How Much Does Your Tooth Fairy Leave? Question #67
ByWe’ve had an extra little boy staying with us off and on all summer. He’s great to have around, he fits right in with our sons, he eats whatever I put in front of him and he says “Yum, Laura – that was good”. Yes, he can stay anytime.
The other night as I was reading to the boys as they were winding down for bed (The Great Turkey Walk…ever read it? EXCELLENT book!!)…anyway…the other night while I was reading to the boys suddenly our young house guest sat straight up in bed and presented us all with his freshly lost tooth! The book was quickly set aside, Kleenexes were fetched, and the gaping hole in the mouth was proudly displayed. There was much tooth loss celebration all around.
Everyone finally settled back down and I picked the book back up again to start reading. Our house guest, however, sort of just sat there holding his tooth in his hand with a puzzled look on his face as if to say, “Um, what am I supposed to do with this now?” I’m sure if he was at his own house, he would have put it right under his pillow and laid down to dream of the soon-t0-be monetary exchange for his hard earned tooth pulling endeavors. But what’s a kid to do at someone else’s house? Would the tooth fairy even know where to find him since he was in a completely different house in a completely different town?
I stopped reading and suggested that he go ahead and put the tooth under his pillow. He shrugged, nodded and stuck it under the pillow, then lay down to listen to the book.
I continued to read, but suddenly in the back of my mind I began to contemplate what should be done. We were happy to be the tooth fairy for him…but um…when the tooth fairy comes to our house, she is incredibly, totally and absolutely stingy. A tight wad. Barely leaves a thing. Guessing that we may be the cheapest tooth fairy on the planet, I began to grow a little concerned that our friend may be less than excited in the morning when he stuck his hand under the pillow and in exchange for his tooth, he found…a quarter?! Is that IT? After he’d gone through so many years of wearing that tooth and brushing it and chewing with it and smiling with it? Seriously, a quarter?
It was too late to call his mom to ask what she would have done. Plus, I didn’t really want our kids to have any idea that the tooth fairy could actually bring more than a quarter for a lost tooth. As far as they know, the tooth fairy only owns quarters.
We have four kids, which is a total of 80 lost teeth. We’re happy to give them more money for things such as mowing a lawn, but just for losing a tooth? We (um, the tooth fairy part of we) plan to be boring and cheap and continue to always and forever leave a quarter. Our kids never complain. Money is money.
I had no need for worry. Our guest happily presented his quarter the next morning (either he was just being polite, or he was truly happy to have it). But it did cause me to wonder:
How much does the tooth fairy leave for lost teeth at your house? Are we the cheapest tooth fairy people on the planet?
Um, my kids may need to avoid talking to your kids about this subject for obvious reasons.
We always give a gold dollar, it is really special and they don’t want to spend it :) Win Win!
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We always got a dime in our house, granted that was 25ish years ago. My husband and I were planning on giving a quarter to our son when he gets there, so we’re right there with you!
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We have given a dollar for the first tooth and 25 cents for the rest. Granted we only have had one son lose a tooth so far.
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I always got $2 as a kid. I never thought of how quickly that would add up. I’m liking the whole quarter idea.
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When our oldest boy lost his first tooth he was worried about someone breaking into our place to take a tooth. Even if it was a fairy he was scared that someone could do that. He also had issues with a fat man breaking & entering (Santa) and a walking rabbit. I came clean to him, so he gets nothing at our house, but when he’s at my sisters if he pretends so that her kids still believe then he gets $1 a tooth.
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I got a quarter for every tooth I lost…30 years ago!!! lol
My kids get $1 for each tooth, but it’s a rule the ‘tooth fairy’ made up that it has to go into savings.
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We give $5 a tooth, but we don’t really give much allowance, so it’s a great excuse to give our kids extra money rather than just handing it to them. We like them to have money so they can learn to save it for what they want, or just plain learn the value of a dollar. :)
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quarters for us too :)
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Wow….this is a lot of years ago :} I was happy with a dime back in 1960…of course that would buy 2 candy bars back then. Maybe we did $ .50 or a buck. We did give $10 for the terrible awful impacted wisdom teeth extraction (Just to be kind as the child was 16 then..hahaha).
We also had the Easter bunny bring the easter basket with a little gift.(as well as candies) …maybe some cute boxers for the girls to sleep in. Or a couple of pairs of cute undies or socks.
Cupid came in February–maybe a little cactus plant for their room or a piece of stained glass for their window. Or a new pillow case that I had stamped with a little design.
