The time-honored tradition of Halloween: candy, candy and more candy! Some trick-or-treaters claim end of the night goodie quantities in the triple digits. The night is about more than just sweets though, and you probably want to make sure your child has all the fun in the world despite being in braces this year. So what can you do? You probably already know braces and candy aren’t necessarily the best of friends. Read below for tips on picking out the safest bets and separating out the worst braces offenders.
First Things First: The Ground Rules
Set aside some time to brush up on braces best practices with your child. They’ve been to our practice and learned all about the right and wrong foods to eat, so they’ll be well-informed ahead of time. But it never hurts to revisit the main points, specifically:
- Discuss the candies you agree are the best bet for braces
- Discuss the fact that broken braces mean an additional trip into the office for a repair
- Encourage your child to keep their eye on the prize! By avoiding broken braces, they’ll stay on track to get their braces off on schedule
- Agree that you can both go through their candy together to pick out braces-friendly ones
- Decide whether you’ll donate, freeze or throw out the others
Let your kid know you’re on the same team. You want them to have straight, healthy teeth from orthodontics and you’re here to support them. Halloween is still full of fun, costumes, sweets and good times, even without certain sweets.
Chocolate: The Halloween Hero For Kids With Braces
So here’s the nitty gritty – chocolate, plain chocolate, is a great option for trick-or-treaters with braces. The softer, the better. It dissolves in the mouth without having to be aggressively chewed or bitten. That being said, your child should skip chocolates that contain nuts, crunchy wafer, caramel or other ingredients making the sweet harder, chewier, crunchier or crispier.
Here are other treats that are best bets for braces. Again, the commonalities are that they are soft, dissolve quickly, and are less likely to break or bend wires and brackets:
- Peanut butter cups
- 3 Musketeers
- Soft cookies
- Cupcakes (try chocolate batter with orange frosting)
- Brownies (finish with googly eyes or festive orange frosting)
What They Should Skip
It’s true. The list of Don’ts is longer than the list of braces-friendly candy. But avoiding these treats is really important in the long run, and a good opportunity to show that “short-term pain equals long-term gain,” so to speak.
Here are the candies that are most likely to pop brackets off teeth, bend wires or break wires:
- Hard candies
- Candy corn
- Caramel
- Candy apples
- Anything containing nuts or crunchy ingredients
- Jelly beans
- Licorice
- Lollipops
- Tootsie Rolls
- Whoppers
- Taffy
- Laffy Taffy and similar candies
- Skittles
- M&Ms
- Popcorn
Anything you aren’t sure about, just go ahead and skip it. It’s probably not worth the risk of damaged orthodontics.
Current Patients Of Boca Dental & Braces
We know that accidents happen despite best efforts. Our team will be ready to repair braces broken over Halloween weekend. Please call our office to find out more about availability and pricing. If your child’s braces break, please schedule an appointment as soon as possible. Waiting until the next regularly scheduled visit may be too far away. You can contact our experienced team at one of our two office locations:
- 702-456-0005 (on S. Eastern Ave.)
- 702-960-4484 (on N. Eastern Ave.)
