Fluoride

My son did not like the dropper at the age much either. I use a thing will I got when i bought infant motrin,it look like a syringe thing. you suck up the medicine and when they open their mouth depress the medicine dispenser and it is done.

Our pediatrician told us that the recommendations had changed with fluoride. They no longer recommend it, but my dentist still does - talk about confusing. Anyways, like many others have stated, we also opted not to do it after looking into it. Good luck!

I know people won't agree with this, however we've looked into this quite extensively and decided to no longer use any fluoride. It is a neurotoxin, that is why you are not to ingest it. It says on the box it is a poison. Good nutrtion and the scrubbing action of brushing is enough to clean your teeth. There are plenty of natural, toxin free chemicals. My son is 6 and has never had a cavity, and we eliminated fluoride 2.5 years ago. He doesn't eat any processed foods or chemicals, though.

Hi there D.! I am one of the few moms who declines the fluoride drops. My pediatrician certainly did recommend them and reminded me that my well water did not contain fluoride. I however did read a lot of negative feedback as well concerning fluoride.

I did my research on it, and decided for myself to not give it to her. I was honestly amazed and my pediatricians disgusted response... like I was really cheating my child out of something nutritionally pertinent to her health. I just had to reinforce for myself that I was making the right choice after realizing that it is in fact a poison.

My situation was slightly easier, as I have never had a cavity in my life, so I must have really good enamel and healthy teeth. I was less concerned with my daughter getting cavities for that reason, thinking in my mind I would teach her good brushing habits, which luckily... she complies with!

I would do whatever you feel comfortable with though, as a mother. I think the nursery water idea is good. I still water my daughter's juice down a lot! Probably about one/fifth juice and the rest water. So if you do that a few times, I would think it would enough for your little one. Good luck and I hope you find a solution that works well for you!

i would not try to add fluoride to any childs protocol. it is not necessary and in certain doses it is toxic!! there is controversy about using it vs not for dental health. but flouride is a toxin (certain forms especially) and it is a by-product of industrial processing. if your daughter is not liking it, i would not be using it! i woudl not force it up on her.
see these links for more details about toxicity:
http://www.ecomall.com/greenshopping/fluoride.htm and
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5329003820626343107

good luck!
J.
personal nutrition coach
www.nutrition-in-motion.net

D.,
I have heard that taking fluoride internally is bad for bodies. We use toothpaste without fluoride for our whole family. Your baby daughter has the innate wisdom to reject this toxin! We moved away to the country in part to get away from fluoridated city water. I don't know if there's anything on it at mercola.com, but that could be a starting place for research on it. Just keep her gums/teeth clean and she will do better than with internal fluoride.

D.

Why not buy her the baby water with the fluoride in it? They make them in 1 gallon jugs and in small 8oz sizes to take along in your diaper bag. Also, the water in your town should have fluoride in it, but if your not sure you can always call the township to find out. I have a 20 month old and when we took her for her 1 yr check up the dr told us that we did not need to give her a fluoride vitamin supplement if our water had it or if we were using the baby water w/ fluoride. Hope this helps.

Vicki A.

Hi D.,

How about chewable vitamins? The Dr. can prescribe chewable mulit-vitamins with fluoride or just fluoride tablets. I do know they come in chewable form all 4 of my kids use/used them.

I hope this helps?

Mom of 4 Grandma of 1.

we use "Nursery Water" you can get it at my grocery stores and BRU sells it. when my DD gets juice, it's really 90% water and a splash of juice, so i just the nursery water then. my ped said as long as she gets 10 oz of water a day we are fine and don't need the fluoride drops.

Fluoride is actually quite toxic.
If you look on the side of a tube of toothpaste, it tells you to contact poison control immediately if you swallow more than a pea-sized amount. It's a very dangerous neuro-toxin, and that's actually why they put it in toothpaste, because it's so toxic that it kills or paralyzes bacterium on contact.
If you actually do your own research, you'll find that human use of fluoride actually started with the Russian gulags, where it was used to make the prisoners docile, complacent, and due to its neuro-toxic properties it also kept the prisoners dumbed down and impaired their cognitive function. Look it up for yourself, I'm not kidding!
Don't give your child fluoride to ingest, it's not only unhealthy, it's dangerous.

