How Much Should the Tooth Fairy Leave?
Back in June, Strollerderby covered the Sherri Shepherd Twitter story when she asked her followers about what they leave for their children from the tooth fairy.
I remember thinking how outrageous some of those amounts seemed to me, although the $5 per tooth that we give our kids may seem exorbitant to others.
I asked around the blogosphere to see what other families are paying per tooth and the answers were interesting as were the types of money parents left:
Candice from Fashionably Organized says, “My children get $2/tooth. My dad gave me a silver dollar for each boy on their 1st lost tooth, but they still think that came from the tooth fairy. We made a point to let them know that the tooth fairy could be a boy or girl. Not to assume it’s a woman.”
Tina from Life Without Pink shared, “My hubby gave my son $10 his first tooth and $5 his second! I told him to give him a dollar. And he lost both teeth within 2 weeks of each other right before Christmas.”
Sharon from Not Your Mom Blog had to scale back a bit, “Usually around $5 but when my youngest started nearly pulling his own teeth that were not that loose to get money I dropped it down to a dollar for a while. He was sort of digging them out seriously.”
Amy from A Million Boxes says, “$5 for first tooth or molars, $1 Sacajawea coins for regular teeth. Our fairy was a slacker, or so we thought we until received a glitter filled letter asking us to either tell our cats that the tooth fairy was NOT a cat toy to be chased and batted at, or to lock them up when the tooth fairy was expected. We gave the cats a stern talking to and the tooth fairy showed up the next night.”
Jessica from Found the Marbles shares, “My son lost his third tooth when he was sleeping at his grandparents’ house. Did they call us to ask what they should give him or tell him that the tooth fairy would come when he got home? Nope. Guess who ended up getting $20 for his third tooth?? There’s a very generous tooth fairy in Grandma’s neighborhood”
Jacqui from Single Parent Retreat said, “My daughter gets $1 for regular teeth and $2 for molars. She no longer believes, but, depending on whether she is at mom or dad’s, she calls us toothmom and toothdad.”
Julie from Just Precious says, “We left 5 gold dollars for the first and $1 golden dollar for each subsequent tooth. We call it tooth fairy money.”
Rajean from Rajean Blomquist left $3 in change for her child and shares the great story in Tooth Fairy Magic.
How much does the tooth fairy leave in your house?
Does your child get anything besides money?
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My husband tried to give our 5 year old 20 dollars. I cut that down to 3. I think 20 dollars is a bit ridiculous when we are trying to teach him about working for his money.. And all kinds of hard work gets him 5 bucks. Do nothing, get paid more? Noooooo siree.
@MD – Yeah $20 seems like a lot. $3 seems reasonable to me. You are so right about teaching them to work.
We’re opting out of the whole thing.
$2 for a toof. (tooth). We thought that was fair.
@BWSF – Why? I am just curious. Not a bad idea.
@Karen – I agree. Good call.
man, when I was a kid it was .50 per tooth….none of the $5/$20 crap. y’all got some lucky kids. The only time we got $5 is if we LET our Pepaw pull out the tooth with his pliars