Should my 28 month old be brushing his teeth?

[MrsHelsBels74]

We've not really got out of the habit of brushing son's teeth for him but I was wondering if really he shouldn't be doing it for himself by now?

i have only just started letting my 5yo brush her teeth, and then only in the mornings. i still do bedtime as i want to make sure they get a good going over at least once daily.

My dentist reccommended that I brush my ds teeth until they are 8. At age 28 month we had a toothbrush each and either played taking turns or I held him down and did it. Just depended on his mood.

my 4.8yr old has an electric toothbrush with a timer on it. He does the 2 mins himself and then either me or dp give them a good going over afterwards. I also have an app on my phone that ds likes that does a quarter of the mouth every 30 seconds and growls at you when its time to switch to the next side. I think its good for them to get the hang of what they need to do but definitely go over them yourself to make sure they are actually clean.

I still brush my 4 yr old ds' teeth at bedtime. He 'attempts' to do them himself in the mornings but I like to make sure they're done really really well at night time. At 28 months DS was still screaming whenever I brushed them and there was no chance he'd do it himself no matter how much we wanted him to! Doing it for him at this age seems fine to me.

I wouldnlet him have a go if he wants to, but still brush them myself too

yes you should def be brushing them for him still. let him do it too, but it's your job.

I think you need to brush them yourself at least til school age.

Dentist I work for recommends helping them with it until they are 8

NHS / Health Centre recommends brushing for your DC until 7 years old. My DS is 1 and likes to 'do it himself' (he just chews it a bit and tries to make back and forth brushing movements with his hands) but we always brush his teeth first so we know it's done properly.

I'd agree with this. I've only just managed to get dd to let me brush her teeth, she was still "doing it herself" at two which was how we had got started, I was a bit worried. (I used a mm tip! "I'm just going to get this brush in and see if i can find that tomato from lunchtime"). I'm not giving her the toothbrush back for a while yet!

My dentist said I should brush my kids teeth as long as they let me! He has a dentist colleague who brushed his kids teeth until they were teenagers! Obviously kids need to know how to brush teeth before then. So no 28 months too young IMO

Thanks everyone.