SPEAKER_01 0:44

Hello, hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Beauty of Breathing. I'm over here with my dear friend Dr. Rafif. How are you? Hello. How are you? I'm doing great. Let's go live on Instagram too. I want to put my airplane mode. Perfect. All right. Well, we are so honored to have you here with us today. Thanks for accepting our invitation. So I'm gonna introduce I'm gonna introduce it to everybody now. I'm gonna um introduce the topic after, and then we can start. So presenting Dr. Rafiv Tayada, a leading pediatric dentist and sleep dental medicine

Episode Welcome And Guest Intro

SPEAKER_01 1:25

specialist trained at Tufts University, and a top 1% invisalign first provider in Dubai and the Netherlands. She's the founder of Junior Dental and the Pediatric Academy and was voted best pediatric dentist in 2025. With experience across North America and the Middle East, she focuses on modern pediatric dentistry, early airway orthodontics, and myofunctional therapy, working closely with a multidisciplinary team to support healthy growth in children. She's also the author of the children's book, Danny and Sarah Go to Dr. Smile. I have it here. I should have read it out. A proud mother of three, Dr. Tayara, is dedicated to helping children breathe, grow, and smile better for life. The topic today is Growing Faces Beyond Teeth, the Pediatric Dentist's Guide to Sleep Growth and Development. Thank you so much. And we got to see each other in Dubai not long ago. That was incredible.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Thank you for the beautiful introduction. Um yeah, it was nice having you for a couple of days on Dubai.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Oh my gosh, I cannot wait to come back. It was absolutely amazing. And again, my heart's with you guys. I know it's hasn't been easy. We're just mentioning that schools are still closed, they're doing online learning. I can only imagine uh what that may be like for you guys. Is it starting to get better?

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Uh maybe a little bit, but um yeah, hoping uh that will be solved soon. And we all back to we all all go back to uh normality.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Fingers crossed, I had uh uh another interview uh with Aries Circle the other day, and it was somebody that was in Israel. So again, he's like, I hope the signs are not gonna go off, and we have to run to the bunkers. And it's crazy because in America we really have no idea what that is like. Uh, and usually in Dubai, you don't either. So for you guys to have been going through that, it's you know, our heart is with you guys. Thank you. But let's go ahead and start our topic. And I'm probably saying your last name wrong. Can you say it for me? What is it? Your last name.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Tayara, no, you pronounced it. Dr.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Tayara as a top 1% Invisalign first provider, trained at Tufts and founder of Junior Dental. What inspired you to specialize in pediatric dentistry and sleep dental medicine across North America and the Middle East?

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Um, oh my god, it's been a journey. Um, I've been a pediatric dentist for I started my journey in pediatric dentistry 21 years ago. Oh my god, I feel old. Um, it's been a while. I have started um uh a training in pediatric dentistry in Montreal, Canada, and um a big part of our training was was also early orthodontics. And this was my first kind of encounter with

From Cavities To Airway Root Causes

SPEAKER_00 4:26

um, you know, growth and development of children. But then slowly through the very first years of my career as a pediatric dentist, I noticed that there was a cycle of relapse of early childhood cavities that I was seeing when I see children coming back for their three-month checkup, six-month checkup. And I noticed that I um a lot of those, a lot of the reason why those kids um were having relapse of cavities was actually um mouth breathing and uh um sleep-disordered breathing. And this is where I um realized that there's so much more to um understand. And I think that was a shift in my um practice where I stopped treating teeth, I stopped uh, you know, drilling and filling, and I started understanding more the root cause of the problem. Um, and I feel that at that point, um, you know, I started really that shift to what I called modern pediatric dentistry, where I'm not just focusing on root canal treatments and polpotomies and crowns, but I'm really focusing on, you know, what's causing this disturbance of the oral microbiome of a child, of you know, understanding how he's breathing. Um, I started really like, you know, taking zooming out basically uh on children uh and checking their faces, how they're walking, their posture, their swallowing, everything, and really understand um what caused this whole thing in the first place. And if you really dig into paediatric dentistry, you really understand that actually a lot of the foundations start in the very early days, you know, when the baby is born. Um and this is where the problems you know always start. That's why the very, you know, the best focus is to really bring you know pregnant women and do the counseling and really see babies in the in the very first few months when they're um you know, when they're born to understand this whole thing. So this is where really the whole shift uh started, and then you know, the journey started to understand more um, you know, sleep dental medicine. And if you also see like even the programs of of sleep dental medicine have evolved so much, right? And back and back in the days, we didn't really have the references and the programs and the trainings that we've had now. I mean, we're so lucky now to have so many mentors, mentors around the world, and and trainings and programs that kind of guide you through that.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Um, the name of this podcast is The Beauty of Breathing. What does the beauty of breathing mean to you personally?

