Can a parent stay with the child during the cleaning?

Yes. They offered to let my daughter sit in my lap in the chair, with the hygienist working from behind my shoulder. No other office we tried had offered this.

Do they take walk-ins?

No. New-patient appointments were about five weeks out when I booked, so this isn't an option for a dental emergency.

Is the office good for an anxious child?

In my one visit, yes — the hygienist narrated each step before doing it, which gave my daughter a way to predict what was coming. I've only seen one hygienist there, so I can't speak for the whole practice yet.

Is the paperwork done in the office?

Intake forms are completed online beforehand, so you're not filling in forms one-handed in the waiting room.

The pediatric dentist that lets you sit in the chair with them

Some background, because it matters for how you read this.

My youngest had a bad dental visit two years ago — not abusive, nothing reportable, just rushed and loud and handled by someone who clearly wanted the appointment over with. She has been terrified ever since. We have tried three offices. Two appointments ended in the parking lot without anyone being seen.

So I went into this one braced for a fight and fully expecting to write nothing at all.

The thing that made the difference

They let me sit in the chair with her.

Not next to the chair. In it. She sat on my lap, facing me, and the hygienist worked from behind and over my shoulder. It’s apparently a standard approach for anxious kids and I had never once been offered it anywhere else.

The hygienist — I didn’t catch her name and I regret that — also did the whole thing narrating in advance. “I’m going to touch this tooth. Now this one. Now I’m going to stop and you can close.” My daughter had a way to predict what was coming, which is most of what she’d been missing.

We got through a full cleaning. First one in two years.

Practical notes

The waiting room has a genuinely good play area, not the sad two-bead-maze kind. The intake paperwork is online beforehand, which meant I wasn’t filling in forms one-handed while managing a nervous kid.

They don’t take walk-ins, and the wait for a new-patient appointment was about five weeks. That’s the real cost here. If you’re in an emergency this isn’t your option.

Parking is behind the building and there’s a ramp, not just stairs, which I noticed on behalf of a friend who does this with a wheelchair.

Where I’d temper this

One visit. One hygienist. I don’t know if the whole practice works this way or if we got lucky with the person we drew, and I want to be careful not to sell you on something I’ve seen exactly once. I’m going back in six months and I’ll write again then.

But we scheduled the next appointment before we left the building, and my daughter was the one who agreed to it. I didn’t expect to be writing that sentence.