Brushing a toddler's teeth

[SuperAmoo]

Hello all, my 21 month old DD2 refuses to open her mouth to have her teeth brushed. Any ideas? Did you 'restrain' your toddler and 'force' them to have their teeth brushed? Or bribe them?

A few ideas for you - get her to brush your teeth, use a mirror so you can both look in it while she has hold of her toothbrush and you do yours. Take her shopping for a toothbrush and let her have a choice. Take her with you to the Dentist when you have your check-up (she can just watch from her buggy) so you can then chat about why its so important.

I had a terrible time with DS and only really got to brush his teeth 'properly' when he was nearing 2 ! I confess I did restrain him once or twice and we both ended up being upset so I didnt persist with this at all.

Just do a little at a time - a quick swipe with some toothpaste then praise her. Hopefully she'll enjoy the praise after a while and open her mouth for longer and longer.

Good luck

hefferlump offers good advice. At the beginning DS was ok about us cleaning his first teeth, then he went through a phase of refusing despite all the encouragement so we did restrain and force rather than let the teeth stay dirty. It was not pleasant for anyone but we always explained what we needed to do, and why and that it would be over very quickly. We found that we held him firmly but not tightly across our laps, waited for the biggest yell and then quickly brushed the toothbrush around while his mouth was open and it was over in a few seconds! Not brilliant cleaning but better than nothing and I think it only took a week or so with gradually less and less struggling to turn things around. Lots and lots of praise afterwards and telling him what lovely clean beautiful teeth he has. I started asking to see his "tiger teeth" since he was going through a phase of pretending to be a tiger which helped a bit too.

Now we have a DS who insists on brushing his teeth himself (although the deal is that he has a go and we finish off or we do it "together") and really understands why it is important and tells me which bits he thinks I've missed.

Although tonight he was being contrary and refusing to let me brush his upper back teeth but that was general bolshiness rather than hating teeth-cleaning...

My DS also went through a stage of refusing to have his teeth brushed or brushing them himself. I tried doing it by force a couple of times but it was just too unpleasant for both of us. I realised I'd rather he had dirty teeth than I do it by force. So I just offered the toothbrush every night, sometimes with a bit of coaxing. For a while he refused point blank so I just said "ok, we'll try tomorrow". Eventually, after a week or so he let me run the brush round his mouth for a bit. Now he's fine about teeth brushing.

thank you all. I will just keep trying but not force her I think. PLenty of praise if she opens her mouth. I may try to bribe her with Peppa Pig stickers as a reward for opening her mouth!

As hefferlump, plus my daughter liked to do hers with us because she saw us doing ours in the morning, and wanted to do grown up things (second child). Could be worth a go. She sometimes needs holding down in the evening, but is more cooperative at that age than number one was.

Bribe good, and look out for the Peppa Pig goes to the dentist book.

Hello again. I tried something tonight which worked a bloomin treat! I started to sing 'Jingle Bells' to him and then changed the words to ones which described how good he was, how clean his teeth were getting, how the dentist would be thrilled etc., ..... he asked me to do his teeth again !!!!

Still gobsmacked.

My dentist told me this week not to worry too much about DDs (2) teeth. I had explained that she likes to brush her teeth herself on the whole and doesn't do a very good job. He said it was more important to get her used to the whole brush in the morning/at night routine and her diet had more of an impact on her teeth than teethbrushing.

I personally wouldn't have felt comfortable restraining etc, I understand why people do it but it isn't for me.

Hi all, thought I'd post an update - at nearly 23 months, DD2 is pretty much opening her mouth to have her teeth brushed voluntarily now. This was a combination of using stickers as a reward and when she refused to open her mouth making it clear that she wouldn't be getting a sticker. Always brushing her older sister's teeth in front of her and praising her and giving her a sticker. And I never pushed it. If she only opened her mouth a little and I couldn't brush all her teeth, I just let it go so it wasn't an issue and praised her anyway. Then last week I took older DD1 to the dentist for the first time and to my surprise DD2 insisted that the dentist look at her teeth too and since then has been opening her mouth VERY wide and saying 'aaahhhh' so I can brush her teeth and make them nice 'for the dentist'. It helps that the dentist was female and young and very pretty I think! She looked like a Princess Jasmine!

I found dancing did the trick with my 2. We now have the "tooth brush dance" where we shake our bums to the speed we are brushing. We also do noises rather than asking to open their mouths. we have eeeeeeee to brush the front and ahhhhhhhhhh to open wide

Yes do ahh and eee as well! I was still having trouble brushing the front teeth until I told DD2 to growl like a tiger and now I can do them fine!

'we do' I mean