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Um I've had my own personal journey with breathing because I'm also you know a chronic mouth breather and I've suffered from um allergic uh rhinitis for many, many years, still until now. Um I um I uh I have a lot of family members who you know um uh snores and you know suffer from sleep apnea. So it's it was more of a personal journey for me, um uh other than

Breathing As Architecture And Calm

SPEAKER_00 7:52

you know understanding it for my patients and and trying to to treat and help uh people around me. But for me personally, throughout my career, I feel like breathing is um um is is much more than survival for kids, it's also architecture, it's also the way you know it shapes their face, the it it's it's more of the way um breathing shapes um you know their their teeth, their their face, their jaws. Um, so that's what really breathing um is all about for me.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

I was just at a Bible study right before I got here, and we've been talking about emotions and how to handle our emotions, and we all know we're also moms. It is so difficult to learn something that we didn't learn whenever we were kids and actually be able to pass that down to our children. Last night, Benny, I was really upset, and you know, I was about to go stop crying, like it's fine, just you know, just cut it off. And then I caught myself and I looked at him and I was like, name it, name your emotion. And he thought about it for a second. And he looked at me and said, mad. And I was like, Good, you know, it's okay to feel mad at times, anyways. Uh, in the Bible study, somebody mentioned that one of the ways for us to help with anxiety and things of that uh nature are breathing. Um then I was able to share with them a couple of breathing exercises and how it's related to our sleep and to our health and everything else. I mean, vagus nerve, and you know, everything that we know now in the in the professional world uh of airway that is related. Why do you feel mild breathing is still so overlooked in children today?

SPEAKER_00 9:38

I think it's because it's it's very silent, right? It's not something that screams out loud. And I think most a lot of the things that we do at the you know, at my practice, at the clinic, and also on social media is raising awareness. Um so I feel the more we educate parents on the red flags, right? On what to see, what to look for. And a lot of times when I'm talking to parents, and then I'm trying to, you know, I'm describing, right, the the consequences or the impact of mouth breathing or uh or sleep disorder, what happened

Hidden Signs Of Poor Child Sleep

SPEAKER_00 10:14

is that uh they tell me, oh, you're describing my child, you know, you it's like it's it's like it's like you've been with us at home. Or I also hear uh the mom tells me, oh, but I I've lived with that all my life, right? So you notice that the mom or the dad have had that experience all their lives, and now they're seeing their child going into that same vicious circle. And and now that you know they're hearing you talking about it and the impact on the quality of life, on the concentration span, on the on even like the school records, right? It you they feel that now they're uh accountable to break that cycle and to fix it. And one it's it's it's really funny that what you're saying about breathing for for Benny, but one of the main tricks or behavior management techniques that we learn in paediatric dentistry is when we feel that the child is anxious, we tell them, breathe from your nose or take a deep breath. And especially when we do sedation with the happy gas, you know, this is one of the help that help me calm the child, you know, by asking him, you know, take a deep breath, breathe from your nose, use your nose. Because often when you're anxious, you forget to breathe from your nose and you start hyperventilating from your mouth. And just reminding the child, you know, to use their nose that you know you have to breathe from your nose and from not from your mouth, actually puts him in a in a calming um, you know, uh environment again and allows you to have a more of a positive experience and allows him to gain more, you know, to to regulate his emotions um better. So this is one of the like the simple you know, the most simple tricks in pediatric dentistry, but it works like magic. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Uh, who over here has a child with big emotions? Uh, if you guys do not know, we do these Beauty of Breathing podcast recordings live. So if you're listening, listening to us live right now, write in the comments. Who over here has a child with big emotions? That's another conversation that we had this morning. Uh, and I tried to then I was, you know, I had to bring it over to our airway side. I said uh a lot of times, these children that are not breathing properly, that have bad posture, they have crooked teeth, they have a stuffy nose, uh, it will keep them in this fight or flight instead of the rest and digest. So their sympathetic system is super heightened. They have way more cortisol. So every little thing, you know, even if it's something like, I grabbed this from here, there was Venice and I put it here, and he's freaking out. All of a sudden, like they're big emotions, they feel big emotions. And we always have to ask ourselves uh, is this child constantly on fight or flight? Because they're going to snap, they're going to react way more than a child that feels safe, that has a little bit lower cortisol throughout the day. Can you talk a little bit about what are some signs that seem normal to parents? Because as a mom, I'm like, he's just like that. You know, my child just has resistance to change, which I know it has to do also with reflex integration. Um he just explodes. That's his personality. So, what are some other signs that seem normal to parents, but they're actually red flags?

