I am in need of some help and advice. My 5.5 yr old has 'bad' teeth, he has already had 3 fillings done and 2 nights ago I was cleaning and flossing his teeth when a sliver actually came away from his front tooth - it is brown underneath so I assume is decay. I rang our local dental nurse she said it's only a baby tooth don't worry about it. I didn't think much of that so am taking him to see my own dentist.

He does not have an excessive amount of sweet stuff, never had fizzy drink and has juice occasionally with dinner. I brush his teeth myself morning and night, we floss probably 2/3 times a week and rinse aswell. His teeth are a bit yellow and he does get a build up along the gum line, also has white spots on some teeth. As a baby he had constant ear infections and seemed to always be on antibiotics, a couple of his premolars came through with very thin enamel, the dental nurse put a fluoride coating on these.

Is there anything else you think I could be doing? Has anyone heard of tooth mousse to help strengthen teeth? I am feeling a bit useless but have resigned myself to the fact that sometimes no matter what you do they are still going to get decay!

What are your and hubby's teeth like?

Bad teeth can be hereditary.

mine are shocking, DH are bulletproof!

Yeah, this is what the dentist told me, just yesterday, when I got our 16yr old DD's teeth checked out.

Do you live in an area with flouride in the water? Cos I know this makes a huge amount of difference. Yeah, there are some people anti flouride, rah rah.

It could be enamel hypoplasia? - one of my sons (he's now 4) has this and some of his baby teeth are v weak - from when they first came through they had wee white spots and he now has several fillings.

The school dental nurse was treating him initially, but we've now gone to a dentist in the city who specialises in treating children. He identified that along with the weak enamel our son is also a mouth breather rather than nose breather. So our son now has a wee trainer/mouth appliance to wear to help him learn correct oral habits - tongue/mouth in correct position, lips closed, breathing through nose etc. We are noticing improvements with that.

Also we use tooth mousse and like it. We also got him a toothpaste with higher flouride than the kids ones they sell in NZ - Fluor Protector Gel (as he doesn't like the minty taste of adults toothpaste). At the moment his teeth are pretty stable, not getting worse so we're pleased, and hopefully next teeth ok.

Make sure you brush children's teeth really gently as easy to damage enamel.

Like g09's DS, my DD1 has enamel hypoplasia and AB's can cause a deterioration in the enamel as the teeth are developing.

My DD's isn't too bad, seems to mainly affect her molars, she's had no caries (cavities) so far and they've put a protective coating. We are pretty careful with brushing and drinks (water or milk at home, the occasional juice as a special treat at parties, no soft drink).

My dentist was really good, she did say I should insist on the dental nurse seeing him but I was happy for her to fix things up. He actually needed 3 fillings done - he was only seen by the dental nurse in November so not sure if things have happened since then or were just not picked up.

Yip she said probably a lot of his problems come down to constant AB's from the age of 8 weeks (this is when he had his first ear infection) and also genetics. She has put us on to tooth mousse, we are going to see the hygienist also. She said that with the state of his teeth he really needs to be seen by the dental nurse once every 6 months to keep on top of things but I know that's not going to happen. g09 where do you get that toothpaste from? I try and use normal toothpaste but he does hate the minty taste, we use the spiderman one at the moment.

Thanks everyone.