TOOTHFAIRY FORGOT HER DUTY!

Yes, the toothfairy forgot her duty and Mew had to resort to the help of a dentist instead. Last week we discovered that one of Mew's lower permanent front tooth had budded whereas her milk tooth showed no sign of getting loose or imminent falling (Thanks to our care for her dental health, Mew has perfect milk teeth with no cavity nor coloured spots). We had to take Mew to the dentist and he quickly extracted her two lower milk front teeth to give space for the permanent ones to grow. Mew was so brave to experience her first tooth extraction case without any fuss or cry. She was even more proud to bring home her extracted teeth as a souvenir. Now we have to remind her everyday to push her tongue against the growing permanent teeth so that they can soon advance to be in line with other teeth. I hope that she will not need orthodontic treatment in the future, otherwise it will cost us a fortune, lol.

Here are some advice of taking care of your child's teeth:


Children need to learn how to clean their teeth. Start off by giving your baby a small toothbrush as a toy - bath time is a good time. Start to clean your baby's teeth as soon as they appear. Use a small, soft toothbrush and water. 


When the child is older, introduce small amounts of junior fluoride toothpaste onto the brush. Just put a small wipe of toothpaste on the brush. It is best that your child cleans their teeth the last thing before bed. 

It is hard for children under ten to clean their teeth properly. You will need to help at least once a day. If the bacteria have been on the teeth for a long time, the gums may bleed when brushed. This gingivitis tells you that the gums are unhealthy. To get them healthy again the gums need to be cleaned more often, even if they bleed when brushed.

 

Tips to prevent dental disease:

Here are some tips to prevent decay and sore gums for children:

- Avoid putting infants and young children down with a bottle. Always ensure feeding has ceased before your child goes to sleep to avoid early infant tooth decay.

- Drink fluoridated tap water every day. If you are not sure if your local water is fluoridated, check with your local council.

- Avoid eating sugary sticky foods, especially between meals.

- Avoid sweet drinks and juices, especially between meals.

- Give your child foods that make them chew.

- Brush twice a day - after breakfast and before bed (use a small toothbrush and a small amount of fluoridated, junior toothpaste).

-  If there's no brush, rinse with water.

-  Use dental floss daily from about 3-4 years of age.

-  Visit your dentist regularly.

-  Please do not put honey on dummies to get children to sleep.

 

To mark this important milestone in Mew's dental development, I posted here some eruption charts of children's milk and permanent teeth:

JUMP HIGH AND HIGHER, MY BELOVED DAUGHTER

Mew has become better and better day by day with her jump rope skills. With single rope, she has managed to reach 20 successful skips without stop. This afternoon she even made a significant record of 72 consecutive skips for single long rope skipping (2 of us parents held the rope's handle tips), which is really impressive for her age. [Updated on 13 June 2010: Mew managed to achieve 100 consecutive skips, wow!]. I should mention that she has learnt rope skipping mostly by herself without much of help from us since she was 5 years old.

Rope jumping is very beneficial to your kids (and you adults too). Furthermore, it requires nothing more than a jump rope that costs you barely $1 and lasts rather long. It can be either a single- or a multi-player game and is suitable for both outdoor and indoor context.

Rope skipping will directly contribute to maintaining or improving both health related and skill related fitness components. It is often called the most perfect fitness activity available.

Health related fitness benefits include:

• cardiorespiratory endurance
• muscle strength
• muscular endurance
• body composition (lean body mass)
• flexibility
• as a weight bearing activity, builds strong, dense bones (osteoporosis prevention)

Skill related fitness benefits include:

• coordination
• timing and rhythm
• speed
• power
• balance
• agility

Other benefits include:

• easy to learn
• inexpensive activity
• creative
• fun
• enhanced self image
• social skills

Jumping rope takes immense strength, endurance, focus, and patience, and can be much more than a schoolyard game of chanting rhymes.

To determine the proper length for a single jump rope, check the reference chart below.

	Length		Suitable For the height of
	7 ft.		up to 4'10"
	8 ft.		4'11"-5'3"
	9 ft.		5'4"-5'10"
	10 ft.		5'11"-6'6"
	11 ft.		over 6'6"

To determine the exact length for an individual, stand on the center of the cord.The handle tips should reach your armpits. When you jump over the rope, the rope should just brush the floor beneath your feet. If the cord doesn't touch the floor, the rope is too short. If the cord hits the floor in front of your feet, the rope is too long and should be shortened. The size chart and the individual method are general...optimum rope length ideally depends on how high you hold your arms as you turn the rope with your wrist, thus check where it hits the floor and make any minor adjustments.

Animated demonstrations of skipping skills at all levels can be found here.

KIDS' GROWTH AND BMI CHART

Today a website introduced in "Parents" magazine issue of March 2009 attracted my attention. It is www.mypyramid.gov/preschoolers, USDA's site for parents of 2-to-5-year-olds (Of course you can also browse the master site for more age segments including yours).

The site offers a customized MyPyramid Plan for your preschooler and I then immediately made one for Mew:


I am also curious to know about her healthy growth such as her BMI, her height as compared with those of other kids at her age. So I digged out more links at this page.

I used BMI Percentile Calculator for Child and Teen (Metric version). This calculator provides BMI and the corresponding BMI-for-age percentile on a CDC BMI-for-age growth chart for children and teens aged 2 through 19 years old (For more individual charts on boys' and girls' standard measurement, visit CDC Growth Charts). They also guide you how to measure accurately your kid's height and weight at home. The result showed that Mew is perfectly healthy: "Based on the height and weight entered, the BMI is 16.3 , placing the BMI-for-age at the 75th percentile for girls aged 5 years 10 months. This child has a healthy weight."


The page also offers you the results on a Growth Chart (H120, W23.5):

Phew, so even I am not good at cooking (and honestly I hate cooking), Mew still achieves and maintains a healthy weight. I hope that she will continue this positive trend until she can take care of her own cooking needs. It remains a long way though...

P.S. I think it may be also a good idea to include here a link to a standard BMI calculator for adults so that we parents can check our healthy weight too