and toys/books in the waiting rooms for the kids to play with. A TV is also in both waiting rooms and our reception staff our happy to turn these on at your request.
If a child is nervous (or a parent is nervous about their child) going to the dentist some tips include:
- book the first appointment of the day, so the appointment doesn’t loom over the entire day,
- book in for a check-up only first and explain to the child that no needles will be used, the dentist will just have a look,
- let the child see an older sibling or parent have a check-up first so they see there is nothing to be afraid off,
- if a parent is nervous, a child will likely pickup on that nervousness and become nervous themselves. To counter this we recommend the least nervous parent take the child to the dentist (at least in the first instance),
- and most importantly let reception know when booking the appointment so that they can let the dentist/dental oral health therapist know.
To make an appointment please call the team on (03) 5444 4924. For further information about our Child Dentistry Services, click here.