SPEAKER_00 13:45

So, one of the things that we hear a lot, and that actually makes you think that, you know, it might be related to their sleep or their breathing, is when parents talk and say, My child is difficult, you know, or my child cannot sit still, or uh, my child, you know, bedwetts. And sometimes you you're talking about a child who's like beyond five or six, right? Uh, or wakes up so many times at night, right? He goes to the bathroom at night, you know, that their bladder is just out of control. And those are often kids that aren't difficult. They're often kids that are just sleep deprived. And once you fix, you know, their sleep cycle, once you fix their breathing, you know, they come, you know, you you you actually see that there are no more dark circles under the eyes. You know, you you feel that their their face is like lighting up, you know, you see the the pink colors on their on their faces, you know, throughout the treatments. And um, and we we know today that a lot of those uh symptoms mimic ADHD. And you know, I'm always pushing with you know my team of myofunctional therapists and and psychologists and psychiatrists to please, you know, please send us those kids before labeling them with ADHD, because maybe, you know, we can help, we can maybe reduce the symptoms. I'm not saying that, you know, the ADHD diagnosis might completely disappear like a magic trick, but often it helps a lot, you know, with them regulating their emotions um with them because those symptoms are, you know, they mimic each other.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

I think that it's become so common for people to have crooked teeth. Can you talk a little bit about why do we see more teeth misaligned today? And why aren't we looking at these children or adults with misaligned teeth and thinking like they are not fully healthy? They can, I mean, even people looking at themselves, they think it's just normal. But what are some things functionally that could be happening that they don't even know because their teeth are mishaping?

SPEAKER_00 16:01

I think one of the like like takeaway messages, if any parents are watching us today, is that we don't grow into our genes,

Pacifiers Soft Food And Crowded Teeth

SPEAKER_00 16:10

we grow into our habits. So one of the the I feel the most powerful things for a new mom to know is that the habits that you're gonna you know build your your child on are really gonna be a contributor or trigger factor into building their faces and shaping their faces and their breathing. So um I know that we, you know, we talk a lot in pediatric dentistry about pacifiers and thumbsucking, but we see the damages done every day because it's not just the you know, the the flared out teeth or the buck teeth, as we call them, that are just the consequences. And just a lot of parents they say, oh, you know what, it's okay, he's just gonna have buck teeth now, and then we're gonna fix it later with graces. It's not just that. The damage goes much more beyond that. Um pacifiers that are used for a long, you know, for a long time, with a lot of frequency, with a lot of suction power, what they do is that they they force the you know the tongue to to go down, right? And they change the the swallowing pattern, they change the the way the the child uses their tongue, and they make the the tongue muscle super weak. Um but not only that, they actually stop the or they inhibit the chin from also growing. So what you see in those kids is that you see them at three, at four, and you see them they have a very true, they have a chin, you know, going back that is kind of underdeveloped, and the palate is so narrow and and high arch. And and this is already a very uh poor infrastructure for their breathing, and they have we have to do so much to catch up with their growth later. So the the first pillar, right, of um you know, of uh of growing well with good habits is really ditching the pacifier and the thumbsacking uh soon. I'm not saying it's uh you know it's it's easy, but it's something, you know, when you're aware of it, um, it's very good to have it. And the second thing that I want to talk about that also shapes faces very, very early, and you know, why we have more crowded teeth today is our food. And if you look at you know our industrialized food, we really live now in a world where we really depend on highly processed, modern, soft food. And I feel today that children they don't chew anymore, right? I mean, a big part of your of your treatments, Renata, is just giving them you know hard pieces to chew on, right? Just to train those muscles back. You know, I I call it to my patients, we're taking the tongue and the face to the gym, and you feel that those muscles have been dormant for so long in so many of our uh kids' patients. So, um, so a piece of advice for for parents watching for watching us tonight is that please don't be afraid of you know uh moving slowly from pureees and mashed food to small pieces and allowing, giving, giving the chance to your baby to chew on pieces. And you would be surprised. Um babies and toddlers, they have so like such a big reflex. You know, they are able, those gums are so strong, they can chew big pieces on them. So don't be scared that they're gonna choke, you know. Of course, within the limits, but be you know, be brave and give them uh small pieces to chew on because you're training their face, you're taking their face to the gym and you're allowing them to have um um you know um uh a lesser chance of having crooked teeth.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Uh, what do you as a pediatric dentist recommend for pacifier use since you mentioned pacifier?

