Children's Dentistry in Edgware

A great start in life

At Campos Dental, we believe establishing good oral hygiene habits early is essential for your child’s long-term dental health — and for keeping them out of fear-driven trouble later in life. Our team is gentle, patient and genuinely loves working with children. Many of the families who come to us from Edgware, Stanmore and Mill Hill bring two and three generations through the same practice over the years; we like that continuity and we work hard to earn it from the very first visit.

A child’s relationship with the dentist is built (or broken) before the age of eight. Get it right and they go through adulthood treating six-monthly check-ups as routine maintenance; get it wrong and they spend decades avoiding the chair until something hurts. That’s the case for early, low-pressure, familiarisation-style visits — and it’s the reason our youngest patients spend their first appointments riding the chair, counting teeth in the mirror and getting to know us, with the actual clinical assessment quietly happening in the background.

What we offer for children

Early dental visits (from age 1)

First visits are about familiarisation — sitting in the chair, riding it up and down, counting teeth in the mirror, looking at the lights. These early positive experiences are the single biggest predictor of lifelong comfortable dental visits. Many children will have nothing more than a quick visual examination in their first three or four appointments — no instruments in the mouth at all — and that’s exactly the point.

Fluoride applications

We apply professional fluoride varnish to children’s teeth a couple of times a year. It strengthens enamel and dramatically reduces the risk of decay — particularly valuable as new adult teeth come through. Application takes around a minute, the varnish tastes mildly fruity, and there’s nothing to be done afterwards beyond avoiding hard or sticky foods for the rest of the day.

Fissure sealants

Thin tooth-coloured coatings painted onto the grooves of the back molars. Sealants stop food and bacteria from collecting in tiny grooves that are nearly impossible to clean — preventing decay before it starts. A ten-minute treatment that’s very well-tolerated by children and protects their teeth for years. The first adult molars typically come through around age six and are the most fissure-prone teeth in the mouth — they’re the ones we usually seal.

Orthodontic assessment

We assess children’s bite development from around age 7. Most won’t need braces — but for the ones who will, identifying it early lets us plan the right timing and the best approach. Some bite issues benefit from early intervention while the jaw is still growing; others are better addressed in the early teenage years when most adult teeth are through. We’re honest with parents about which category their child falls into and never recommend orthodontics that isn’t genuinely needed. More detail at the orthodontics page.

Healthy habits for life

We coach kids (and parents) on brushing technique, when and how to floss, and the dietary choices that protect young teeth. Practical, age-appropriate advice — no lectures. The next section goes into the diet detail because it’s where the biggest preventable wins are.

Healthy habits — snacks, drinks and what actually causes decay in children

Most parents we see at the Edgware practice are doing the brushing part well. Where decay tends to creep in is in what’s being eaten and drunk between meals — and the frequency more than the total amount.

Drinks

Water and plain milk are the only two drinks that are genuinely tooth-friendly. Everything else — fruit juice (yes, including the unsweetened kind), squash, smoothies, fizzy drinks, flavoured milks, sports drinks — combines sugar and acid in a way that softens enamel and feeds the bacteria that cause cavities. Fruit juice diluted with water is less damaging than neat juice, but still acidic; a small glass with a meal is fine, sipping it across a morning is the problem. Squash served from a bottle or beaker through the day is one of the biggest decay-drivers in pre-school children. The single most useful change most parents can make is making water (or milk) the default between-meal drink, with fruit juice or squash kept to mealtimes only.

Snacks — sticky vs hard sweets, dried fruit

Frequency matters more than quantity. Three biscuits eaten together as a tea-break treat give the teeth a single exposure to clear afterwards; the same three biscuits eaten one an hour across an afternoon keep the mouth in a low-grade acid attack for three or four hours. Sticky sweets — toffees, fudge, certain chewy candies — are particularly cariogenic because they cling to the fissures of the molars and feed bacteria there long after they’re gone from the rest of the mouth. Hard sweets and lollies that are sucked for extended periods are similarly damaging because they bathe the teeth in sugar for the whole time they’re in the mouth. Dried fruit — raisins, dried apricots, fruit leathers — surprises a lot of parents: it’s marketed as healthy, but it’s concentrated sugar in a form that sticks to teeth as effectively as toffee. We don’t tell families to ban any of these — we tell them to keep them to mealtimes, ideally followed by water and a brush before bed.

When to brush

Twice a day with a fluoride toothpaste, last thing at night and on one other occasion. The last thing at night is the more important of the two — that’s the brush that goes into a long fluoride-soaked overnight period. After acidic drinks or meals, wait around thirty minutes before brushing — enamel is briefly softened by the acid, and brushing too soon can cause more wear, not less. Up until age seven, parents should be brushing for their child or supervising closely — younger children don’t have the manual dexterity to do it properly themselves.

Children’s dental plan

Affordable, predictable care for your child:

• 6–12 year olds: £5/month — 2 exams a year, fluoride, X-rays, orthodontic assessment, emergency cover
• 13–17 year olds: £10/month — adds one hygiene visit a year

Plans start from age six; children under six pay as you go at the standard child examination rate of £25. See full plan details →

Dental emergencies — what to do if your child knocks a tooth out

This is the part we never want any parent to need, but the few minutes after a sports collision or playground fall can decide whether a knocked-out adult tooth is saved or lost — and the difference comes down to what happens in the first half hour.

Call us immediately on 020 3971 2000. Time matters. The longer an adult tooth is out of its socket, the lower the chance it survives reimplantation.

If it’s an adult (permanent) tooth and you can find it:

• Hold it by the crown (the white part), never the root.
• Don’t scrub it, even if it’s dirty — rinse it briefly in milk or saline if necessary.
• Try to put it back in the socket the right way round and ask your child to bite gently on a clean cloth or tissue to hold it in place.
• If that’s not possible, keep it in a small container of milk (not water) while you come straight to us.
• Aim to be in our chair within thirty minutes if you can; even an hour or two is worth trying — but the earlier the better.

If it’s a baby (milk) tooth, do not try to reinsert it — pushing a baby tooth back can damage the developing adult tooth underneath. Bring your child in so we can check the area and rule out other damage, but the tooth itself stays out.

For any other dental injury — a chipped tooth, a tooth pushed out of position, a cut to the lip or gum that’s bleeding heavily — call us straight away and we’ll fit you in. After hours, our voicemail gives you a direct emergency number for urgent dental care.

Building a fear-free generation

With the right early experiences, children grow up without the dental anxiety so many adults carry. We take this part of our work seriously — and we love it. If you’ve recently moved to the area or you’re looking for a new practice for your family, please do get in touch — we’d love to meet your children.