Even healthy children sometimes get bad breath. There are several things that could be causing your toddler to have bad breath, including:
Imperfect dental hygiene:
A build-up of food, plaque or other material in your child’s mouth, on teeth, gums and your child’s tongue can cause your child’s breath to smell bad. More serious dental problems like abscesses and cavities can also give your toddler bad breath.
Soother:
Your child’s soother or even sucking his or her thumb can cause your toddler to have bad breath. That’s because food particles and saliva can build up on your child’s thumb, or an object, and allow bacteria to grow. Those bacteria will smell bad, and make your child’s breath smell bad.
Small objects:
Sometimes, toddlers stick small objects like peas, beans, a piece of crayon or even a small toy up their noses. Those lodged objects can lead to bad breath.
Food:
Just like eating a lot of garlic gives grownups bad breath, eating strongly flavoured foods can make your toddler’s breath smell bad.
Adults often have bad breath when they have a dry mouth, from sleeping with their mouths open, or breathing through their mouth in general. The same thing can happen to your toddler.
Last, but not least, there’s the possibility that illness is causing your child to have bad breath. Sinus infections, reflux and tonsillitis, among other illnesses, can all give your child bad breath.
If you want to solve the problem of bad breath, the first thing you need to do is find the cause. Then address it, and in the mean time, make sure that your child practices good dental hygiene.
