Gradeschool Archives - Life with Gremlins

Toddler and Kid’s Tooth Extraction: Healing Process, Food List, and Recovery

I didn’t do anything wrong caring for my daughter’s teeth. I brushed and flossed her teeth regularly. She didn’t sleep with a bottle. She was transitioned to a sippy cup before she was even 2. Yet, unlike her three brothers who had and have healthy teeth, she had severe decay and cavities in her baby front teeth by the time she was 3. It resembled baby bottle tooth decay.

Working with her dentist, we tried to reverse the damage—mineral-fluoride paste (MI Paste), diet changes, even xylitol, but they kept getting worse anyway. When the first tooth chipped, I felt horrible knowing they would probably have to be pulled.

Unfortunately, I was right. She had to have all four of her top front teeth extracted. After her procedure, I was surprised to find how little information was floating about online on the healing process and tooth extraction recovery in kids. I decided to build this page as a result.

Toddler tooth extraction healing process:

Thankfully, a fair amount of extractions in kids are baby teeth. The tooth extraction healing process after the removal of a baby tooth is faster than it is for adult teeth, because the wound is smaller.

The first 24 hours:

Immediately after removal, a clot will begin to form in the empty socket.

Your dentist may have also packed the wound with gelfoam. This is often used because children aren’t the greatest about biting down on gauze the way an adult would, but it serves the same purpose—to absorb and slow initial bleeding.

Gelfoam is white in color, so if you look in your child’s mouth and it almost looks like you can see bone or the remainder of a tooth in the socket, this is what you’re actually seeing. The image below is an example of this. It frequently falls out within a day. In fact, your child may even spit it out shortly after the procedure.

Once the gelfoam is gone, the extraction wound will just look like a hole in your child’s gum. It may continue to weep blood lightly in the first 24 hours. For instance, you may see a little blood on your child’s pillow when they wake up. However, for the most part, the bleeding will stop within a few hours of the procedure.

Common complaints the first 24 hours after tooth extraction in kids:

Beyond bleeding the most common complaints that kids or parents have during tooth extraction recovery in the first 24 hours are:
(expressed as a percent of kids that experienced each in the first 24 hours)
-Inability to eat: 12 percent
-Less active: 72 percent
-Sleepiness: 71 percent
-Pain: 48 percent
-Sore throat: 35 percent
-Vomiting or nausea: 26 percent
-Behavior changes: 24 percent
-Fever: 21 percent
-Cough: 12 percent

Some of these issues are likely a result of the procedure itself rather than the tooth removal, such as sore throat and cough. All of the above are considered normal and not cause for concern with the exception of bleeding that is heavy and fevers that are over 101 F. In either of those cases, you should contact your provider.

Things to avoid in the first 24 hours:

While a clot is establishing in your child’s wound, you should do your best to help them avoid:

-Straw or non-spill sippy cup use (the cups with a valve that require suction)
-Touching the wound with fingers or tongue (this one can be difficult)
-Brushing close to the extraction site
-Vigorous activity

Within a three days after a kid’s tooth extraction:

Mouth wounds heal very quickly. As early as 12 hours after the extraction you may notice the gum tissue is beginning to heal. By day three most parents can see a clear difference in the size of the wound site (the “hole” is smaller). Typical complaints (mentioned above) also begin to decrease.

Once again, expressed by percent of children experiencing each (on day 3 in this case):

-Inability to eat: 12 percent
-Less active: 20 percent
-Sleepiness: This side effect should be gone.
-Pain: 17 percent
-Sore throat: 8 percent
-Vomiting or nausea: 1 percent
-Behavior changes: 3 percent
-Fever: 2 percent
-Cough: 4 percent

Within two weeks after a kid’s tooth extraction:

In most cases by day 14 or so, the gum holes have sealed over completely, though occasionally this can take up to a month. A longer time frame is more common in molars and older children (with larger teeth).

You’ll still see an indention of sorts in the gum where the tooth was as bone hasn’t yet mineralized in the socket. This indentation will become less noticeable as time passes with significant bone formation being complete within 6 to 8 weeks.

What to feed kids after a tooth extraction?

Having covered the tooth extraction recovery time and process, your next question might be what your child can eat after tooth extraction.

