I just wanted to share my experiences with all of you.
My daughter who is now 5 years old has a lot of teeth problems, and no she doesn't eat sweet stuff or drink from a bottle. But when she was younger she hated brushing her teeth (still does now but is more strictly enforced). So as a consequence she had lots of cavities on her teeth and I can tell you that sometimes dentists can make you feel horrible about yourself and what a terrible job you did as a parent in taking care of your child's teeth. So if anyone's feeling down about what the dentist has said to you, I know how it feels.
Finding the right dentist that suits yours and your child's needs is basically trial and error. We visited DP Dental at Kovan because it was close to our place, but unfortunately the dentist wasn't competent enough to deal with my kid when it came time to drill because she kept saying her tongue was in the way. So they said they can refer us to a pediatric dentist. But I didnt think it was necessary to go through pediatric dentist, thinking of how much the costs would be, consultation alone with a specialist would be like $80.
After much research we went to GPA @United Square because it had a kids room. I can say that I'm satisfied with GPA only because I think the dentists are very professional and experienced in dealing with kids and that their consultation fees is reasonably (around $35). They knew how to handle them, talk to them nicely to put them at ease and they are able to complete the jobs quite fast (compared to our experience at DP Dental). Also the equipment they use are scaled down to children's size, including the seats. There's also a tv overhead that the children can watch while work is getting done on their teeth. But on the downside they are on the expensive side if you can't use CDA account to pay. One filling was $120 not including gst!
On a recent visit to get fillings, it was discovered that she had a swelling on her gum right underneath her molar. This is called an Abscess and is basically a pocket of pus from an infection in the tooth or root of the tooth. Usually it's accompanied by pain, but my girl didn't feel any pain. To treat it they gave a course of antibiotics to see if the swelling would go down and if not then she would have to do a root canal. A root canal on a 5 year old! Extraction isn't recommended if the tooth can be saved because she won't be losing the tooth naturally till she's 12.
So we went for a second opinion at Q&M at City Square (also based on the fact they had a kids room). The dentist also confirmed she needed a baby root canal. I figured ok since we were there already might as well get it done there and probably cheaper too. They quoted $300 for the root canal and $300 for the stainless steel crown to be done in a second procedure. Price wise I figured it would probably be cheaper than GPA. But after it was done, I really regretted going there. The Dr was insensitive to my child's needs, when she cried halfway because she said she felt pain from the drilling, he kept saying she shouldn't feel any pain as the tooth is dead and rather sternly said to her Why you crying?! I know for a fact that kind of talking doesn't work on my child. It was very heartbreaking. After a week, we came back to have the tooth patched and crown put on it. But because the swelling hadn't fully subsided he wanted to take out the temporary medicine filling in the tooth, which meant drilling the tooth again. My child was already traumatised the first time and cried immediately and said NO and refused to open her mouth and said she wanted to go to the other dentist. I tried to persuade her as best as I could while the Dr looked on and glanced at his watch. After about 20mins it was concluded that he won't be able to do it in this state and that was that. What annoyed me was they still charged us $50 for consultation fee! Just for him to watch me for 20mins trying to calm my child down! All in all, I was really disappointed with them. For DP Dental and GPA, both took photos of her teeth before and after the procedures for record keeping. I felt like they were better equipped with good technology and showed us her teeth on the computer screen before proceeding with any procedures. On hindsight this was probably a red flag I should have picked up when the Dr at Q&M didn't do any of that.
So although I can pretty much guarantee we will end up paying much more in the end at GPA dental, I think they are the best for us. Had we not been so concerned about finding a cheaper dentist, we could have saved ourselves a bunch of trauma and heartache.