Hey Christine,

Couldn't not respond when I read this, as it was such a big deal in our house. With two now in tooth losing phases (Caius is awaiting the drop of three (3!) at once!), we have decided on $1 per tooth for now - molars may get more - and either a pack of sugar free gum or a few pokemon or other collector cards. I can buy a huge multipack of these, and hide them to be doled out as needed.

I don't think my original post was as geeky (read: well-researched) as yours, but it is gratifying to know that what I "pay" per tooth is reasonable!

Also, I hate to say it...get used to Laurel feeling slightly miffed at not having everything her peers have. It gets a bit worse for a while, but it helps me to remember that parenting is like a slow cooker. Everything you put in at the beginning (your vaues, lessons about others, etc.) comes out after a long time as something super yummy. At 9, we're *just* starting to see the seeds of this with Gabe. Hang in there.

Hahaha...you crack me up! I love the fact that you created bar charts plotting out discrete and discontinuous data. You even included standard deviations. Totally awesome.

On the flip side, I live in a totally obnoxious parenting zone and even here, the going rate for a tooth seems to be in the $2-5 range. $10 for a freaking tooth seems insane for kids that age!

I missed the original post, but yup $1/tooth roughly here. We did give more for the 1st, but we also tell Ally that the tooth fairy leaves what she can. Sometimes she leaves more because she knows its her first visit to a child (she got $5 for the 1st tooth - we had no ones!! LOL), sometimes less if she has to visit lots and lots of houses in 1 night.

We are waiting on #'s 4,5,6 to fall any day now.

1$ coin in our house. Now here is my understanding of the fairy thing. A glass of water is left on the bedside table, in the morning if the water in the glass is pink, it was a female tooth fairy, blue water indicates a male tooth fairy was present. Thanks (?) to our friend and our child's teacher Debbie A. for making me have to also carry incriminating evidence (food coloring) into the room!

Okay, so I may throw the stats here, but I left a twenty for the first tooth, sort of by accident.

My gal had a loose tooth for ages and the night it finally fell out I only had a twenty in my wallet. Short of robbing her piggy bank (which I briefly considered), I had no choice.

Every tooth after? $1. And I keep a stash of singles just in case.

Thanks for such thorough and careful research. I was delighted to participate and glad to see that my roughly $1 in coins is about the norm.

Even trickier than how much money to leave is how to allay your child's fear once s/he realizes that a magical fairy can come into the bedroom and reach under the pillow even though you've said that no "bad guys" can break into the house! THAT was a challenging conversation when my oldest son was about 6.

I think feeling "miffed" by what others get comes with the territory, but create your own traditions for you and your family. I remember reporting to my mom that the Easter Bunny was leaving DVDs, gift cards, and other expensive treats in my friends' Easter baskets. "Well," she replied, "I filled out a comment card and asked that he only leave us candy." I bought it, and I was more than content. :)

Love the data and bar graphs, and the standard deviations were a nice touch.

I agree that $1 seems fair and will likely do that once my son loses his first tooth. I would have gone for the dollar coin idea, but just last week my husband got a bunch of dollar coins as change from a vending machine. The kids were curious about the coins so we gave them each one. Dang, should have saved them for the tooth fairy.

I'm surprised no one as briefed you on the "pixie dust"... it's just GLITTER! :-)

Standard deviations... you are my hero. Glad to know that I fall right into the middle of the bell curve. I used to get a quarter. It would be interesting to plot the amount that we all got vs what kids today get against the rate of inflation to see if parents are really just doing the same thing or whether we are raising our kids in an increasingly materialistic/spoiled society. Whoops, is my nerd showing?

I'm the foreign coin mom, not so clever as frugal. I heard about a kid at my son's school who was getting $20 per tooth and was completely floored. My memory was of getting a quarter for molars, less for the others.

My husband is from England so we travel there every year or two. If we make it over for the Olympics in 2012 my kids should have a good little stash to spend.

Good thing they don't teach exchange rates in kindergarten!

I appear to be on the high end of tooth fairy giving ($2 a tooth but $5 for molars) and let me tell you, I'm feeling it this week! My oldest lost a molar and my middle just lost her second tooth in 3 days! That's $9 in Tooth Fairy outlay in just 3 days!

And can I ask parents to NOT discuss this with kids that aren't your own? Our neighbor told my daughter how her son got $2 AND a gift when he lost his first tooth and my child came tearfully to me to ask why she hadn't gotten a gift too. Oy.

You are hysterical-graphs and all! Your conclusions seem right on! We are within $ range. Thankfully there are a finite number of baby teeth in the mouth or this tooth fairy would be dipping into the college fund. Have to admit the tooth fairy has gone over budget on several occasions, making up for forgotten visits. oops!

We always give a dollar coin, but the tooth fairy also leaves a coin or coins from another country. We love looking at the globe together to find where the tooth fairy might have been recently, and sometimes do a little more research on what it might be like to be a child in that country.

Awsome research Christine! We do $1 so good to hear we are in the range. My other tooth dilemma is what to do with the teeth. Em has only lost 3 ... and I still have them. Am I insane for having a hard time throwing them out? Did anyone comment on what they do with the teeth?