Hi D.,
I had the exact same experience when I first tried to give my son fluoride. (He is almost 2 now.)I must admit that I don't follow the instructions about avoiding dairy for 2 hours, though. It would be difficult to find a time when he wasn't having milk, and I wanted to be sure we gave it at a time when we would always remember it and almost always be home (since we will be giving it for years to come), and for us, that was first thing in the morning before breakfast. You might want to talk to the doctor about the dairy thing. I know I always took my fluoride pills with milk as a kid and still to this day have no cavities. But anyway, back to the method. We put just a small amount of grape juice in a glass with the fluoride and hold it to his lips and let him drink it. Our son really likes drinking from a glass (and did even when he was first given the fluroide), so it worked for us. The idea of course behind the small amount is that he would drink it all at once. If occasionally, he didn't, we would just save it in the fridge and give the rest later. But that barely ever happens, probably because we usually don't give any other juice to our son, so it tastes like a sweet treat. The grape juice seems to mask it really well, and it's very neat because you're in control of the cup. Now that he's older, he probably gets about 4 oz. or so of juice, I'm not sure, but he always drinks it all because it's the routine. I hope my experience helps. I also wanted to jot a quick note in regards to many of the responses you got about how terrible fluoride is for kids. I was really nervous about giving fluoride at first because I had heard all of the hype about it. But after spending time researching the subject, I came to the opposite conclusion from many of those who responded. Of course, you should call your water company if you haven't already just to be sure that fluoride is not already added to your water. And you should research it thoroughly yourself if others' comments have made you hesitate to give your child what the doctor prescribed. But to call it a poison because it could harm a person if taken in large quantities would render many things "poisons," including water itself and many of its components. No one is suggesting that a child take large quantities of fluoride, just enough to get the proven dental benefits. I don't think it's coincidence that my brother and I have not a singe cavity in either of our mouths, but our parents have mouthfuls of cavities. Furthermore, fluoride is actually present in the water naturally, just in higher concentrations in some areas than others. That's how they discovered that it has the benefits that it has--in certain (rare)areas, people got no cavities. (Or in areas where there was too much fluoride, they had adverse effects.) But there is not usually enough fluoride in water to get the optimal benefits, so adding fluroide brings it up to the most beneficial amount for teeth. If your water does not have fluoride added, then you take the fluoride as a child while teeth are developing. If you call a water company, they can likely give you the specific amount of fluoride in the water--it probably won't be zero. Ours wasn't. But it also won't be high enough to "count" as the fluoride your child needs. Sorry to be so lengthy in my response, but I spent a lot of time weighing the info out there, and my personal conclusion was that the propaganda against fluoride was not very scientific and almost seemed like they were looking for a conspiracy theory. I believe local newspapers often stir up controversy because it gets people fired up and reading. Anyway, I decided in this instance to let the mainstream medical advice be my guide.
Hope you have success with whatever you decide.
M.

Hi D.!
I 2nd the baby water suggestion. I would just call your ped. and ask how many oz. of nursery water she would need in lieu of the drops. Then just make sure she gets that much in a day and you are set! If your ped. also says 10oz (like Christine’s did below), that will be easy to get in her. Most sippy cups hold 8-12oz, so you’re just talking about 1-1.5 full cups of water a day--- hopefully she’s already getting at least that much, especially during the hot summer!
PS—Target sells big jugs of the nursery water with a spout that is really easy to use. You can just put it on the counter or on a shelf in your fridge and dispense the water without having to lift the container! I find them in the baby section in the formula isle of Target.

Hi D.,
When my son was around 15 months we switched to the poly vi flor chewables - they come in grape, orange, & cherry flavor (all mixed together). They come in the appropriate dosage for younger children, but aren't usually recommended until they are older for fear of choking. I asked our doctor to switch to them, b/c he refused the drops (and I can't blame him! They smell and taste horrible!). If your daughter can chew, maybe you could switch to those. Good LUck!

I never heard of this either and I made a point of asking about fluoride as I had my dental cavities as a child! The doc and dentist told me that our daughter should be fine with municipal water (we use Brita, which improves taste, but doesn't remove the fluoride) and after 18 months, we started with a dab of kids' toothpaste on the brush. The dentist explained that the recommendation of a "pea-sized" amount is to keep the toxicity down if the kids injest it. So we did less than that, just to get her teeth exposed to it. She's now about 28 months and is working on spitting, so toothbrushing is a lot of fun;)

Relax...she'll be fine!

You may need different flouride-my toddlers get half a dropper right in their mouths every night after brushing teeth-they love it, it tastes like peaches..I didn't hear anything about dairy, but they haven't had milk for at least an hour or two before bed....You might ask your doctor for something different if your little one is so sensitive to this one.