12 Tooth Fairy Ideas and Traditions

My five year old has been counting the days, months, years since he was 3 when he first discovered the tooth fairy via his older brother.  Excitedly, for months on end he will ask for me to check his teeth because they are wobbly. Overtime when brother has lost a tooth he remembers his cause and once again begins to zealously check his teeth for a loose one.

One day, his good friend lost his tooth at school and my son comes home with this pathetic look on his face, his lower lip sticking out and in his most whiny voice says “it’s not fair that I haven’t lost my tooth. All my friends are losing their teeth and I am not.”  In my most trying to be serious face  and concerned mommy voice I say “it will come, don’t worry it will come.”

I am Mexican and in our culture we don’t have the tooth fairy we have Raton Perez. Have you heard of Raton Perez?  Yes, it’s a mouse. A cute little mouse that comes at night and collects your tooth and leaves you money.  In most Spanish and French-speaking countries, it’s a tooth mouse not a fairy. Here are some more fun tooth fairy traditions that I read online:

• In Mongolia the tooth is stuck in meat and fed to a dog.
• In Japan the upper teeth that are lost are thrown up the house and the lower teeth are thrown down the house.
• In Slovenia the tooth is replaced with candy.
• In Afghanistan they drop their teeth down mouth holes.
• In Egypt they fling their teeth at the sun.
• In Botswana and Ethiopia children fling their teeth at the roof.
• In the Ukraine you wrap the tooth in a tissue and place it in a corner.
• In Sweden and Argentina the tooth is left in a cup of water for the thirsty mouse.
• In the Phillipines the tooth rat ask the kids to leave the tooth on the window sill.

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I married a man born in the U.S. and the tooth fairy visited him.  I think Raton Perez came to visit me once in my childhood. We didn’t have much money and between three children losing teeth sometimes the coins didn’t make it under our bed.   When our kids started losing teeth we just adopted the tooth fairy not really thinking that we could merge both cultures. That is until I discovered René Colato Laínez, The Tooth Fairy Meets Raton Perez book. If you haven’t heard of this author or this fabulous book you should check out his books that paint a wonderful story of the Hispanic culture in a way kids and adults can understand through beautifully illustrated books.  His book really impacted my view on traditions in our bicultural family. For the most part I would say I have done an okay job merging both of our cultures in our traditions, life style and parenting but in many ways I have dropped the ball.

Rene touches on this important topic of merging cultures in bicultural families via a popular tradition, The Tooth Fairy. I love how he bridges both the Tooth Fairy and Raton Perez traditions in this lovely children’s book. You will have to read it to find out what happens when Miguel goes to bed and both the Tooth Fairy and Raton Perez show up for the tooth.

After reading this book to my boys my 5-year-old looks at me with a twinkle in his eye and says, “I want Raton Perez to visit me. Oh wait, they both can come and I can’t wait.”

Our boys know that “mommy and daddy” are the Tooth Fairy but they still like to play along that the Tooth Fairy will come to visit and we don’t mind playing along with them. My plan for our overly excited 5-year-old is to let him know that both El Raton Perez and The Tooth Fairy came to visit using our Tooth Fairy Receipt signed by the Tooth Fairy and Raton Perez you can find that here.

Does the Tooth Fairy visit your home or do you have another tradition? I would love to hear about it if you have a post feel free to leave it in the comments section so I can stop by and check out your traditions.

Here are some more fun ideas:

Tooth Fairy Receipts in Different Languages from A Mom Not a Professional

Tooth Fairy Boxes from Enchanted Homeschooling Mom

Tooth Shaped Pillow with tutorial

Tooth Fairy Passport Printable

Oil Pastel Tooth Fairies from Housing a Forest

Tooth Fairy Money from the Golden Gleam

Tooth Fairy Envelope from My Paper Pony

Kinder surprise Case to Tooth Fairy Box from Red Ted Art

Tooth Fairy Printable for the classroom and Tooth Fairy Song from Wise Owl Factory

Tiny Tooth Fairy Bag and Tooth Taxi idea from East Coast Mommy Blog

Tooth Fairy Dust from Making Life Whimsical

Catching the Tooth Fairy from Mama Smiles

Other fun post you will enjoy:

Kid Friendly Around the World Recipes

Valentines Day Coupons for the Whole Family with printable

Dental Health Activities for Kids

I was not compensated for this post but the author was so kind to send me a copy of the book, The Tooth Fairy Meets El Raton Perez, that was already on my list of Great Children Books.