To stop brushing 18 month olds teeth

[notaurewhatusername]

I’m looking for advice.

my DC will not let me brush his teeth every night without me literally now feeling like I may hurt him with the fight he puts up. I cannot stop his arms pushing me away he tosses and turns his head then clamps his teeth shut. If I do eventually force it in it lasts maybe 10 seconds max. This has happened every night since he turned one and it’s getting worse. My concern is that if we continue pinning him down and restraining him, et cetera is he going to become traumatised by brushing his teeth and then it’s going to become a lifelong issue for him? I don’t know I’ve never had a child before, please tell me someone else has had this situation. What did you do? I have tried cartoons that talk about bad teeth I’ve bought books I have listened to toothbrushing songs I try and get him to watch the telly when we do it. I have tried everything and I’m not sure where to go from here. Do I just continue to literally almost feel like I am fighting him or just let his teeth rot seriously I am concerned about this.

I wouldn't be wrapping him in a towel or holding him between my legs or prying his jaw open. His response is a stress response and you will be breaking trust of you respond with force

I would take a break for 2 or 3 days entirely and let him calm down. The come back to it with a bit of toothpaste on his or your finger, or both and you rub your finger over your teeth and he rub his finger over his. Give him lots of smiles and cuddles when he's done it.

Do that for a few days of it's not stressful.
Then repeat with a soft manual toothbrush. Let him see you do what you want to do to him.

But overall try to remove the anxiety and stress form the current situation and start again.

It’s my least favourite time of day, twice a day! I don’t remember my older child being this awful over it but I’m sure they were, all kids seem to be. I’ve been warned off (solely) letting them do it themselves due to people in childcare telling me stories of bad tooth rot so I’ve always insisted it’s a me job, we did older child’s exclusively (they could do a top up) until they were 5 and the dentist said they could do it. What currently seems to work is they choose what song I sing to them whilst I brush, I do a few verses of whatever’s being demanded until I’m happy I’m done. With my older child I made up a tooth brushing song to their favourite nursery rhyme. Sometimes they also want to ‘do’ mine if they let me do theirs. I let them go over their own with their toothbrush after I’ve done it though they just seem to suck on the water or try and eat pure toothpaste. I know it’s a (hellish) phase but it will pass and it’s so important. I’ve always taught my older child that my job is to “keep you safe” and that involves all things health including dreaded teeth!

I'm another one that pinned mine down between my legs, they are teens now and really good at brushing, the resistance didn't last long (although to be fair they are fairly obedient children so it might not work for everyone) at that age I told them it was the good way (them opening nicely,) or the pinning down, that was the 2 options. Oral hygiene is a non negotiable as its just so important.

We’ve done various things at different times. Our current routine is to let him zone out watching Bluey while holding a baby electric toothbrush with a bit of paste on. Every now and then I manage to get control of the toothbrush and do a few teeth, or to ask him to move the brush to the other side. If he takes the brush out of his mouth we pause the cartoon to remind him to brush. I aim to get both sides top and bottom and the back and front of the front teeth most attempts and do it twice a day. We spend about ten minutes each time doing that, feels better to me to have the screen time than to be physically forcing it and creating negative associations. We also try to keep sweet snacks to meal times, follow meals and snacks with a bit of cheese and water and not give any juice drinks or anything like that to sip on through the day.

Why on earth would anyone pin a child down to brush their teeth no wonder why they are scared

There is no way dentists would advise this and yes brushing teeth is important, at that ag3 we just got them to chew on a brush and slowly took ot from there

Way to traumatise kids

Yeah! Just let his teeth fall out! Sounds like a great plan!!

These are completely ineffective.
As others have said OP, you have to continue however distressing it is for both of you. You are doing it in his best interests.

Have you tried turning it into a game? This turned things around for us. We'd pretend there were lots of little 'monsters' hiding in DD's mouth, who we had to brush away. We'd pretend they were darting around and hiding from us - 'ooh look, there's a blue one, let's get him... oh no! He's darted behind that tooth there, let me get him.... PING! He's out. Yes!! Let's get the others... oh, there's a cheeky red one... oh she's really sneaky, she's running away and hiding...'

You get the picture.

Making things into a game was really the only way to get DD to do anything for a while. Thankfully that phase is now long gone, but it did get us through these years.

My son had to have six crowns at 2 years old under general anaesthetic due to tooth decay (breastmilk at night).

Do not do this.

Brush your teeth at the same time as him and maybe put some music on, saying that you have to brush your teeth together until the song has finished. Make a reward chart. Buy a few different brushes and let him choose the colour. Try kids toothpaste. Keep foing. You'll get there.

Find it bizarre how many people think it's normal and the correct thing to pin a child down to do there teeth no wonder there terrified of dentists when they come. As a dental nurse we say let a child play with toothbrushes from when they can hold one, transfer that to bath, get them to copy you no paste just at play for a few weeks increasing amount of time, slowly add paste....we currently have 4 toddlers and all will go to there toothbrush pots on the sink every morning don't need to be asked and at night they want squeaky clean teeth in case the fairies come to visit lol. Did same with olders and never had problems with brushing or dentist trips.