Well done! I'm in the $1 camp, so I feel vindicated.

This is amazing research. It's nice to see that $1.00 still is popular. It's consistent with what I hear at the dental office. Sometimes remembering to be the tooth fairy is the hardest part of the whole scenario. Kids wake up and find out that the Tooth Fairy was "on vacation."

Our toothfairy mostly gave little gifts--biggest one was a chocolate bar with a fairy holding an hourglass to time tooth-brushing. Arts & crafts gifts can be inexpensive, ie sets of 3 paints or markers & a little wooden ornament at Michael's for under $1.
I think we still have a few teeth to go, but I've had to search multiple nights for the last few. My boy says he's testing to see if the t.f. is really me.

I'm a nanny. The family I work for gave $5 for the first two teeth since the loss of them was rather traumatizing. Every tooth thereafter has been $1. I think that is a great price. When I have my own children, I will likely do a bigger $ amount for the first (and possibly last) tooth and then a minimal amount for all teeth in between.

Haha! I love your graphs. We give a dollar coin. That's what my mom did for me, too.

Oh my. Your graphing skills are stellar!

Pretty much the same for all 4 of my kids -- in our house, it's $5 for the first tooth lost and $1 after for each tooth.

Subject to tooth fairy's failing memory, of course ;)

This is great! Love the graphs, and love that you got copies of Ranger Rick as a kid.

We give small toys. The kinds of little impulse buy things they ask for all the time as we walk through Target that I always tell them "No" about. I keep a box of them in my room so we are ready any given night.

I am thrilled to say that somehow my daughter thinks you get a toothbrush from the tooth fairy. I'm sure this will be corrected by her peers very soon, but thankfully she is the first in her class to be close to losing one. And who am I to correct her on that point?

Life may never be this easy again :-)

Oh Christine this is WONDERFUL! We are eagerly awaiting the first tooth, and now I feel fully armed with great data! I don't know about the rest of you, but our son (5 1/2) doesn't really every spend the gift money he receives so this all feels very arbitrary. I am so inspired by the foreign currency idea! I can just imagine the tooth fairy dropping off currency from whatever exotic place she/he last visited. Thanks for the inspiration!

I would recommend placing a few Jolly Ranchers and Jaw Breakers; this leads to an accelerated "tooth loss rate". A rapid TLR leads to a full piggy bank in a shorter period of time. I'm pretty tight with the tooth fairy :-) $1 is the going rate

I absolutely keep their teeth! I bought some cute little coin purses in which to keep them in Chinatown. My mom still has MY teeth. I never thought it was odd. I just thought that's what parents do.

My 10-year-old son has a little box he got from the dentist and he keeps ALL his teeth in there. Who knows how long he'll hang onto them, but it's fun. Just lost his first molar tonight -- boy was he proud of it!

I would recommend this site to any parent looking to add some magic to the story of the Tooth Fairy. My kids loved waking up with their tooth missing and a picture of themselves with the Tooth Fairy overhead in its place. This was a wonderful experience for them and I really enjoyed making the pictures. www.mytoothfairypictures.com

I LOVE this idea!
what a great way to introduce (or expand) the concept of other countries and cultures!!!

Thank you Christine for such a great and informative read.

Hi Cheri, I wanted to let you know an idea that has worked for both of my children ages boy 11 girl 22, no that's not a misstype I refuse still to aknowledge lack of Toothfairy, Santa, etc. some call it silly I call is the best and sweetness of life. Telling your child it's like magic, works sometimes, but we make a magic key, usually made out of colored sheet foam, we put a tag on it that says for the Toothfairy, from, Our Last Name Family, and hang it on the door, outside, and now that they are older on the bedroom door. Hope this helps, we really enjoy all these little milestones, and yes the kids have long ago figured me out they still love to put the key outside for Santa everyear. Enjoy this tell them no one else can use the key because of his magic and the love in his heart are what give it that magic. Stay sweet, KD

5inall, I just put them in the box with their bayb book but having 5 I vote for save one of each child for the baby book and dna, and toss the rest. No guilt mom, you can't and shouldn't save everything. Do you have your teeth from the tooth fairy? most kids think it's gross, so don't feel like you have to keep them. Good Luck, enjoy them all.

K.K. Let other moms do what they want stick to the toothbrush, if you feel like you want to add a quarter or something simple, stick to what you want for her, my girl is 22, college grad. owns her own home with 20% down, and has a great job. You aim her high and she'll fly don't start giving in you have a long way to go and it goes really fast. Best Wishes enjoy her.

Cristine, like one of the other ans. pixie dust is inexpensive glitter usually little girls get all kinds when they start having BDay parties I usually use some of that, or you can pick it up at craft store a big bottle is less than $5, your kids will lose 20 baby teeth, they don't always need to get the same things or amount, coins from other countries are great fun, little notes, this really is the best part of childhood and they will fondly remember it, I refuse to compete with the neighbors or friends at school, I just tell the kids everyone is different so don't expect, it's a gift. Good Luck. Be Sweet to them as long as you can, even at the ripe old age of 22, and even when she helps me prepare for the holidays, I still tell her, I Belive.