AOMS Pediatric & Children’s Dentistry · Amarillo, TX · Our Services
Comprehensive dental care designed specifically for children — from their very first tooth through their teenage years. Every appointment. Every age. Every smile.
Schedule an Appointment Call Us: (806) 410-1919
Children are not simply small adults — and their dental care should not be treated as though they are. From the moment a baby’s first tooth appears through the complex dental transitions of the teenage years, every stage of childhood brings its own unique set of dental needs, developmental milestones, and opportunities for early intervention that can shape a child’s oral health for a lifetime.
Pediatric dentistry is a specialty dedicated entirely to that journey. Pediatric dentists receive additional years of specialized training beyond dental school — training focused specifically on child development, behavior guidance, the management of developing dentitions, and the creation of positive dental experiences that establish healthy habits and healthy attitudes toward dental care from the very beginning.
At AOMS Pediatric & Children’s Dentistry, we provide the full spectrum of pediatric dental care for infants, children, and teenagers throughout Amarillo and the surrounding area. Our practice is built around one straightforward conviction — every child deserves exceptional dental care delivered by a team that genuinely understands children, genuinely loves working with them, and is genuinely invested in their long-term health.
Whether you are bringing in your baby for their first dental visit, managing a school-age child’s developing dentition, or navigating the dental needs of a teenager, we are here — with the expertise, the environment, and the approach that makes a real difference for children and families.
Ready to Schedule Your Child’s Appointment?
Our Amarillo pediatric dental team welcomes patients from infancy through the teenage years. New patients and families are always welcome.
Schedule an Appointment Call Us: (806) 410-1919
Why Pediatric Dentistry Is Different
Parents sometimes wonder whether a pediatric dentist is truly necessary — whether a general family dentist might serve their child just as well. The answer lies in what specialized pediatric training actually provides and why it matters for children specifically.
Pediatric dentists complete two to three years of additional residency training after dental school. That training is focused entirely on the unique clinical, developmental, and behavioral aspects of treating children — from infants through adolescents. It covers the management of primary and mixed dentitions, the recognition and early intervention of developmental concerns, the behavioral guidance techniques that make dental visits positive for children of varying ages and temperaments, and the management of children with special health care needs.
The result is a clinician who does not simply perform adult dental procedures on a smaller scale — but one who understands how children’s teeth develop, how children process new experiences, and how to create a dental relationship that serves a child well for years. The environment, the communication style, the approach to behavior guidance, the clinical decision-making — all of it is shaped by training and experience that is specific to children.
At AOMS, that specialized approach is reflected in everything from how our office looks and feels to how our team communicates with patients and parents at every appointment.
The First Dental Visit — When and What to Expect
The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry recommends that a child’s first dental visit occur by their first birthday or within six months of the eruption of their first tooth — whichever comes first. This timeline surprises many parents who assume dental care begins when a child has a full set of teeth. It does not — and there are important reasons why early care matters.
A child’s first dental visit establishes the relationship between your family and your child’s dental home. It is an opportunity for our team to assess early dental development, identify any concerns in the primary dentition, evaluate oral habits — such as prolonged pacifier use or thumb sucking — that may affect dental development, and provide parents with the guidance they need to support their child’s oral health at home from the earliest age.
Perhaps most importantly, a first dental visit at age one creates a dental experience before there is any problem to treat. When a child’s first association with the dental office is a comfortable, friendly, low-pressure visit — rather than a treatment for pain or decay — the foundation for a lifetime of positive dental experiences is established before anxiety has any opportunity to take hold.
Learn more about early dental care and what your child’s first visits involve.
Our Pediatric Dental Services
AOMS Pediatric & Children’s Dentistry provides a comprehensive range of pediatric dental services — everything your child needs from their first tooth through the end of their teenage years, all in one practice that knows your family and your child’s history.
Preventive Care
Prevention is the foundation of pediatric dentistry and the most important investment you can make in your child’s long-term oral health. Our preventive services include professional cleanings that remove plaque and tartar buildup that home brushing cannot eliminate, fluoride treatments that strengthen enamel and increase resistance to decay, dental sealants that protect the vulnerable grooves of back teeth from cavity development, and comprehensive examinations at every visit that monitor dental development, bite relationships, and the health of all hard and soft tissues.
Preventive care also includes parent education — guidance on brushing and flossing technique appropriate for your child’s age, nutritional counseling that reduces cavity risk, and advice on habits like thumb sucking, pacifier use, and oral breathing that affect dental development. We believe an informed parent is one of the most powerful tools for a child’s oral health.