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Nada.Zip.Zero. And they don’t put it under their pillow. :o (yup, regular old fun-haters here)
Considering how much we have spent at the dentist to PULL a lot of those beloved teeth… $5/tooth would be a cheap alternative. Actually my DH told this year’s girls needing additional teeth removed that he’d pay them a dollar for every tooth they removed themselves (instead of paying the dentist over $100 each) They are motivated since they don’t enjoy that part of dentistry either ~ just the videos and ice cream and sympathy hard-earned.
I think I got a dime from my folks. Many years ago. And yes, they paid the dentist to pull some of them. Silly stubborn teeth…
A friend with many kiddos has always given them an extra scoop of ice cream for supper the day they lose a tooth. No tooth fairy stories there either.
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Our tooth fairy brings shiny gold dollar coins. My daughter loves getting one (or two on occasion like the 1st tooth lost, then the 5th tooth lost) and keeps them separate from her other money. She gets very excited about getting her gold coins. the girl at the bank even picks out the shiniest ones for us!! The tooth fairy even leaves a special note every now and then.
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We give $5 for the first tooth and $1 for each tooth after. The tooth fairy only gives gold coins here as well. My 5 year old has her first slightly wiggly tooth now, so thanks for the reminder that the tooth fairy needs to replenish her stash of gold coins!
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Our tooth fairy brings a $1 for the first tooth and $.50 for every tooth after. It’s so cute, my oldest keeps one quarter for himself and gives the other to his little brother. Warms my heart every time!
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We’re right there with you…one whole quarter!
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How timely! My son lost his first tooth last week and was so excited to get a shiny quarter! (and an all natural sucker – I know… gotta keep the tooth fairy in business, though. Candy is a rare treat around here)
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For our first born, we dropped everything and went to frozen yogurt, now we’re doing a much more natural diet and don’t want to deal with the consequences the following day of too much refined sugar. So now we make maple ice cream sometime that week. It’s more expensive than a quarter but it’s a real celebration, and I’ve never felt right about the imaginary mythical figures (but don’t judge those who do).
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My daughter has her first loose tooth and we have decided on $2 bill for her first and a gold dollar coin for the rest.
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We gave a special $2 bill for the first tooth and after that $1 per tooth. I wish I’d thought to start off with the quarter. I’d be much richer now…
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We got $1 a tooth when I was growing up (late 80′s-mid 90′s). But, there were just 2 of us, and we only got money while we were young enough to believe, after that, nothing. I like the ideas of the gold coins. I also have nothing against a shiny quarter. Like another poster on here, we didn’t get allowances or anything like that, so the $1 was a real treat and was usually hoarded until just the right thing was found to spend it on.
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my son hasn’t lost any teeth yet- so we have yet to develop a real system.
I love the gold dollar idea- so special! I have a $2 bill from when I was 5 years old that I never spent- it was so special to me:-)
When I was little, I don’t remember how much I got (a quarter maybe, or fifty cents), but what I DO remember is that “the tooth fairy” always left little “footprints” of gold glitter on the pillow or dresser, and for our first teeth- she left a little note. We thought that was really cool, and while I always suspected it was my mom, those “footprints” always made me hope that there was a real tooth fairy!
And the glitter is (from a mother’s perspective) very cheap!
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We give two quarters for each tooth. They know and expect it. :) Quarters are the best. I think I am a cheapy, compared to my friends, but I don’t care. They’re teeth, for crying outloud. Who ever started the rule that you get paid for growing up?? :) Where’s my retro check?
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We give our boys $1 per tooth. They know that the tooth fairy isn’t real – but they still enjoy waking up to the plastic baggie with a tooth being gone and the plastic baggie with a buck and a note being there. They have saved their notes from “the tooth fairy” so we have a record of what was going on in their lives each time they have lost a tooth. It has been fun!
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We do $1 per tooth when they fall out naturally and $2 a tooth when they have to be pulled (I felt so sorry for my then six-year-old when she had to have two teeth pulled last year!)
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We give $1 a tooth – but my kids know that “tooth fairy is a pretend game” and that Dad is really the tooth fairy. I love to tease them when Dad is out of town and they loose a tooth. Once, one of my children lost a tooth when Dad was on an international trip and I promise, the child believed that Dad flew home in the night, just to put that dollar under his pillow.
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We gave a dollar per tooth. I’m surprised at the people who are doing a quarter – I know lots of people who gave their kids new toys, etc. Please understand that I say surprised in the sense of actually being surprised, not disapproving. My kids actually got less than anyone that we knew. :)
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Ummm, I guess we’re the odd parents out, but we don’t have a tooth fairy at our house. Of course, Santa and the Easter Bunny avoid us as well, so maybe that is part of it.
