Learning sometimes the hard way

When Emma was a baby I did not believe that setting her fall asleep while breastfeeding would be harmful, nor did I think that letting her fall asleep, later on, with a sippy cup with water and juice could harm her teeth. I did not think that young children could get tooth decay this way. I thought tooth decay only came from letting your child eat too many sweets and not brushing their teeth.
Emma brushes her teeth twice a day, always has, and she enjoys it. We keep sweets to a bare minimum, they really are treats in our house.
Emma had a chipped tooth, we brought her to our dentist and he said she had some minor tooth decay, but it was not worth doing anything with her tooth because she was so young. He said just to make sure to keep brushing it and watching it. He said to stop giving her juice, even watered down at night. So, now Emma drinks water and flavoured water for her juice. We buy Nestle PureLife, which is flavoured using Splenda and not aspertame. Of course the kids still get real juice, usually orange juice, but just in the morning at breakfast.
As time went on, I didn't like the look of Emma's broken tooth and the advice to do nothing because of her age.
We decided to get a second opinion, this time we went to a dentist who specializes with children. He didn't like Emma's front teeth at all and knew right away it was from the dreaded sippy cup at night. He wanted to pull Emma's tooth and cap the other three front teeth and two more in the back, all affected by the sippy cup.
Since Emma is not even 3 years old, he suggested that Emma undergo general anesthesia instead of coming to the dental office and getting the procedure done under a local. Getting this type of procedure down at the dental office proves to be too traumatic for little ones.
On January 19, the day after I came back from Montreal, Emma and I headed to the Misericordia Hospital at 6:30 am. Emma had not eaten and drunk anything since 8:30 pm the night before. The only thing that bothered her was not having anything to drink. Emma's dental procedure took about 45 minutes and she did really well.