Toddlers: 12 - 24 Months
Brushing Teeth
What do you guys use? Wash cloth, actual toothbrush?
And when do you guys use it? In the tub, after the last feeding?
I would love to brush C's teeth with a real toothbrush in the tub, but she still nurses right before bed. She's really fighting the washcloth, and I'm afraid that I'm not doing enough cleaning for her dental hygiene!
TIA!
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Re: Brushing Teeth
we try to brush/get LO to brush his teeth any way possible. Usually we hog tie and or wrestle him to the ground, sometimes we beg and pled with him in the tub. Very rarely he'll brush if we brush with him, but that hardly works.
We've tried motorized toothbrush, toddler tooth brush and adult tooth brush because he wanted to use daddy's. Just opened one that looked the same. He used it once.
We use the infant toothpaste that has no flouride and is safe to swallow and a toddler toothbrush. She just chewed on the silicone finger thing that came with the toothpaste so there was no real brushing.
We brush her teeth for as long as she'll let us and then she sits and chews on the brush for a while. I want her to like doing it and feel like even if she's not actually brushing, the chewing cleans a little.
ETA: We brush after her bath.
The Nest/Bump sucks and won't let me change my location. I'm in Arkansas, not Florida.
Use brush after bath w/ non-flouride toothpaste.
I brush his teeth while counting to 5 (very slowly) - which was recommended by someone on here, so that he knows when I am done and it is his turn. It's really helped him sit still while I do it.
Then he brushes / chews on it for a few minutes. And now he's started counting too when he's brushing...so cute.
Big Kid Jan 2010
Littlest Man Sept 2012
we also use the toddler brush with toddler tooth paste. dd loves the taste... so much so that she sucks all of the tooth paste off the brush almost immediately then bites down on the brush.
my hubby and i ask her to say "aaahhh" and demonstrate for her = which allows us to get about 4 good brushes in. then we put her down for the night. she doesn't take a bath every night- she takes one every other night. but we attempt the brushing every night.
-Glo
First Surro Journey:
Proud Mommy to:
I use the silicone brush and I brush her teeth right after her last feeding before bed. She's very good at getting her teeth brush.
I then give her the floride which she loves since it's grape.
Hahah, I definitely can relate to this two-man job approach. My husband will be delighted to hear that other men are prancing around singing the Elmo's World theme song with Elmo puppets semi-permanently attached to their hands...
Soooo looking forward to this!
Same here. He tucks his top lip under his front teeth so I can't brush them. I have to wrap my arm around his head so he can't move and then use my index finger to pull his lip up. It is great fun for both of us.
We brush after his evening bottle (which comes after a bath on bath nights). C is luckily pretty calm about it most nights, but I think it's good karma we've earned from the fights we have over clipping his nails.
He has an Oral B toddler toothbrush, I just wet it and do my best to do some scrubbing; he'll sometimes grab it to chew on or play with as well. We've tried Colgate toddler toothbrush and he hates it, so must experiment a bit more with that...
ETA: when he's fighting it, I'll sometimes let him play with his toothbrush while I grab mine and brush my own teeth. It gets his attention and he tries to mimic.
We use the toddler toothbrush and non-flouride toothpaste. DS loves the toothpaste, too, like a PP mentioned. His bedtime routine is that he gets his last diaper change, gets into his pj's, then we go brush his teeth while we say "with some on top and some beneath, they brush and brush and brush their teeth" on our way down the hallway (a line from Sandra Boynton's The Going to Bed Book), then he gets to pick out his 5 books for us to read to him before he goes in his crib.
We sit him on the counter right next to the sink. He likes to fill up his cup with water himself, and run the toothbrush under the water himself, too. Then he likes to watch in the mirror while we brush his teeth for him, and then we let him have his turn to brush. Then he gets a drink of water and we're done!
We have the finger brush and a toddler toothbrush. I feel like we have better coverage/success with the finger brush but she's getting a little crazy with the biting lately. She loves having her teeth brushed and prefers to do it herself using the toddler tooth brush. I give it to her pretty much any time we're in my bathroom (I just wet it, don't put any toothpaste on it). We use toothpaste when we do it for her.
I'm terrible at remembering to brush her teeth before bed, but when I do remember, we do it when we're getting her jammies on.
I use a toddler toothbrush and toddler fruity flavored toothpaste. We used to have to fight him tooth and nail until I started singing a little song that I made up to the tune of "Row row row your boat" about brushing teeth. I sing it twice and then we're done.
ETA: I brush his teeth after his bath.
We used to use one on those silicone finger toothbrushes, but recently changed to the infant ones with the toothpaste made for infants. We do it right before bed. It's hard and they do still fight it. After we do it, we let them take the toothbrush and brush their own teeth. They mostly suck on the toothbrush and move it back and forth. Just trying to get them in the habit of doing it. We hope to do it twice a day starting soon.. we probably already should be doing twice a day. :-x
GL!
It's seems my LOs fight it all.... diaper changes, toothbrushing, wiping of their hands and face after eating, wiping of their nose when they have colds, etc... there's always a battle ;-)