What Oral Health Habits Can Protect Little Smiles?

Posted January 15, 2026

To help protect little smiles, we always urge parents to bring their kids in for routine checkups and cleanings. But in addition to these visits, you also need to make sure kids are caring for their smiles from home! In today’s blog, your Dallas, TX, pediatric dentist talks about how to protect little smiles with good oral health habits at home!

Do Kids Need to Brush and Floss?

Children need to brush and floss daily, and that starts as soon as the first baby tooth erupts! For babies and very young toddlers, you can help clean their teeth with a cloth or a small toothbrush that fits over your finger. As they grow older and dexterity improves, you can get them an age-appropriate toothbrush and monitor them to make sure they brush for two minutes. You can even time them with a fun song, video, or a sand timer.

Kids should brush in the morning and then before bed. They also need a toothpaste with fluoride, a rice-sized amount for kids under the age of three, a pea-sized amount for kids three and older. This helps strengthen enamel to fight tooth decay. As soon as there are teeth sitting side-by-side, children need to floss too. Very young children can use a floss pick, and graduate to string or tape as they grow older. Be sure they clean up and down each side of every tooth, and dip beneath the gum line too.

Watching Out for Sugar and Starch

Often, sugar is a main ingredient in snacks, breakfast cereals, and candies of all kinds. Even seemingly healthy items like dried fruit and juice could have a high amount of sugar! The same goes for starch, which is found in many foods and snacks, including chips. Sugar and starch tend to cling to teeth and become caught between them. Bacteria then consume these particles, a process that creates plaque buildup and coats the teeth. The buildup then hardens into tartar and could lead to tooth decay, infection, and even bad breath and teeth stains! Try to offer your kids more fresh fruits and vegetables, and encourage them to drink more water.

Our Preventive Treatments

Along with good oral hygiene habits at home, we could offer kids unique preventive treatments to further protect their smiles from cavities. During each of their six-month checkup visits, we could coat the teeth in fluoride, a naturally-occurring mineral that has been shown to keep enamel strong and limit tooth decay. We also have dental sealants, which is a thin layer of acrylic that we coat the rear teeth in, as the molars are often difficult for children to reach when they brush and floss, and tend to be where tooth decay develops. Sealants take seconds to apply and stay in place for years to come, often as long as ten in some cases!

Schedule Your Checkup and Cleaning

When was the last time your child saw us for a checkup and cleaning? We urge parents to bring their children in every six months starting at age two, and this allows us to keep a close eye on their smile as it grows and changes, so we can catch issues like tooth decay and developing misalignment early and take action to protect their smiles. We can offer fillings and dental crowns, and even a root canal alternative known as a pulpotomy for decay and infection. These visits also let kids become accustomed to seeing the dentist, so they avoid dental anxiety later in life and may be more likely to seek care on their own as adults.

We also clean the teeth in the same visit! A dental cleaning is a way to gently and thoroughly remove all plaque and tartar from the teeth, which lowers the risk of tooth decay and other oral health concerns. We then polish the teeth for a brighter appearance and to help limit how much plaque and tartar can accumulate before you bring your child in for their next visit.

If you have any questions about how to protect little smiles from home, or about seeing our team for treatment, then please reach out to our office today. We want to help your little one enjoy good oral health in 2026 and in the years to come, so they can continue to smile with confidence and feel great about their teeth!

PDC Kids Wants to Keep Little Smiles Strong

Our team can discuss ways to help your children enjoy good oral health, both at home and with routine visits to our office. To find out more about preventing poor oral health in little smiles, call Pediatric Dental Care at Casa Linda in Dallas, TX, today at (214) 321-4880. A bright and beautiful smile is possible, and we are ready to work with you to make it possible!