Having issues with toddler toothbrushing

[Archie1989]

Help! My 2 year old WILL NOT brush his teeth and will not open his mouth to let me brush them. He point blank refuses. I’ve tried everything. I got a pop up book where you brush the animal’s teeth, we brush his teddy bear’s teeth, we try to get him to brush our teeth. We got a fancy flashing light rocket toothbrush. We sing songs....we have even resorted to YouTube cartoons of tooth brushing for toddlers. Nothing works.

The worst bit, we took him to the dentist and it looks like he needs a filling. The dentist said not to go to the extent of holding him down, because it’ll make it worse.

He doesn’t have juice or sweets, but he does eat a lot of fruit and cereal and he grazes. The dentist said it could be the grazing and cereal.

Please don’t judge. I’m trying my best.

Things that worked for us

• talking toothbrush - put on a funny voice / accent pretend the toothbrush is talking and wants to clean - then a commentary - did you eat ice cream today ? Eww it s stuck back here,open wider your re csquashing me I can't move ! Ohhh it s shiny in here now - wow!!

• we used work a range of different voices and accent s ! Kids loves it. Then at the end the exaggerated 'blinded by the shiny teeth!' Still works with the 4 year old!

• we always let them brush their own teeth first then mummy/ daddy do a check

• when getting them to brush their teeth you do yours and let them see you doing 'inside outside and biting bits' - they try copy that with their toothbrush and when you do their check you also focus on inside outside and biting bits

• give water with and after meals to help wash the mouth out and clean the teeth.

We had to pin our eldest DD, she's now 6 and no toothbrush related trauma. Younger DD currently in the pinning stage, sometimes she lets us do it sometimes she doesn't, so it's grab, hold and brush on those occasions. Teeth brushing is non negotiable in this house. I have a fuckton of fillings as I was never shown / taught to brush my teeth properly and was doing it myself from a really young age.

No judgement here. Maybe try giving him his own toothbrush while you’re giving him his bath? We use DH’s electric one on DS (with a separate brush head) as DS wouldn’t open his mouth for long with a regular baby brush.

In the meantime can you ditch cereal in favour of porridge with whole milk? May contain less sugar.

Both of mine went through this, I google 'pictures of children's rotten teeth' and show them what they'll end up with if they don't brush.
Conversely, I then show them children with lovely teeth who obviously have good dental hygiene and also make a huge fuss when they brush eg "my eyes, they're too bright!!" It's worked a treat each time

I think you may be looking for validation/ confidence that pinning is ok? I believe most parents will at some stage for this or other important health issues. I actually think it’s a kindness. If he gets a mouth full of fillings, or worse, extractions, you will feel a lot worse. Slight tangent but my poor 4 yr old has had to have several covid tests due to colds and unclear tests needing repeated. After my approach involving one particularly awful hour trying every technique under the sun and getting another unclear, I conceded that my DH (medic) was right, she had to be pinned. Then it was 20secs of unpleasantness then done, rather than an hour of negotiations and pressure. That said, I can usually get our 2 yr old’s teeth brushed by distracting her with a random conversation about her day just as the brush goes in, and he tends to go straight to head lock without trying other measures first! Not my style but I get his thinking.

Mine was like this and in the end I let him do my teeth whilst he did mine and he loved it. Sounds ridiculous but it's the only thing that worked. We did have to pin him down occasionally before that and we all hated it, but his teeth needed to be cleaned so we had to do it. Our dentist said that you do what you have to do. 🤷 My son is 3 now and has no issues with tooth brushing bar getting annoyed when he has to do it when he's in the middle of something...

I took my 13 month old to the dentist for first time a couple of weeks ago. I’m obsessed with his good teeth hygiene as my own teeth aren’t brilliant - too much sugar as a child of the 80s.

The constant grazing is a definite issue. What he told me (and what I hadn’t quite appreciated) is that when the pH in the mouth gets more acidic after eating, if you eat soon enough again without allowing it to return to near-enough neutral, that’s when the pH stays too low and the acid gets a chance to start eroding the enamel and fillings follow.

I heard my very tired little boy making a huge drama as my husband held him down to brush his teeth before he went to bed tonight. Not great to listen to - but he will thank us in the end.

Brilliant tips from PPs about teeth monsters and animals hiding behind teeth - will try those when he’s a little older! Thank you!

@MsEllany no problem

I pin my 2.5 year old down. Its horrendous, I have him in a headlock every time but it's better than him needing to have teeth extracted.

Have you tried an electric tooth brush? Although it says they are for age 3+, I've had a lot more successful with that than a manual one. He'll even attempt to brush them himself, whereas with a manual brush he point blank refuses.

On occasion we’ve had to hold dd down to brush her teeth.
I try and explain to her why she needs her teeth brushed which she seems to grasp.
She does have the odd sweets, fruit juice, chocolate etc so she’s also told that if she doesn’t have her teeth brushed she won’t have any treats. And I would absolutely stick to that. She usually gives in with that threat.