Often we will get the kids a small treat after losing an important tooth (first, last, one that was difficult to come out). Otherwise, we just give a big hug and say ‘Great! You are certainly growing up!’.
It has worked well for us and our oldest is 17. We have 80 teeth here as well, and have already paid for two sets of braces. Guessing that is enough. ;0
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I try to keep dollar store goodies – a new pencil, a small container of playdoh, sidewalk chalk. Some ranging from a few cents (pencil) up to a dolar (the chalk package). Time to go buy some more as my son has just hit the tooth losing stage!
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We just give them whatever spare change is in our purse or pocket at the time. Sometimes less than a dollar, sometimes more. Even just a quarter is enough to buy a superball out of the machine. They know there is really no tooth fairy, and that she is often very forgetful and two days late. But it is still a fun thing to play with the kids.
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We leave between .25 and $1 depending on what we have around at the time. This last week, however, my soon to be 7yo had a tooth pulled. A ginormous, huge-rooted, looks just like the cartoon teeth, how the heck did it fit in her mouth in the first place sort of tooth. She got $2 for that one.
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Haha! We leave a quarter per kid too -except if the “tooth dude” is late or if we’re on vacation … =D
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Somehow mythological creatures do not come to my house.
We do however celebrate lost teeth. I have a little container full of them from two kids.
Nana on the other hand sends foriegn coins for each lost tooth.
The kids have never expressed sorrow, and I never have to worry about sneaking around.
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We leave $2 a tooth, but we only have 2 kids and we haven’t really done allowances yet. However, that starts to add up, especially when my daughter had to have 5 teeth pulled (for orthodontic reasons) one time! Oh, a cute book to check out is “Throw Your Tooth on the Roof : Tooth Traditions From Around the World”. It tells what kids in other countries do with their teeth!
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none. we don’t do tooth fairy. ha ha!
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We’ve done $2.00 for the first tooth and $1.00 for each tooth after that. We have two boys – and figure $20.00 over X number of years really isn’t too extravagant. But then, we also require them to buy most of their own toys, treats, etc., to use their own money for church offerings, and to keep 1/3 of everything they get in a savings account.
Our tooth fairy also leaves a foreign coin each time she visits. Most are coins my parents and my husband have collected on vacations and business trips…. but a few I picked up on Freecycle. Yup, I posted a WANTED: Foreign coins to be left under pillow by tooth fairy – and actually had several responses. I honestly think the boys prefer the foreign coins to the $1. They look it up the country it’s from on the map, compare the new to their other foreign coins, and tell everyone they see that day that, “I have a coin from …!”
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My two children were adopted at 3 1/2 from overseas and were terrified of anything made up like Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, etc. I was planning on giving a few foreign coins I’ve collected, but the first tooth came out and the thought of anyone coming into their room at night and taking THEIR tooth was devastating. They are happy knowing Mama is keeping their teeth for them.
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I got $2 as a kid, but I’m definitely planning on having the stingy fairy come for my kids’ teeth. They’re still growing their first set. I’m thinking a quarter sounds like a good amount.
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When my kids started losing teeth, their friends were bragging about how much they got- usually from $5 all the way up to $20! So I decided to do things differently. For my daughter’s first lost tooth, she received a letter from her personal tooth fairy, along with a 3 ring binder, a map of the world, some fairy stickers, a half dollar coin (tradition from my childhood, since that’s what I got) and one foreign coin (whatever denomination I could find.) Every subsequent tooth, she got a half dollar and another foreign coin. The idea was for her to find the country of origin, then put a fairy sticker on the map so she could see where the tooth fairy had been traveling. This idea was so popular with her friends, they were jealous and wanted her tooth fairy! :) Even $20 couldn’t compete.
I changed it slightly for my boys. My 2nd child got the same set up, but with a half dollar and state quarters (and a US map). My youngest got a half dollar with any coin, with a different year on it.
Oh, and for each child, I gathered some facts about each country/state/year and put that in the binder. It’s something they’ll keep and treasure forever. Also, I stored the coins in baseball card protector sheets (made for 3 ring binders.) They’ve never spent any of their coins.
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I know I will be in the minority here……we give a quarter, either outside their door (if they aren’t quite asleep yet) or under the pillow, BUT we do not tell the children that a “fairy” is bringing them money. We tell them about that being the practice in many households, but we firmly believe children should be told the truth – mommy and daddy are the “fairies”.
They don’t care – they are just happy to lose their tooth and get their money!