SPEAKER_00 19:58

So we I mean, ideally, we want the the baby to stop their pacifier by six months. This is really the window, you know, that you wanna that you wanna stick to. Um and um another advice that I usually give parents is not to grow the size. You know, pacifiers in the market, they do stage zero, stage one, stage two. The best thing is to stay on the first stage and not to grow because the more you grow stages, the more the nipple of the of the pacifier grows bigger. And um another advice would be just to limit the use of the pacifier only at, you know, only to soothe your baby to go to bed and not letting him um be dependent on that pacifier um all night. So I think if we kind of stick to those tips, you would be able to um to wean him off um early and and not to allow to the pacifier to create to you know to cause a lot of damage. Very good.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Um how can a child look perfect? Meaning when they smile and they are young, they have this beautiful straight teeth without any spaces in between them. So they look perfect on the outside, but still struggle functionally. Can you talk a little bit about how uh is a young child supposed to look in terms of their teeth?

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Yeah, so a lot of parents come and tell me, oh, my toddler, you know, has no spaces between his teeth, all his teeth are aligned and straight. So this is a huge misconception because straight teeth don't always mean um

When Straight Baby Teeth Are Warning

SPEAKER_00 21:37

uh you know a healthy smile. And often what we want to see in a toddler or um a child's uh face is um um like good, you know, good strong cheekbones. We want to see um spaces right between uh between baby teeth and also between a teeth if they're on a mixed dentition. So if they have a mix between um adult or grown-up teeth and baby teeth, you want to see some spaces showing because the more spaces you have, the the bigger the jaws are. Um this means that the face is growing in the right way. And um and you also want to see um, you know, a kind of a straight face, right? You don't want to see a chin going back, uh going to the back compared to the rest of the face. This is all this is always a red flag. So so those are one those are a few things that you want to, you know, raise awareness, um, you know, among parents. So big spaces between the teeth, you know, big cheekbones and um And more of a straight face than a chin going to the back.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Um, you say that this starts earlier than most people realize. How early are we talking? And what can we do uh when moms realize okay, my baby is snoring or they're mouth breathing at night or they move around a lot, or children that are still bed wetting, you know, kind of at an age where they shouldn't be anymore. When moms start realizing that maybe my child has an airway issue, what can they do?

SPEAKER_00 23:12

So I always tell parents that you know we need to start putting the pieces of the puzzles together. And one of the, I mean, the that's why it's so important to see them super early. And we're talking the first um very few months of life. We want to see if the tongue is functioning well, we want to see if the jaws are uh growing properly. Um, we want to see the swallowing pattern, right? If the tongue, you know, they can swallow properly, and we want to be able to uh surround them with that network of healthcare professionals that can help them. So often what we do is we do uh an airway assessment, right, with an ENT. We check for their um, you know, um if there's if if there's any allergies, right? Adenoids, tonsils, if there's any fluid in the ears. And often, because even when kids, for example, who remove adenoids or tonsils, right, or they fix the fluid in the ears, we see that 80% of those kids they come back yesterday. I think I have I had a patient who did two removals of adenoids and tonsils throughout five years. So, and still she was snoring, she had sleep apnea that was, you know, um uh diagnosed uh on a sleep test. So this only shows you how much is the power of myofunctional therapy and stimulating again the growth of the jaws. So even though we treated the adenoids, even though we treated the, you know, we we fixed the tonsils, even though we relieved the airway uh and the obstruction in the airway, there will be no positive outcome long term if you don't fix the other pieces of the puzzle. And this is something that we see every single day, and that's why this is not a one-person job. This is a big network of healthcare professionals that work um that surround the child and make sure that every you know check, you know, every item on the checklist is uh is ticked. So often we do the whole airway assessment, we check the back basically, and then the front, and then we guide the growth, and then we we work that tongue out. Um, and this is the only way to have a long-term stability and a positive outcome in a child.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Let's make a very simple and clear list of signs, the top signs, warning signs that parents could be seeing in their children. So I'll say one and then you say one. Okay. All right, so mouth breathing, snoring, okay, bags under the eyes, uh, tired eyes, no spaces in between their teeth if they're little, um, chin to the back, high vaulted palate, yeah, narrow, maybe narrow palate, chewing with the mouth open,