You want to stick to soft, non-acidic foods that are unlikely to get stuck in the extraction wound. If the extraction was a front tooth, you also want to cut foods small so that your child can easily chew (or more like mush in this case) them with their back teeth only. You’ll find a list of ideas below.

Side note, if you can, try to get your child to swish some water after meals as well. In the case of toddlers, offering water to drink may be the best you can do there.

Some great foods for after tooth extraction include:

-Ice cream, milkshakes, or popsicles
-Fruit smoothies
-Yogurt or cottage cheese
-Jello or pudding
-Apple sauce
-Mashed potatoes
-Steam vegetables with or without cheese sauce (not al dente, arguably overdone and mushy)
-Boiled vegetables or canned soft options such as peas
-Oatmeal or porridge
-Chicken or beef vegetable soup (do not use a tomato base, mince ingredients small)
-White-sauced pasta with small noodles and meat cut into small pieces
-Macaroni and cheese
-Scrambled eggs
-Bananas
-Berries (strawberries may need cut small)
-Baked beans
-Meatloaf (cut in small pieces)

Once the extraction holes have mostly closed, rice and softer baked goods are also OK, such as bread (without a crispy crust) and soft-top cookies. With front-teeth extractions, again you may still have to cut these into small enough pieces your child doesn’t have to bite chunks off so to speak. This can make things like peanut butter and jelly or tuna sandwich squares, waffles, or pancakes an option (things most kids are a fan of).

When will my child’s tooth or teeth grow back after an extraction?

Finally, at least in my case, I was really wondering when my daughter’s front teeth would grow back in. Obviously, this question only relates to baby teeth, as permanent teeth don’t grow back.

Many of the online eruption charts for permanent teeth such as the one shown below are giving an average range. You may find that your child falls outside of this. For instance, my first son got his first front permanent tooth at 5 years old, while most charts state this happens at age 6 to 7. Teeth eruption patterns are largely genetic and vary from child to child.

However, a study published in the Journal of Dental Research in 2015 did find that permanent tooth eruption was tied to baby teeth eruption. So, if your child was an early teether, they may likewise get their permanent teeth faster. The same holds true for late teethers. Girls also tend to erupt teeth earlier than boys.

Get the Kids in Bed: 6 Tips to Stop Sleeping in with a School Sleep Schedule

I don’t know about the rest of you, but at my house, bed time becomes slightly more flexible in the summer months. Then as a new school year begins we see a rise in early-morning zombie children. While I’ll applaud those parents that actually manage to keep their kids on a school sleep schedule all year long, for the rest of us that first week is often a battle to get kids to go to sleep, stay asleep, and then wake up all at the right times. The question then becomes: is there an easier way to deal with kids that won’t go to sleep for back-to-school? Maybe, I do have a tip or few that might help.

Start early.

Ideally, you should start trying to regain that school sleep schedule before school actually starts. If you slowly move bedtime back to an earlier hour and give wake-up calls earlier as well, the transition goes much smoother– less whining, less grumpy, more sanity. I’ve found shifting an hour each week works well. This also gives you an idea how soon you should start. Simply count how many hours you need to adjust bed time for school, and that’s the number of weeks lead you need.

Know how much sleep your child needs.

Not all kids need the same amount of sleep. If you’re trying to make your child sleep for too long, of course he or she will wake up earlier than necessary and then likely feel tired before bed time and nap– which messes everything up. Here are the average sleep requirements for school-aged children compliments of the National Sleep Foundation:

Also consider your child’s typical sleep habits previously in the summer if they were unregulated. Between the two, you should get a good idea of where to set bed times and wake-up times.

Be consistent.

Next, don’t allow a drastically different weekend sleep routine. While many parents let their kids stay up a bit later on the weekends, try to avoid all-nighters followed by mid-day snooze fests– unless there is a super awesome Doctor Who marathon or something, I mean who could deny a child that joy? A good rule of thumb is not to allow more than 4 hours bed time variance on the weekends.

Prepare your kids for sleep.

There are a few things that can make falling asleep harder on children, including:

-caffeine
-large meals
-snacks high in carbs or sugar
-high-energy activities

…pretty much all the stuff most kids love to sneak. Be sure that your daily schedule sets dinner time well before bed time, avoid desserts too close to bed time, and end the day in a relaxing, calm way. Younger kids really benefit from a routine of sorts as well. Keep it simple. Something like, we brush our teeth, read a book, go to bed. Elaborate routines of any kind are generally an epic fail because they are harder to keep up on. Letting your kiddo have some input on what your bed time routine consists of can also help encourage them to stick to it.

