As Halloween approaches, most kids can’t wait to go door-to-door and get all kinds of candy. For dentists, Halloween is the scariest day of the year for other reasons. We all know that candy is not good for your dental health. Gummy and chewy candy can get stuck in your teeth causing the sugar and acid to harm your teeth for longer periods of time.

To help your child avoid hurting their teeth by eating too much candy, here are a couple of strategies you can try this year.

Ration out the candy

When your child returns from trick-or-treating they will most likely dump out all of the candy and start looking for their favorites. While they can have some candy Halloween night, you want to make sure they are not eating too much. A good way to ration out their candy is to make use of small baggies to divide the candy up into smaller portions.

Have a specific area they can go to

Another way you can make sure your child does not go overboard with candy is to set a specific area where they are allowed to trick-or-treat. This can be a certain number of streets or just your neighborhood. This should be done as well so you know where your child is going to be.

Smaller trick-or-treat bag

Another option is to give your child an appropriately sized container to collect their candy. Stores tend to carry different sizes of bags and buckets. You can give your child a smaller bag so that they do not come home with a year's worth of candy.

The most important thing to remember when they get home and have had some candy is to brush and floss their teeth.

 

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