Learn more about routine dental visits and what they include.
Dental Examinations and X-Rays
A comprehensive dental examination at each visit evaluates tooth development, the bite relationship, gum tissue health, and the overall growth of the jaws and facial structures. Dental X-rays — taken at intervals appropriate to your child’s age and cavity risk — allow our team to evaluate what is happening beneath the surface: cavities developing between teeth, the position and development of permanent teeth, bone health, and any concerns that clinical examination alone cannot identify.
Our digital X-ray technology provides high-quality diagnostic images at significantly reduced radiation exposure compared to traditional film — a meaningful consideration for growing children.
Restorative Treatment
When decay or damage requires treatment, our restorative services address it thoroughly and comfortably. We provide tooth-colored fillings that blend naturally with your child’s smile, stainless steel and tooth-colored crowns for teeth with more extensive decay or structural compromise, and pulp therapy — pediatric nerve treatment — for teeth affected by deep decay or trauma. Our goal in every restorative case is to preserve the primary tooth for as long as it serves a developmental purpose, maintaining the space and function it provides in the developing arch.
Space Maintenance
When a primary tooth is lost earlier than expected — whether from decay, trauma, or necessary extraction — the surrounding teeth can begin to drift into the gap within weeks, narrowing or closing the space the permanent successor needs to erupt into. Space maintainers are custom appliances that hold that space open until the permanent tooth is ready to arrive, preventing the crowding and misalignment that premature space loss so frequently causes.
Space maintenance is one of the most impactful preventive interventions in pediatric dentistry — a simple, comfortable appliance that prevents complex, costly orthodontic problems from developing. Our team evaluates every case of early tooth loss for space maintenance needs and acts promptly when a maintainer is indicated.
Tongue Tie and Lip Tie Treatment
Tongue ties and lip ties — restrictions of the frenulum tissue connecting the tongue or upper lip to the surrounding structures — affect infants, children, and teens across a wide range of functions: breastfeeding in newborns, speech development in toddlers and school-age children, and dental and orthodontic development throughout childhood. Our team provides comprehensive tongue and lip tie evaluation and laser frenectomy treatment for patients of all ages, with an approach that evaluates the restriction in the full context of your child’s developmental picture.
Dental Emergencies
Dental emergencies happen — a fall, a collision, a sudden toothache in the middle of the school day. AOMS Pediatric & Children’s Dentistry is here when your child needs urgent care. Whether it is a knocked-out tooth, a fractured tooth, a dental infection, or significant pain, our team provides prompt evaluation and treatment to address the emergency, relieve discomfort, and protect the long-term health of your child’s smile. If your child is experiencing a dental emergency, call our office directly.
Behavior Guidance and Anxiety Management
Helping children feel comfortable, safe, and cooperative during dental appointments is a core competency of pediatric dentistry — and one that our team approaches with experience, patience, and a genuine understanding of child development. We use age-appropriate communication, tell-show-do technique, and a warm and supportive environment to guide children through appointments successfully. For children who need additional support, we offer nitrous oxide inhalation sedation — a safe, effective, and widely used option for reducing anxiety and improving the dental experience for children of all ages.
Special Health Care Needs
Children with physical, developmental, cognitive, or medical conditions that affect their ability to receive routine dental care deserve the same quality of care as every other child. Our team has experience and training in the management of pediatric patients with special health care needs and is committed to providing a safe, comfortable, and accommodating environment for every patient, regardless of the challenges they bring to the appointment.
Comprehensive Pediatric Dental Care — All in One Practice
From your child’s first tooth to their last day of high school, AOMS Pediatric & Children’s Dentistry is the dental home that grows with your family. New patients are always welcome in Amarillo.
Schedule Your Child’s Appointment Call Us: (806) 410-1919
Pediatric Dental Care at Every Age and Stage
Children’s dental needs change significantly as they grow — and the care we provide is calibrated to meet those needs at every developmental stage.
Infants and Toddlers — Birth to Age Three
The first dental visit ideally occurs by age one. In the infant and toddler years, dental care focuses on monitoring the eruption of primary teeth, assessing for early childhood caries — the most common chronic disease of childhood — evaluating oral habits and their developmental impact, and providing parents with the practical guidance they need to care for their child’s emerging dentition. This is also the stage at which tongue and lip ties, if present, are most commonly identified in the context of breastfeeding and early development.