Parent Red Flags Checklist

SPEAKER_01 26:19

um gummy smile. This is getting harder.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Um tongue thrust. Maybe I we should explain what tongue thrust is. Yeah, okay. Maybe you do that.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

Okay, tongue thrust uh could mean that the tongue is pushing forward when they are eating or whenever they are speaking. So if you see your child talking like this with the tongue in between the teeth, or whenever they swallow, you notice that they push the tongue forward, that usually means they have uh atypical swallowing, or it's not it's dysfunctional swallowing. But most times, from my experience, upper jaws too far back.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

True. And one of the things actually that I, you know, one of the signs where I catch a tongue thrust if I don't do an exam, just by the history, is when parents tell me that they just gulp the food, you know, they don't they don't actually chew the food. But if your child you feel that he's just like you know, swallowing the food without like chewing properly, this is already a red flag. So you should investigate a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

Let me see if I can think of another one right now.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

Light in the bed until you know, or past five years old. It's true. Waking up a lot, you know, during the night, you know, for for no reason, like you can't really find a reason. Night errors, night terror. Um, sleep talking can be a sign.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Let's see, uh, not doing good in school. So the inability to focus in school or retain information.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

Yes, a child, you know, who cannot sit still, right? You can you feel that he's just always agitated, or sometimes also what people what pay what my patients report or moms report, they tell me that, for example, their kids, um, even if even though they slept 12 hours, like you know, in one shot, they still wake up tired, they still feel that they're waking up, they don't have a lot of energy. This is also one of the signs.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Or if they wake up at 5 30 a.m. and they're ready to go, but then they crash at seven. So every child is gonna have different symptoms. You may see one that wakes up tired and the other one that's up at 5 30, high cortisol, ready to go.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Very true, very true.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Those are great. I think it was a good lesson. That was awesome. Um, what would you say to the parent who feels something is off but keeps being told they'll grow out of it?

SPEAKER_00 28:55

I say to them to follow their gut feeling, right? Um and moms can really relate to that, right? Sometimes you're told a lot of stuff, but it doesn't sit well in your stomach. So just investigate, dig deeper, get a second opinion, um, you know, read more, and I think you'll um, you know, you'll find someone um who can listen and you know act on it.

Screens Bedrooms And Nasal Hygiene

SPEAKER_01 29:28

What uh what role do modern habits like screens, soft diet, lifestyle play in what we're seeing today, specifically to bad posture? Are we unknowingly setting kids up for dysfunction?

