When I was young, my baby teeth were left to drop by themselves.  I even remembered my mother trying to tie one end of a string to my loose tooth and the other end to a door knob. She was trying to help me pull out my loose tooth by closing the door. Sound so painful right? Of course I resisted!

With easy access to dentists today, the situation might be different for children now.  Brendan’s baby teeth started to loosen when he was about 6 years old.  For him, each loose tooth posed as a threat to him. Why? Because he was afraid to swallow it while eating or sleeping.  Although I could have continued to assure him that we could just wait for the tooth to drop on its own, I was not able to face his fear and sobbing everyday due to a loose tooth. Hence, I brought him to the dentist to remove each tooth that is loose. This effectively removed the stress of both mother and son immediately because although he was fearful of going to the dentist, he was even more fearful of a loose tooth.

I have collected some memorable photographs of Brendan while he was going through the baby teeth dropping process.

Part and parcel of bidding farewell to baby teeth - missing front teeth

Finally 1 new front tooth has grown while the other 1 took about a year!