We see children from 18 months. Not because much needs doing at 18 months, but because the first appointment is the one that decides whether the next twenty are easy or hard.
Most of what happens at a toddler’s first visit is not dentistry. It is a child finding out that this room is boring and safe. If we get that right, everything after it is cheaper, faster and less distressing for everyone.
The knee-to-knee exam
For a child under about three, the exam usually does not happen in the chair at all.
You sit in the chair facing me, knees touching mine. Your child sits on your lap facing you, then lies backwards so their head rests in my lap. They can see your face the entire time. You hold their hands, which sounds like restraint but is actually the opposite: a toddler holding a parent’s hands is not batting at instruments, and does not need anyone to hold their head.
The look itself takes about ninety seconds. I am checking the biting surfaces and, more importantly, the front upper teeth just under the lip, where early decay in toddlers almost always shows up first as a chalky white line. A toothbrush and a torch is most of the equipment.
Then your child sits up, and it is over. Many toddlers cry through it. That is normal and it is not a failure. A crying toddler has an open mouth and is breathing, and I can see everything I need to see. What matters is that nothing painful happened, so the crying stops in the car park rather than becoming the memory.
What we are actually looking for
Three things, in order of how often they change a family’s next twelve months.
Early decay on the upper front teeth. The pattern that follows bottles, sippy cups and overnight feeding. Caught as a white line, it is reversible with fluoride and a change to the feeding routine. Caught six months later as a brown notch, it is a filling in a two-year-old, which is a much harder day.
How the teeth are coming in. Whether the count is roughly on track, whether anything is fusing or missing, whether there is a tongue tie affecting feeding.
How you are brushing. This is the part parents get most out of. We will ask you to show us on your own child rather than describing it, because almost every parent brushes the outside surfaces well and the inside surfaces of the lower front teeth barely at all. Two minutes of correction here is worth more than any product.
Why the first visit is long
An adult first visit here is a full hour, and 10 to 30 minutes of that is talking before any instrument comes out. A toddler visit is shorter in the chair but the same in structure: we talk to you first.
What we want to know is what you are worried about, what your own experience of dentists has been, and what you would like your child to avoid. That last question is the useful one. Parents who had a bad childhood at the dentist often, without meaning to, hand the fear straight down. If you tell us you are anxious, we will keep that out of the room. It also tells us to book longer, go slower, and not stack a treatment onto the first visit.
What we do not do at a first visit
We do not x-ray a healthy toddler. Bitewings usually become useful once the back teeth are touching and we can no longer see between them by eye, which for most children is somewhere around four to six. If there is a reason to take one earlier, we will explain that reason.
We do not do a scale and clean on an 18-month-old. A polish, sometimes, because children enjoy the flavour and it makes the visit feel like it had a point.
We do not treat on day one unless there is pain or an abscess. Even where there is decay, the usual plan is fluoride, a change at home, and a review in three months. If treatment is needed after that, we have already banked two visits where nothing bad happened, which is the difference between a child who accepts a filling and one who does not.
And we do not do orthodontics here at all. If we notice something about how the jaws are growing, we will tell you and refer you. We will not sell you a plate.
The room, from a child’s point of view
There is a TV on the ceiling. Your child chooses the show, not us, and it stays on through the whole appointment. Older siblings often pick their own music instead. This sounds like a small thing and it is not: a child staring at a fixed point above them is a child whose head is still, and a still head means a faster, gentler look.
Parking is on site, which matters at 18 months when the alternative is a pram, a car seat and a hunt for a space on Canterbury Road. Saturday mornings run 9:00 to 1:00, and toddler appointments go best mid-morning, after a sleep and before lunch.
For families where a grandparent does the school run and the childcare pick-up, we can run the whole appointment in Mandarin, Cantonese, Teochew or Shanghainese. The person who actually supervises the brushing needs to understand the instructions, and that is often not the parent who booked.
What it costs
For most families the answer is nothing, because we bulk bill under the Child Dental Benefits Schedule.
CDBS covers children aged 0 to 17 for at least one day of the calendar year, where the family receives an eligible payment such as Family Tax Benefit Part A. The benefit cap is $1,158 over two consecutive calendar years, or $1,132 if your child’s window opened in 2025. It covers exams, x-rays, cleans, fissure sealants, fillings, root canals, extractions and partial dentures. It does not cover orthodontics or general anaesthetic.
Because we bulk bill it, there is no gap on a bulk-billed CDBS item. A practice is not permitted to bulk bill a CDBS service and then charge you a co-payment on top of it.
If you are not CDBS eligible, check whether Smile Squad applies once your child starts school: it covers every Victorian government school student with no card and no Medicare requirement. Public dental covers children 0 to 12, free with a concession card, otherwise $40 flat per child capped at $160 per family.
Otherwise, we have HICAPS on site for private extras, and we are an HCF preferred provider under More For Teeth. You will see the rebate and the balance before you leave.
If your child has already had a bad experience
Some children arrive here having already refused treatment somewhere else. That is a different appointment and we book it differently.
Dr Linda Huang takes most of these. A number of the children she sees have already had a difficult appointment somewhere else, and are treated in the chair here rather than referred onward for a general anaesthetic. The method is not a trick. It is more time, no surprises, and a willingness to end the appointment early having achieved less than planned, rather than push a child past the point where they stop trusting you.
Where a child needs restorative work and cannot get through it awake and unaided, we have happy gas and, for some children, an oral premedication. We do not offer general anaesthetic, and if that is what your child genuinely needs, we will tell you and refer.
Booking
Call (03) 8838 8820 or text 0435 025 318, and say it is a first visit and your child’s age. That changes how long we book.
More detail on children’s dentistry and what a first visit involves. If your child is two right now, you may want whether a two-year-old really needs a dentist, or what to do when a child is scared of the dentist.