SPEAKER_00 29:45

That is very true, actually. I did um I did a podcast uh two weeks ago just about that, and we were talking about how blue screens um um, you know, today are really disrupting the sleep cycle of children. And um, and one of the one of the biggest things that we can do for our kids is really um you know delay the the time between uh screens and sleep and giving them uh you know what we call a healthy uh bedroom hygiene or sleep hygiene. And a sleep hygiene is all about you know being away from screen, limiting you know, screen time for your children, um allowing them to be outdoors uh a lot, uh fixing you know the temperature of the room, the humidity level, the moisture. Especially in Dubai, we have a lot of mold in um you know in the walls of bedrooms. So um sometimes you know, using a dehumidifier, um, a purifier, uh, you know, also one of the things that I always talk every day uh to patients about is really removing all kinds of soft toys and you know bumpers around the cots and cribs. We we're really surrounded by a society where like we're we're such a consumer society, right? So we have this tendency to just buy sometimes so much unnecessary things to the bedrooms of our kids just because it's cute. But at the end of the day, this all stuff their noses. So it's um it's it's it's a really it's a lesson that I learned also later in life to be super minimalistic in the bedroom uh of a child because the less you have in their bedroom, the more you allow them to breathe better. Yes. And um, and one more trick I always give parents is to use those, those are my favorite. I also use them with my third, uh, with my toddler is the the nasal um the nasal um the the salt the the saline uh syringes. Yes, I love those, and you see so much coming off from the other side, and I feel that giving that to toddlers because they have so many, you know, they have such small lungs and such small airways, so really clearing them on a daily basis, especially when they go to nurseries and to schools and they catch you know viruses and a lot of contamination every day, it's so important to clear their noses on a daily basis. So make it a routine. I know a lot of moms tell me, oh, he's very fussy, it's gonna be a fight, he's gonna hate it, he's just shouting. But trust me, trust me, trust me, I've been there doing it step by step and being so consistent in doing it every day. My toddler asked me to do it now. You know, she's like, Oh, you know, I want to make my nose happy. You know, she feels better, she's she's breathing better, and then she understands now the importance of it. So just be consistent, you know, it just takes a little bit of patience, just so you overcome that that step, and then it it becomes magic.

SPEAKER_01 32:47

It's so funny how our kids start being aware, and that's the step one of my functional therapies bringing awareness to these things. It's funny, Benny also says, My breathe, my nose is not breathing right. I want my nose to breathe like Zoe's because he has way more allergies than she does. Uh, I do have a video on of him when he was about one where I uh teach how to do the naso hygiene with a syringe. Um, and I'll describe a little bit here for whoever's listening. I usually grab a uh bath towel and a wrap around him. It's like that his arms are not going up, he's on my chest, and I hold his chin. Um you guys gotta make sure that you're using distilled water uh or bottled water. It cannot be watered from the sink, please, because you can introduce amoebas and all that, brain-eating bacteria, all that crazy stuff. Um, and then I had a packet that I used to buy of saline. I put that in the water and you fill up the syringe and it just goes on one side, the other side. Do not lay the child's head too much to the side because you're gonna get water to go into the ear. I've had it done to my, I did it myself, and it was the worst headache I've ever had in my whole life. All night long. I thought I was gonna have to go to the ER was so bad.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

Yes, yes. And we should always tilt, you know, tilt the child of the head a little bit um forward. Like that. The direction, the direction of the syringe, uh, it should be towards the septum. So that means towards the midline of the nose. So very, very good. So those are the those are the little tricks, yes.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

I used to wake up in the middle of the night, like if they were sleeping next to me and he wasn't breathing right, I would literally wake him up, take him to the bathroom. He didn't like it, clean his nose, and put him back to bed. Damn, the quality of sleep that he got after that on the last few hours was so much greater than he had gotten in the first part of the night. So it's totally worth it. Um, I do have an interesting fact about me than a lot of people know. When Zoe, uh, when I got pregnant with Zoe, I did buy a crib and all of that stuff, you know, beautiful, perfect room. Zoe never, ever, ever, ever slept in her crib. Ever. So I kept the crib for whenever I was gonna have more children. I lost two babies in between Zoe and Benny. And then one day I said, you know what? I can't stand having this in my house anymore. I need room, we gotta clean out. I sold the crib. It was literally like a month after Ephonara was pregnant with Benny. I never purchased a crib for Benny. He had a regular bed from the time he has a full-size bed from the time he was born to today. Uh, and he slept with me most of the his life, uh, but never bought a crib. So there's so many things that society tells us that we need that, like they were saying, you know, he didn't need a crib. Um, something else I wanted to say about the stuffed animals. He does love stuffed animals. I really recently saw uh recently sought something that I'm going to purchase for his room. And if there's any parent over here, because I had made a child cry one time. I was seeing a patient for initial consultation and she could not breathe to save her life. And then I asked the mom, are there any you know, stuffed animals in the room? She's like, Yeah, she has so many. And I was like, Well, we're gonna have to find something to do with them. And she just busted out crying and never saw me again. And I was like, I'm so sorry. But you know, anyways, um, it's this tube, it's a clear tube that has like a cute, cute feet and a cute head on the top. And you put all the stuffed animals over there so it doesn't take a lot of room, and they're in this big tower, so you can they can still see them. Maybe once a night they can pick one, you know what I mean? But I cannot wait. I'm gonna post as soon as I purchase that for Benny. I'm super excited about that. Oh my god, yesterday. So, yes, yesterday I uh he slept in his room, like I said, all night long without coming to my room. He came to my room, and every night I'm always blowing his nose. He came to my room, he looked at me, he says, I think I know why I can't sleep very well in my room, I can't breathe very well. And he mentioned the stuffed animals. He said, I think it's dirty because of the stuffed animals. Like, oh my gosh, that's so interesting that you're thinking about that. But our kids are so hard to clean them. It is. Oh, anyways, yeah, we've got to find something with our stuffed animals, but I'll share here with you guys.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

