which toothpaste? avoid kids ones?

[scoobydoolou2]

which toothpaste should you start babies off on? i have heard that fluoride levels in brands supposedly for babies/kids aren't high enough. should I start her off on a tiny bit of adult toothpaste and increase amounts with age?
also heard that it can be difficult to get kids onto stronger taste of adult toothpaste later if they've been used to sweet tasting ones. anybody else found this?

We were given the Oral B Stages toothpaste by our local oral health team so have stuck with that, it is not that sweet and has a light minty taste. The mintiness increases as the stages do. We avoid any gel toothpaste and funny branded ones with strong artificial flavours or colours.

I wouldn't use adult toothpaste as the mint will be very strong and could make her mouth sore.

The specific kids toothpastes have the correct fluoride levels as these are specified. Too much fluoride will discolour teeth and make them brown. So whilst they will have no cavities they will look as if there is decay. Also adult toothpaste is really strongly flavoured and my put your little one off.

I think children's toothpaste has lower levels of fluoride if any at all because they aren't so good at spitting it out and your daughter could end up ingesting too much fluoride. Fluoride is added to toothpaste for children aged 6 and over because they start losing their milk teeth and it is the adult teeth that really need the fluoride.

I agree with Biltong that most adult toothpastes are too "hot" for small children. I struggle even now to find a mild toothpaste for DD (11 years).

My dentist told me to give them a scrap of adult toothpaste and not bother with children's pastes. As long as they can tolerate it, it is fine.

The dental nurse at our local family centre said to use a scrape of adult toothpaste. The idea is apparently to get them used to the taste of adult toothpaste so they don't refuse to use it when they're older and need the higher flouride content.

i think i read a while ago to aim for 1500ppmF on the ingredients for kids toothpaste (dentists in the family so i did some reading). some of the leading baby/kids brands have around 1000. i used tom's of maine from sainsburys and now have halos n horns.

i'll deal with moving onto adult ones when the time comes but i don't like or use the really strong ones like colgate anyway.

we are told to aim for 1000ppm for kids toothpaste and have used a variety of minty ones. Adult toothpastes tend to be 1450ppm and that is the level in the 6+ range of childrens toothpaste