Tips For A Healthy Halloween

There’s nothing scarier for a pediatric dentist than the thought of bags upon bags full of Halloween candy! With Halloween just around the corner, we here at Great Outdoors Pediatric Dentistry would like to provide you with a few tips to help your child enjoy Halloween without turning their mouths into a haunted house!

Tips For A Healthier Halloween

Below are a few tips designed to help your child have a fun and healthy holiday:

• Serve a large, healthy dinner before trick-or-treating on Halloween. This can even be turned into a fun tradition! Many people serve chili, taco stew, or soups in bread bowls as part of a Halloween feast. Making sure your child eats a healthy dinner will suppress their appetite and keep them from binging on all the Halloween candy they collect.

• Make a tradition of going through the candy with your child. Use this as a teaching opportunity and explain the damage that can be done to your child’s oral health by candies that are hard, chewy, or overly sugary. Allow your child to “exchange” these harmful candies for healthier treats or other rewards.

• Once the candy has been separated, you need to set limits with your child regarding the amount of candy they can have and when they can have it. We recommend discouraging between-meal snacking and instead suggest one or two after dinner treats.

• Pass out fun, non-food items to trick-or-treaters. These can include stickers, pencils, temporary tattoos, vampire teeth, or mini tubs of Play-Doh. Other parents will thank you for discouraging overly sugary candies!

From all of us here at Great Outdoors Pediatric Dentistry, we wish you a safe, healthy, and Happy Halloween! To make an appointment for a post-holiday dental checkup, please contact our Dover, New Hampshire children’s dental office today!