But a good tip is just having like have a small play area outside the bedroom and just keep them there because you want to sleep in an area where it's just you know, as as much as possible, you know, away from the dust.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

And I do have uh what are those air doctors, the air purifier in my room. I'm gonna move it over to his room. And we do have carpet now, and I haven't had carpet in my house for 15 years. And I noticed that as soon as we had carpet in the bedrooms, it's a new home that we got, it's our breathing is already affected. So I am going to limit those changes when I'm my rule is no carpets in the bedrooms. I know it's so difficult here in the United States, especially. We feel like it's so comfy, you can step without shoes and it's warm. Carpets are cozy, it's true. Yeah, but it's a it's a big deal when I but it's all about habits, right?

SPEAKER_00 37:56

You know, once you get rid of them, and then you know, you live for a year, then you you feel like you, you know, I don't I don't really need this. Uh-huh. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

I mean, I haven't had it for 15 years, and it was like, oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

Anyway, I want to I want to ask you something. Yes. So I would love I would love it if you enlighten us a little bit about the use of cups in toddlers. So, what do you recommend? And what's um what do you think about because for me, I usually I tell parents to throw the throw in the garbage those 360, you know, non-spill cups, right? Yeah, so I want your you know, two cents about cups. Like if you're a new mom listening, what would be, you know, what would you buy, right? And what would you buy? Because there's so many cups, right? You go to baby store

Toddler Cups Straws And Spills

SPEAKER_00 38:52

and you have 10,000 types of cups, so moms are just lost. So train to have a great tongue, right? To healthy tongue, a healthy jaw function. What cup would you buy?

SPEAKER_01 39:04

Oh my goodness, that's such a great question. Uh, we are for some reason under this thought that children, first of all, really need bottles. Uh, and then from bottles, you go to the sippy cups. And of course, as a parent, oh my gosh, I need to use anything that's not gonna spill. If all you're giving your child is either formula and breast milk and then slash water, if they have a cup with water and the water spills, it's not that bad. You know, now if you're giving juice and things like that that we don't usually recommend, yes, we're worried as a mom because it's gonna be sticky and all that stuff. Benny and Zoe both did not take a bottle. Uh, and I used to put the milk in little tiny cups and they drank from cups. You um be surprised. You'll be surprised how much your young baby or your toddler uh can learn how to drink. So, what I usually recommend to me, the best thing, it's an open cup, a regular open cup, not heavy, easy to hold. Um, have your child sit down to have their drink, hopefully water. Um, and not worry so much about having water in the living room, in the car, in these different places where they might they can totally wait, like until they sit on the table and they have a drink. Uh, in terms of 360 cup, and I with both of my kids, I tried everything that was out there to kind of see how they were gonna uh do. And the 360 cup, if you notice, whenever they drink out of that, they are forcing their muscles so much more, so they're contracting these muscles way more than they're supposed to whenever they are taking a regular sip. So for that reason, I'm not a huge fan of those, but also they're not working their tongue, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

No, it doesn't work in a 360 cup, right? They're just the lips, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:56

They suck and then you know, follow everything exactly.

SPEAKER_00 41:00

Um, exactly. And you would be surprised how much toddlers learn so fast, they're fast learners.