Establishing dental care early in this age group does two important things: it allows our team to catch and address problems before they become significant, and it normalizes the dental environment for your child at an age when the experience is new and associations are being formed. Children who visit the dentist beginning in infancy are measurably less anxious about dental care as they grow.
Preschool and Early School Age — Ages Three to Seven
The preschool and early school years are when the primary dentition is complete and the first permanent teeth begin to emerge. This is a critical period for cavity prevention — primary molars are particularly vulnerable — and for monitoring the developing bite and arch form. Dental sealants are often placed on the first permanent molars as they erupt around age six, providing immediate protection for the most decay-susceptible teeth in the mouth.
This is also the age range when speech development is in active progress, making it a relevant time to evaluate tongue ties or other functional restrictions that may be affecting articulation. Early orthodontic evaluation — assessing the bite and jaw relationship as the mixed dentition develops — begins in this period for children with relevant concerns.
Middle Childhood — Ages Seven to Twelve
The mixed dentition period — when primary and permanent teeth coexist in the arch — is one of the most dynamic and clinically important phases of dental development. Primary teeth are being shed, permanent teeth are erupting, the arches are growing and changing, and the foundations of the permanent dentition are being established. Problems in this period — premature tooth loss, eruption timing issues, developing crossbites or bite problems — are most effectively addressed while growth is still occurring and the dentition is still transitioning.
Cavity prevention remains a priority throughout this period. The newly erupted permanent teeth are most vulnerable to decay in the years immediately following eruption, before the enamel has fully matured. Fluoride treatments, sealants, and regular professional cleanings provide consistent protection during this vulnerable window.
Preteens and Teenagers — Ages Twelve and Up
As the permanent dentition approaches completion, dental care continues with a focus on preventing decay in permanent teeth, monitoring wisdom tooth development, addressing the orthodontic concerns that commonly emerge as the full permanent dentition erupts, and supporting the oral hygiene habits that teenagers need to maintain independently. Teenagers often face specific challenges — changing dietary habits, orthodontic appliances that require diligent care, and in some cases reduced attention to oral hygiene during a period of significant independence and activity. Our team works with teenage patients directly, building the relationship and the habits that support lifelong oral health.
Creating Positive Dental Experiences for Life
One of the most important things pediatric dentistry does — and one of the things that distinguishes it most clearly from general dental care — is its focus on the dental experience itself, not just the clinical outcome of each appointment.
Dental anxiety in adults is common, persistent, and consequential. It leads to avoided appointments, delayed treatment, and the compounding dental problems that follow. A significant portion of adult dental anxiety is traceable to early negative dental experiences — a childhood appointment that was frightening, painful, or handled in a way that left a lasting impression.
Pediatric dentistry invests heavily in preventing that outcome. Every element of how we communicate with children — the words we use, the pace we set, the way we introduce new tools and sensations before using them — is designed to give children a sense of safety, predictability, and control that makes dental care manageable and even enjoyable. Children who have consistently positive dental experiences grow into adults who attend dental appointments, address problems early, and maintain the oral health that supports their overall wellbeing.
That investment in the experience is not separate from the clinical care — it is part of it. A child who is comfortable and cooperative receives better care than one who is frightened and tense. The approach and the outcome are connected.
A Dental Home for Your Family in Amarillo
The concept of a dental home — a consistent practice where your child’s care is coordinated, their history is known, and their providers know them as an individual — is one of the cornerstones of pediatric dental philosophy. A dental home is not simply a place to go when something is wrong. It is a long-term relationship with a team that follows your child’s development, catches changes and concerns early, and provides continuity of care across every stage of growth.
At AOMS Pediatric & Children’s Dentistry, we are committed to being that dental home for Amarillo families. We know that every child who comes through our door has a different temperament, a different history, a different set of needs — and we approach each one as an individual, not a patient type. We take the time to know your child, to understand what makes them comfortable and what challenges they bring, and to build the kind of relationship that makes dental care something they can manage with confidence as they grow.
Learn more about our practice and the team behind it.
Trusted Pediatric Dental Care in Amarillo, TX
AOMS Pediatric & Children’s Dentistry is accepting new patients of all ages — from infants to teenagers. Let us be your child’s dental home.
Schedule an Appointment About Our Practice Call Us: (806) 410-1919
Frequently Asked Questions About Pediatric Dentistry
When should my child have their first dental visit?
