Toddler and brushing teeth

[first1]

This is a royal nightmare tbh! Dd is 23 months and goes nuts when it's time to brush her teeth. She just won't. I've tried: milk teeth toothpaste, mr happy toothpaste, shiny toothbrushes, sparkly toothbrushes, copying me, letting her do it, doing it in the bath and all I get at max volume is "no mummy no". She literally goes days with no brushing (awful parent emoticon). She has a good diet and lots of calcium so I hope that'll help the teeth's strength but I'm at a loss for ideas now....ladies?!

Rubirosa - thanks - looks like we are all off the hook. relieved - and surprised - MIL is usually a Very Wise Woman.

My DD hated her teeth being cleaned until I tried mam toothbrushes. They get one small and you use big toothbrush (on them!) it means no fighting and she gets used to trying to do it herself!

Also, make sure she likes the toothpaste.

It took me ages to realise that my (non vocal) boy hated the berry flavour stuff I had got him. He's much happier with mint flavour as long as it's mild. And has a monkey on the tube.

The spiderman one was £2.50 last week :)

Ouch @ Willy cleaning with it tho :o

I accidentally found that a towel offers the best solution when it comes to brushing a reluctant toddler's teeth. So with 2.1 year old DD2 I now wrap her in a towel (so her arms are totally enclosed), sit her on my lap an brush her teeth. The towel wrapped around her trapping her thrashing arms and body means I have one hand free to hold the tooth brush and the other to hold her mouth open. She's a stubborn little so-and-so and we have a few battles, but this seems to work best.

My biggest problem is getting my 4.8 year old off baby toothpaste. Any time I try a more grown up one she complains about the taste. She's great at brushing her teeth otherwise.

I've been seriously fretting about failure with getting DS to clean his teeth.

He's been chewng his toothbrush regularly and occasionally letting my have a little (pointless) try.

This week I may have struck gold-

I showed him a video I found on youtube of toddler teeth brushing (an american mummy with little boy sitting on counter singing a song while he calmly lets her clean his teeth). And we watched it together a few times interspersed with grown up important talking about the importance of clean teeth and how clever the little boy in the video was (all this well away from the bathroom and toothbrush.) That same evening i tried to recreate the video (i learned the song!) he let me have a little go, yesterday a bit better, tonight a triumph. Each time we have had the same chat about it being important to have clean teeth before hes allowed it to happen. Long may it continue [hopeful]

Oh I also taught him to say 'Ahhhhhh' the same day to get his mouth open, another tip I found on youtube (thank you youtube).

Hes 20 months and starting to listen when I explain things to him in an 'adult' way .

now if only there were a youtube video to teach him to sleep through the night

OP was it always a fight from the first time you brushed her teeth? I'm curious because DS got his first teeth at 4.5 and 5 months and since then has been having his teeth brushed. He is now 16 months and its not really an issue other than I have to brush them really quickly and thoroughly until he starts grabbing at the toothbrush to do it himself. What I am asking is will it become a problem when he gets older and more defiant (even more-so than he is now!)?

We devised a game when DD started that at about the same age - haven't had the problem since and she's now 2.9.

Basically before we start brushing, we ask her which friend(s) she would like to brush her teeth for and she chooses 3 names (either family, friends, animals - whatever).

We then count the first name 10 times while we brush the bottom set of teeth (eg. 1 Elephant, 2 Elephant, 3 Elephant etc slowly up to 10) and then we change to another animal for the top teeth and then she gets to brush her own teeth for a count of 10 for the 3rd name that she's chosen.

It may sound really silly but it's worked for us. If she brushes her teeth and washes her face she's allowed to play a game of hide & seek with us upstairs before she gets into bed and then has a story. If she refuses, she just goes straight to bed. That has also worked.

Good luck!

We left it a bit late with DS1 as he showed absolutely no interest in playing with brushes / chewables etc and we are bad lazy parents

When he hit 2 we decided that "once a week whilst thrashing around / pinned down" was not working and instigated an "every night or NO STORY!" rule.

It was hellish for about six weeks, arguments every night and no story two out of three nights in the first few weeks, although we did make sure that on no story nights we still sat and cuddled / sang songs etc to make up for it a little bit.

Eight months on we still have a bit of a tussle most nights and have to remind DS of the "no teeth, no story" rule but really he's just going through the motions. He's happy to brush teeth himself and the negotiations are only so I can do the back teeth properly.

We do the dinosaur roar for back teeth (have to be very scared whilst brushing quickly!) and "Eeeeeeeeeh" for front teeth.

DS is a majorly picky eater and doesn't consume vast quantities of anything cakes, sweets, raisins etc so I don't worry too much if we have a bad day with only a token swipe round the mouth, especially if he is tired. But we are still 100% inflexible on the "no teeth, no story" rule. I'd say we only have a "no story" night about one every two/three weeks now.

Laughing at toddler pinned in towel with parent straddling them . The things we do that are never going to be in any parenting manual.............

I think we now have 7 different tubes of toothpaste as I hope each one will be the holy grail (never is).

DS will now (sort of) brush his own teeth, but wont let me near them- just claps jaws shut

DD (2.2) likes to chew the brush and suck off the toothpaste, but was never keen on letting me brush her teeth properly. She clamped her jaws together and wouldn't open her mouth

Then I discovered that if I did some silly operatic-style singing (wide-open mouthed), she would copy me and find it hilarious. Result - clean teeth! And neighbours who think I'm very original