I used to dread Halloween.
As a dentist, it felt like an evening devoted to all the things I used to be attempting to guard my sufferers from.
Buckets of sweet. Soda. Sticky caramel. Acid baths for enamel. It’s a nightmare for any dentist!
However after practically forty years as a dentist—and a dad—I see it otherwise now.
Halloween isn’t the enemy. It’s a mirror.
It displays our society’s tradition of sweet worship—how we have fun, join, and train our youngsters what traditions and holidays appear like.
I’m not proposing that we swing to the opposite excessive—imagine me, I perceive how lame it’s to cross out apples Halloween night time.
However there are methods to affix in on the enjoyable with out passing down a tradition of sweet worship.
So I believed I’d share a number of of our household rituals.
Possibly they’ll encourage a brand new one in yours.
1. It’s Not the Sugar. It’s the Frequency.
Each time you eat a chunk of sweet, your mouth turns acidic for about thirty minutes.
That’s how cavities kind—not from one piece of sweet, however from many small hits, when enamel don’t have a change to “re” mineralize once more after they “de” mineralize.
The repair is not to take sweet away. It’s to show restoration – spacing it out, rinsing with water, letting the mouth reset.
👉What I like to recommend: Supply water or xylitol gum alongside the sweet binge. When you’ll be able to, steer children towards sweet like Snickers over lollipops—a Snickers is gone in a number of fast bites (and the nuts assist fulfill), whereas a lollipop retains the mouth bathed in sugar and acid for ten, typically twenty minutes. It’s how lengthy enamel are uncovered to sugar, not how a lot sugar.
2. The Trick No One Thinks About: Water
When my grandkids go trick-or-treating, every carries a water bottle.
Rinsing with water between candies resets the mouth’s pH. It protects enamel. It retains saliva flowing.
👉What I like to recommend: Earlier than we head out, we make this straightforward magnesium drink. It retains electrolytes balanced and replaces the magnesium your physique burns by processing sugar. Encourage them to sip it in between homes.
Magnesium is crucial as a result of it helps saliva—the mouth’s built-in restore system. Saliva neutralizes acid and brings minerals again into enamel. When magnesium runs low, saliva movement slows, and your enamel keep acidic longer.
So water and magnesium collectively assist the mouth get better between treats. That’s the true “trick.” The children don’t care about any of this, after all. They simply love attending to have one more deal with!
3. The best way to get sweet out of the home the following day (with no battle)
At our home, we used to finish the night time with the Nice Pumpkin. After trick-or-treating, the children would go away their sweet out in a single day.
Within the morning, they’d discover instead a brief observe from the Nice Pumpkin, thanking them for sharing their sweet with different children, alongside a toy that they’d been wanting (it’s like a second Christmas!)
4. Feed ‘em actual meals earlier than the frenzy
I used to cook dinner the children’ favourite meal earlier than we’d head out for trick-or-treating. What I used to be doing was loading them up with protein and fats earlier than they exit, getting them full and steadying their blood sugar.
5. Don’t flip sweet into forbidden fruit
Once you get house, discuss, snigger, unwind. Don’t make the sweet an enormous deal. The extra power you give it, the extra energy it has.
Children choose up on our nervousness. In the event that they sense that sweet is forbidden or harmful, it turns into one thing they crave much more. That’s once you begin discovering wrappers below the mattress.
Allow them to have their enjoyable that night time. Get pleasure from it with them. Then get the sweet out of the home and transfer on.
When sweet isn’t the focus, it loses its pull!
You don’t have to decide on between being the enjoyable grownup and the wholesome one.
You could be each!
Let’s de-center sweet this Halloween and give attention to the actual deal with.
-Dr. B
P.S. What are your Halloween rituals? Do you may have your individual model of the Nice Pumpkin? I’d love to listen to the way you make the night time enjoyable in your loved ones. Reply and inform me.