SPEAKER_01 41:06

Yes, and I'm one of those that like if I find something that I really like, I buy like 10 of them. I want to have, and let me tell you how many camelbacks I had for Zoe. I had one in every collar, they were the cutest things because as a mom, what was I looking for? I was looking for one, a cup that was not gonna spill, and two, a cup that uh was easy to clean because how many cups out there? Oh my gosh, there's so much mold, there's stuff you can't clean inside the straw and all those things. It's so difficult. There's so many little tiny parts. So the camelback to me was one of the easiest in you know, to clean. And the issue with the camelback is that it has a thick, wide straw with a slit in the middle, and in order for the water to come out, they have to bite on it. So that already is causing your swallow to be dysfunctional. The proper way to swallow is to have the straw be in front of the teeth, that the straw should never pass the teeth at all. Uh, lips around the straw. That's why puckering and uh practicing this pucker. It's great for uh to teach people how to uh swallow properly. Um and then like that, they can suck the water in with the force that they have with the correct muscles, and then the tongue is there's nothing inside the mouth besides the tongue and the liquid that's going to allow the tongue to make that beautiful peristaltic movement to get all the liquid swollen, uh swallowed. However, um, if you notice any issues with your kids like that, it could be that they have a tongue tight, it could be that they have low tone. Uh, but yes, that's my two cents in a cup. If you can do open cup and start early, start just practicing with them. You're gonna be surprised. Like with Benny, I used to do this thing where he has to pour things into the cup, and I'll be so scared. Oh my gosh, it's gonna spill everything everywhere. And he's like great at it now, you know.

SPEAKER_00 42:55

Exactly. My two-year-old, she drinks from a glass cup and she doesn't even break it, you know, because she just practiced it, you know, early, early in life. And um, so yeah, I mean, so open cup and straw in front of the teeth. Yeah, and and also what I say, what I say also is to the to to parents, especially new, because typically new moms they they always want to go by the book, right? And you know, they're always scared of like spilling and things, but I always tell them, let them, let them spill, you know what I mean? Let them, you know, it's it's also we also forget sometimes to just enjoy the mess, yes, right? Because that mess is part of them learning and failing and learning and failing. But uh, but sometimes because you feel like the modern society, you know, like like, oh no, you know, we can't spill, we can't make mistakes. But I think it's also nice to let them spill.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

Yes, I was such a freak when Zoe started eating to keep her clean. In Brazil, we give kids like baths three times a day, like we're such freaks about clean illness. And I was always wiping her, wiping her, not letting her get food on herself. And I explained to her the correlation of picky eating with that. And to this day, if I ever say anything, Zoe, you're so selective, you're such a picky eater. You know, if I ever mention anything about her not wanting to try things, she's like, You made me like that because it didn't let me get dirty. So yeah, let your kids get messy, get food should be fun. Yes, all over their face. All right, what is the one message you want every parent to walk away after listening to this episode?

SPEAKER_00 44:33

Oh, so many messages. Um, thank you for having me. Um, maybe it would be that um Healthy faces are not created, they are guided. So I think this might be the strongest message today that you know the more you um you know you're aware of the habits or of the elements uh of the face of your child and of their breathing, um, the more you help them um you know to have a guided healthy growth.

Guiding Healthy Growth And Where To Connect

SPEAKER_00 45:09

Because the more you you you get you know to your healthy milestones, one you know, one after uh after another. I think that would be the you know the best message that we can take away today.

SPEAKER_01 45:23

I love that. Before we go, can you share with everybody how can they find you, how can they get your book, how can they make an appointment, and then about the academy if you don't mind.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

Oh, so um you can find me on social media um at Dr. Tayara. Uh and um I'm practicing at the moment. I have uh junior dental, uh, my clinic in uh Dubai. Uh you still need to visit it. And um I also started um a very beautiful practice in the Netherlands. Um uh if you're in Europe somewhere, and um we launched the Pediatric Academy last year that is um that is a website for online education mainly for parents and for healthcare uh professionals. So stay tuned. Lots of information coming soon.

SPEAKER_01 46:19

That is wonderful. Thank you so much. Someone on Instagram asks about sleepwalking. I am going to leave that question for a sleep doctor and I'll post it in my story. So, guys, stay on the lookout for the answer uh to sleepwalk and how it's related. But uh thank you so much. This is so much fun. I cannot wait. And yes, next time I come to Dubai, I will definitely come to the clinic. Uh, it was a quick, quick trip. My first time in Dubai, so I cannot wait to come back. It's such a beautiful place. But thank you, have a wonderful day. I appreciate you being here, and we'll see you soon. Thank you for having me. All right, thank you guys. Bye. Good night.