Seems that some babies, with night nursing, tend to fall asleep with some milk in their mouths, and it leads to tooth decay. I had one of my babies get the early tooth decay--and he was basically an all-night nurser. When he started to get decay, we talked to a dentist who told us this--and I decided to check it out...it was true, my son would fall asleep with milk dribbling out of his mouth, never swallowing that last mouthful. And on top of that he nursed every 40-60 min all night! I actually weaned him totally at 20mos because I needed some sleep--I could not just sleep entirely through all his nursing, and had such fatigue and chronic backache by then, due to never being able to fully relax at night. He was my 4th, and the first one to get early tooth decay. I'd never thought about it before then, and my others had night-nursed too (2-3 times a night). He's older now, by the way (almost grown up) and after we weaned, he never had any further issues with his teeth.
Anyway, with my next baby I had this in mind and I would check on her at night after nursing sessions (not all the time, just now and then). And I was amazed to see that she actually DID swallow a couple times once she fell off the breast at night. And never got early tooth decay. Same w/number 6, too. Like most of the others, they'd only nurse every 2-4hrs at night, not all night like my #4 had done.
I'm not saying anyone should night wean--and I didn't night wean my son either, not when the dentist told us this about night nursing and tooth decay. Never crossed my mind at all. I weaned him when *I* really needed to. I actually let him start nursing at nap and bedtime a couple months later, because he hadn't given up asking for it--and that made him happy. But he'd started sleeping through the night by then (2yrs old) and my milk did not return with only 2 sessions a day anyway. I am saying that maybe there is some truth to this claim that dentists make.
On the other hand, our dentist was pretty matter-of-fact and laid back about the whole thing...he said once my son slept through the night, the tooth decay would stop. He said something like "it's only his baby teeth, he'll grow new teeth later and probably won't have further decay issues'. He was right. I guess we were lucky because my son didn't need any major dental work. In fact, when he was 5 and one of his teeth (which he'd chipped in a fall at age 3) started looking pretty bad with decay, he said that as long as it wasn't causing ds any pain, he wouldn't work on it--because he was so soon to lose those baby teeth anyway (it was a front one, of course). And the dentist was right--it looked ugly, but caused him no pain, and fell out within the year. Ds grew some fine new teeth and has no problems since.
Just saying.
I am willing to drive a bit too for the right dentist. Thanks in advance!
) She is a ped dentist and is very good. Her info is:
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