I have found that the option of either letting me brush nicely, or pin them down, works really well. I have had to pin all my children down at some stage to brush their teeth, and they soon learn to let you do it nicely. Brushing teeth really can't be optional!

I am not a screen fan for children at all but DS has a little very carefully rationed hey duggee (one or two five minute episodes a week), he bloody loves that dog. He was a real pain with toothbrushing until I bought him the Hey Duggee toothbrushing badge book (also loves a book). For a week or two we would read the book every night before bed and he'd ask for it during the day, we then had about ten days of playing the 'toothbrushing badge song ' at brushing time. Now he goes and gets his toothbrush and wants to clean his teeth with none of the Duggee related rigmarole. It made me feel like a terrible parent, but I'm much happier now he is letting us properly brush his teeth. He has also picked up saying 'Alain' in a pseudo French accent whenever he sees a lion...

We found the Hey Duggee Toothbrush song video worked.

I don’t recall my (dreadful) mother brushing my teeth or holding me down, but I do recall in awful detail, having rotten, holey baby teeth as a kid, and the dentist wrenching them out and putting fillings in as a direct result of parental failure. Your kid cannot brush his own teeth, obviously, it’s your job to do that for him. If he cries and freaks out, that’s fine, but his teeth will be getting brushed. Non negotiable. Children get to pick what colour socks or cup to use, not crucial healthcare.

Show child photos of children with rotten teeth. Works a treat !

DS needed help (once a day - he did it himself the other time) till he was 12) he is now 13 and still needs help sometimes.

We gave him the brush to chew on when he was a baby/toddler (can't remember when) to get used to it, can you brush a dolls/teddy teeth like

'come on teddy lets take you up and brush your teeth' ignoring your child (not in a serious ignore way but a brief ignore) then take the teddy to the bathroom and sit them down and do it

no way would my son have let me get away with that as he would have felt he was missing out

We had a similar problem with our 20 month old until a few weeks ago. Found a great tip online. DP sits down with DS on his lap facing him and his legs around his waist. Then we lower him so he’s laying on DH‘s thighs and hold his arms close to his body. He doesn’t seem to mind being “pinned” like this as it’s a bit like a cuddle. We sing songs at the same time

We always have two or three toothbrushes on the go and a couple of different toothpastes so DD gets to choose which ones to use. This seems to make it a bit more fun and maybe make her feel a bit more in control?

Hi @Archie1989 we had this problem with our DD (26 months). She would cry and shake in distress, and once even vomited from gagging (even though I was brushing the front!). Nothing seemed to work. I started a star chart where she gets a star for a successful toothbrushing session, then when it's full we go to the shop to buy a fun colouring magazine or a very small treat (non edible!). The chart took a while for her to understand, but she really gets it now and loves it. We also swapped a manual brush for a baby electric toothbrush which has a much smaller brush head. We finally found a video she likes too (an American guy called Blippi. He's annoying, but his toothbrushing song is actually quite catchy, and she really likes it. It's on YouTube). Good luck, as I know how tricky it can be when they don't understand why they have to brush their teeth!

Also meant to add @Archie1989 we also let her 'brush' her teeth before we do it properly!

There's an app called Pokemon Smile that has worked really well for us. Essentially the child faces your phone camera and brushes their teeth for two minutes. As the brush moves round their mouth, Pikachu shoots away the plaque on screen, revealing a Pokemon that the child can then catch and add to their collection. There are stickers and hats to collect too. I know it’s screens and so less than ideal, but turned teeth time from a fight into something the children (2 and 4) actively ask for! Good luck

Feel your pain here, Op. We just basically held our DS down kicking and screaming which lasted a few weeks, then a friend suggested the Hey Duggee or Elmo toothbrushing songs which last 2 minutes. He loves those and the screaming stopped instantly. I think it helps him (and is!) knowing the toothbrushing will come to an end.

Also our DS hates all flavoured toothpaste other than mint so 🤷‍♀️

[quote Archie1989]@Ohalrightthen you’re right. I agree. His reaction has upset me as I feel like I’m almost being abusive having to hold him down and he’s in tears while it’s done. Hearing you say it’s necessary has helped. I don’t have other mum friends who have had this issue, so I thought maybe I am being cruel and had got us in a vicious cycle. Especially now the dentist said I shouldn’t do it. He said to do it bit by bit over the day, but we get nowhere.[/quote]
I would say many many parents have this issue - they may just not choose to tell...

I had the problem with one child and with holding down/making in non-negotiable we got through it. He also chose a strawberry toothpaste when he was about 4 and made much less fuss after that, not sure if mint is a problem for some of them....

Toothbrushing is just non-negotiable here and has been since the first tooth appeared. We've done a mix of stupid songs, talking about brushing out the food they've eaten, silly toothbrushes, timers, doing mine at the same time and pinning down on occasions (ok, weeks at a time).

For me it's just part of keeping them safe and well like giving medicine if they're ill or going in the car seat. My DD might not like it but there's no alternative.