I am not a fan of going for dental check-up. Throughout my childhood years, I live in fear of dentist pulling each and every one of my tooth out. I only started to slowly overcome my fears over getting my dental check-ups when I started working.
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Anyway, long story short, I just had my dental check-up last week - a long overdue check-up. And being a SAHM with 2 kids now, when mummy goes out, the whole family goes out. A high school friend of mine referred me to her dentist as I was also planning to slowly get Ben to go for his dental check up as well and wanted to find a child-friendly dentist and one that has experienced handling young patients.
We arrived at the clinic on time but I had to let another patient go first as my hubby had trouble finding car park! Yes, the clinic is located in a very busy area with little chance of good parking spots unless you park real far and walked all the way to the clinic - which is what my hubby did.
My impression of the clinic? Nice environment, cosy, they play those nice soothing music to calm you down, there's a mini garden outside where the washroom is and I like that there are some children books around and some cuddly pillows on the sofa too (I didn't use it though as I'm not sure how clean they are...)
Only found out what happened to my kids while I was in the room with the dentist getting my scaling and polishing. Whoaaa... hubby said our kids hogged the whole sofa - but anyway, there's only 1 more patient after me and there's like 2 more sofas around. 
The dentist is gentle and soft-spoken, clearly explaining to me what causes my bleeding gums and taught me how to take care of my gums and teeth properly. Price wise, a bit on the high side, but then again, I did mentioned this check-up was long overdue and I don't know whether there has been any increase in this.
After we were done, I explained to the demtist that I wanted to get Ben warm up to the idea of dental check-up and try as we might, he refused to open his mouth and show his teeth to the dentist. She even make an Angry Bird balloon out of her spare dentist glove to cheer Ben up! Ben stopped to get the balloon (he likes balloon but have no idea what Angry Bird is - anyway we are not a fan of Angry Bird at all) but continued crying when we asked him to open his mouth.
Sigh, maybe next time then...
Question: At what age do you bring your child to his/her 1st dental check-up and how do you get them to be calm about the whole thing?