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My husband gets two dollar bills every month as a fun bonus from the company he works for. When our son is old enough to start losing teeth I think we’ll give him a $2 bill for every tooth as long as it goes into savings. :)
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The Tooth Fairy leaves $1 per tooth at our house. That is actually pretty low compared to many of our kids’ friends – some of them get $10 per tooth. Crazy!
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Quarters here, too. But if they have to go to the DDS to get one pulled, they get more. Honestly, we don’t do Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny or St. Nick. Our kids know who their stuff comes from. But it is still fun to put it under their pillow for Daddy.
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There is one big problem with the “Tooth Fairy,” Easter Bunny and (as my husband puts it) “Satan Clause.”
We tell our kids that these characters exist. Then they grow up one day and discover we were LYING to them – there IS no Tooth Fairy, there IS NO Easter Bunny and there is NO fat man in a red suit who leaves presents behind.
Then we tell our kids about Jesus – what do we expect when they grow up and lose their faith? Is it OK to lie to our children?
Do we tell our kids not to lie and then we lie to them?
Sorry, no fictitious characters at OUR house, either.
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When I was little and loosing teeth, some thirty-five years ago, my Brother and I got a quarter for every lost tooth. My Husband and I figured that a nice shinny $1 coin was just about right given inflation and all. We have four kids all about three years apart, so the tooth fairy gets a regular work out around here. We’ve warned the children that the tooth fairy can pop in any time (that’s for when we forget to do the exchange at night) so they always put the tooth straight under the pillow. Once we forgot for several days and had to get creative with a letter from the head office explaining that the tooth fairy had had an accident on the way to our house, she was doing fine, and sorry for the delay.
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Well, I’m glad to see that I’m not alone. We haven’t had any lost teeth at our house yet, but I was thinking a quarter was a good reward. Also, I can’t bring myself to tell my kids things that I will eventually have to explain aren’t true, so we will say the “fairy” is coming, but make it very clear that they can guess if it was either mommy or daddy–no mythical creatures in our house.
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Oh Megan, your note is so convicting!! We have found ourselves having to explain to our son (a year or so ago) that it is really us who leaves something. It felt like we’d lied all along, a bit, but it was one of those sweet things of childhood that we just didn’t want to spoil for him. That being said, we’ve gone the gamut on how much to pay (Dad was sooooo generous!!), so we are now at $1 per tooth (but we only have 1 child!) and “TF” as she’s known in our house also brings a small treat (something very small and not artificially colored, as our son cannot tolerate those). As he’s gotten older and didn’t want to let go of the “tradition” but wanted it to grow older with him, we leave a note. I found several websites with notes from TF, and we just modify them to fit his current situation. It’s a funny, sweet note, and we have saved all of those in his memory book. TF ties the note with dental floss and leaves everything under the pillow at night. At 10 1/2, we are still greeted the next morning with the gaped grin and a huge hug, then we all read the note together and laugh about it! Hope this is helpful!
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I don’t know where we stand on that issue. Our oldest is 3 so we have time.
On a different note, when I helped my parents move last year, I found all of my baby teeth and my sister’s baby teeth. Yuck!
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When I was young we always received a quarter and I was planning on doing that for my kids but my husband did not feel that was enough money.
It has been awhile since my 7-year-old lost a tooth but I think my husband was “comfortable” with $2.00.
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Don’t feel bad – I’m 35 and I still tease my mom about the fact that I once woke to find her pilfering MY piggy bank for change to leave under the pillow. I guess that’s how the tooth fairy worked before ATM’s. :) It’s really just supposed to be a symbolic treat, right? Not a lucrative endeavor!
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We gave $1 a tooth. Sometimes they got a dollar bill and sometimes they got 4 quarters. Whatever mom and dad had! I believe someone got 9 dimes and 2 nickels one time. They were happy either way because they only had a small allowance of their age per month, some of which was tithed and some of which was saved and some was for spending. Once the tooth fairy forgot – she can be dingy that way – and we had to look a long time to find that the loot had fallen behind the bed. Apparently lying about mythical creatures and their doings is not a big problem at our house. I personally like mythical creatures for the brief time they happened in my children’s lives, but totally think it’s okay to nix them. You need to do what works for you.
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Love this type of inquiry and hearing what others do!! Oldest is only 3, but I like the gold dollar coin a bit. A dollar may be more than I’d what to spend, but the novelty of the item is neat, along with the rule that it has to go in the piggy bank. I think I got a quarter or two 20 years ago, and I’d have no problem giving my son a quarter today either.
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