teethbrushing

[riarambles]

Given the need to accomplish teeth-brushing of infants/toddlers, do you (personally, not generically--I'm looking for anecdotes, not advice per se

Comments

[ailbhe]

We do a mix of self-brushing, medium-good brushing, and thorough brushing. I'm the only one in the house who can do a really thorough job on her teeth, but Rob's getting better with practice. So's she.

When I decide it's time for a proper brushing, it gets done in spite of howls and protests. I stand upright with her standing between me knees, her head against my tummy, held back so her mouth is open. She's too big to pin to the floor effectively anymore.

[tea_dragon]

If you have the luxury of two-parent participation, we stumbled on a trick last night that works quite well for when you really need a thorough brushing. One parent does the toothbrushing, while the other reads the bedtime story. Whenever cooperation stops, the reading stops abruptly. The combination of distraction and instant consequences worked like a charm- well, at least once anyway :)

We use a non-floridated toddler's toothpaste for our two year old, as she tends to treat it like candy and we don't want her swallowing grown-up toothpaste.

[drdoug]

I'm doing it for my lad of nine months. He's not really at a stage where he can do it himself yet, and he only has the four fully erupted teeth, but we thought we'd get him used to it. We're using children's toothpaste - hadn't really occurred to me not to. Only a tiny spot of it, though.

I brush his teeth in the bath, which has the benefits that he's usually happy (he loves his bath), it comes at the right time, and any spillage causes zero mess. He seems to positively enjoy it about half the time, and tolerates it the rest - so long as he's not teething. Absolute best results are when his mum is there too to demonstrate for him. He seems to love having his teeth brushed while she does hers at him!

The hope is that early positive associations will lead to a lifetime of happy, regular and thorough brushing. Well, a parent can hope!

[papermuse]

We brush her teeth first, and then she gets to have a go at it. Its a compromise and once she caught on to it she was fine with it. Plus, we make it a game, doing silly noises and faces while we brush her teeth and she imitates us-it helps get her mouth open so I can scrub those back teeth.

And we started using orajel training toothpaste when she got teeth at 11 months.

[ladyynara]

We let ours have a go themselves, and then we make sure it's thoroughly done after. 3 year old does a good job and willingly lets us brush, almost 2 year old is a bit more resistant, but generally telling her to say "ahhhh!" helps get the jaws open.