The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry recommends a child’s first dental visit by their first birthday or within six months of the eruption of their first tooth — whichever comes first. Starting early establishes a dental home, allows our team to monitor development from the beginning, and creates positive associations with dental care before any treatment is needed. Learn more about early dental care at AOMS.
How often should my child see the dentist?
Most children benefit from dental visits every six months for examination, professional cleaning, and fluoride treatment. Some children with higher cavity risk or active dental concerns may be recommended more frequent visits. Our team will advise on the schedule that is most appropriate for your child’s individual situation at each appointment.
What if my child is anxious about the dentist?
Dental anxiety in children is common and completely manageable with the right approach. Our team is trained and experienced in behavior guidance techniques that help anxious children feel safe and comfortable during appointments. For children who need additional support, nitrous oxide inhalation sedation — laughing gas — is a safe and effective option that significantly reduces anxiety while keeping the child conscious and cooperative. We never rush children or dismiss their anxiety — we work with it.
At what age should my child start flossing?
Flossing should begin as soon as any two of your child’s teeth are touching — which typically happens in the back teeth before age three for many children. At this point, a toothbrush can no longer reach between those surfaces and flossing becomes necessary to prevent decay in those contact areas. We provide age-appropriate guidance on flossing technique at every visit.
Are dental X-rays safe for children?
Yes. Modern digital dental X-rays involve very low doses of radiation and are considered safe for children when used at clinically appropriate intervals with proper protective shielding. The diagnostic value of dental X-rays — detecting cavities between teeth, monitoring permanent tooth development, and assessing bone health — significantly outweighs the minimal radiation associated with the procedure. We use digital X-ray technology that reduces exposure further compared to traditional film.
What should I do if my child knocks out a tooth?
If a permanent tooth is knocked out, act quickly. Pick the tooth up by the crown — not the root — and gently rinse it without scrubbing. If possible, reinsert the tooth into the socket and hold it in place, or place it in milk or between the child’s cheek and gum to keep it moist. Call our office immediately — time is critical for reimplantation of a permanent tooth. If a primary tooth is knocked out, do not attempt to reinsert it. Contact our office for guidance. For any dental emergency, call us directly at (806) 410-1919.
When do children start losing their baby teeth?
Most children begin losing their lower front primary teeth around age five to six, with the process continuing through approximately age twelve as the full permanent dentition erupts. The sequence and timing vary from child to child — some children lose teeth early, others later — and both can be within the normal range. Our team monitors eruption timing and sequence at every visit to ensure development is progressing appropriately.
Does my child need dental sealants?
Dental sealants are a thin protective coating applied to the chewing surfaces of the back teeth — surfaces with deep grooves and pits that are particularly susceptible to decay because they are difficult to clean effectively with a toothbrush. Sealants are highly effective at preventing cavities in these areas and are recommended for most children at the time their permanent molars erupt, typically around ages six and twelve. Our team will assess your child’s teeth and recommend sealants when appropriate.
Do you treat children with special needs?
Yes. We provide care for children with a wide range of physical, developmental, cognitive, and medical conditions. Our team has training and experience in adapting our approach to meet the needs of every patient, and we are committed to providing a safe, accommodating, and respectful environment for children with special health care needs and their families. Please contact our office before your child’s first visit to discuss their specific needs so we can prepare appropriately.
Do you accept new patients?
Yes — AOMS Pediatric & Children’s Dentistry is currently welcoming new patients of all ages. Schedule your child’s first appointment online or call our Amarillo office directly at (806) 410-1919. We look forward to meeting your family.
Your Child’s Smile Deserves a Team That Specializes in It
Every stage of childhood brings new dental milestones, new developmental opportunities, and new chances to catch and address concerns before they become significant problems. The pediatric dental team your child sees from infancy is not just performing cleanings and fillings — they are building a relationship, monitoring a developmental story, and investing in a lifetime of oral health that begins with the very first appointment.
AOMS Pediatric & Children’s Dentistry provides that level of care for Amarillo families — specialized, comprehensive, and genuinely centered on each child as an individual. From your baby’s first tooth to your teenager’s last appointment before they leave for college, we are here for every stage of the journey. Learn more about early dental care and how we approach the very beginning of your child’s dental health story, or reach out today to schedule your first appointment.
Welcome to AOMS Pediatric & Children’s Dentistry — Amarillo’s Pediatric Dental Home
Comprehensive dental care for infants, children, and teens. New patients always welcome. We can’t wait to meet your family.
Schedule an Appointment Meet Our Team Call Us: (806) 410-1919