Use the light.

The brain relies on light to gauge when to go to bed and when to wake up, use that to your advantage. Start lowering light levels close to bedtime, eliminate as much light at bed time, and then provide bright light in the morning. On the dark side, black out curtains and low-light lamps or dim-able bulbs are a great start. For the sunshine, switch out your overhead lighting to daylight bulbs (this is also great for plants and beating the winter-time blues) and open those curtains up before your child wakes. Placing your child’s bed in a spot where when curtains are open, light lands on the bed (but not necessarily in their face) is also recommended.

Go to bed yourself.

You certainly don’t have to actually go to sleep, you can just hide in your room with a bottle of wine and your cookie stash if you want, but if there are people about the house being active, your child is less likely to go to sleep. Younger kids in particular worry they are missing something after they go to bed. It can be helpful to retreat to your room with the door shut, so it’s “bed time” for everyone, until your child falls asleep. This is less important of, of course, in older kids.

Have any tips on getting kids on a sleep schedule we missed? Something work well at your house? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

You might also find these helpful tips for achieving an easier wake-up call helpful.

6 Tips to Help Kids Wake Up in the Morning

Who knows who decided stuff like school and work needed to start so freakin’ early, but the do. This means no matter how you’ve chosen to educate your kids, chances are you have to wake them up in the morning. The stereotypical vision of a parent with pots and pans being ignored by a blanket covered kid is not so far from the truth—a squirt gun works well too but brings on some screaming. The truth of this stereotype is many kids are indeed pretty hard to pry from slumber land.

If your child is one of the many, here’s a few ideas that might be a little less fun than a squirt gun, but are also quieter.

Get them on a decent sleep schedule.

If your kids aren’t getting sufficient sleep, it’s pretty logical they aren’t going to want to wake up in the morning. The single most helpful thing you can do to avoid wake-up battles, is to get your kids to bed on time with a decent sleep schedule. I have some tips on just how to do that you can read as well.

Hide the alarm.

Don’t have your child’s alarm right next to the bed where they can just slam it off and go back to snoozing. Put their alarm across the room, under the bed– anywhere out of reach. Bonus points if you change the location of said alarm every night. They even make alarms that will run away from your kids these days. This eliminates snooze buttons, breaking alarms, and redirects the I-don’t-want-to-be-up grumpiness to the alarm and off of you.

Breakfast in bed.

While not all parents have time to make a steaming pile of fruit-laced waffles every morning, having some sort of food ready when your child wakes up can really help them wake up, especially if its accompanied by a c ice-cold drink. High-carb options such as juice give kids some extra, well, juice in the form of a quick blood sugar rise and resulting energy boost, but milk, water– any drink will do. Just make it cold. If your kid can just wake up and kind of sit around when they first wake up they’ll stay groggy and grumpy longer. Eating unlike showers or getting dressed is often something children want to do, so it doesn’t create one more battle, it just gets a morning necessity out of the way earlier.

Play with the heat.

Some kids seem to wake up better if the house is nice and toasty, because there’s nothing appealing about a freezing house. While others find a cold house invigorating—even if it’s against their will. Experiment with different morning temperature levels and you may find one works better than the other. A programmable thermostat can be a great way to crank the heat down while everyone is warm and cozy in bed, then turn it up or keep it down in the morning hands free. These can also help reduce your utility bills.

Turn up the lights.

Light helps the brain signal sleep and wake times. High light, especially sunlight, as a result helps kids wake up in the morning (though directly in their eyes is usually a bad play). Opt for sunlight bulbs in your home, open curtains in the morning, and consider moving your child’s bed to a position where light from said open curtains hits their bed.

Make it worth it.

Finally, you need to find some sort of incentive for your kids to get up in a timely manner. For my kids, it’s the first one up and ready gets first seat pick in the car and hot-water usage in the shower. For your family, you might consider adding it to your chore list or behavior chart, if you have one, which offers some reward for completion. If not, find some natural enticement like the one I mentioned above that you can just point out to your child. Your goal either way is to make getting up more appealing than sleeping.

How do you get your kids up in the morning?