I cannot for the life of me brush my 2 year olds teeth!! Any tips please!!!

[Newtobecomingamum]

I have tried everything:

• playing a game with the tooth brush
• singing silly songs
• me brushing my teeth at same time
• brushing his toys teeth
• using character and different tooth brush and paste going
• bribery
• physically trying to brush them myself ( he will not open his mouth and I cannot get the tooth brush in there!)

It's really getting me down and it's so important he brushes them. He will suck the paste and then throw the tooth brush down.

Any tips please???

I have the same problem with my DS who is also two. Teeth brushing can be very traumatic around here which is a shame as it's part of his (hopefully calming!) bedtime routine.

One thing we've tried recently which is a bit odd but has worked quite well - he has a little duplo bear that sits on a duplo car, the bear was very keen to see beautiful shiny teeth but needed to go and do some shopping first! So we 'drove' the car off the side of the bed and bear went shopping while DS did his teeth quickly before the bear came back! The bear then looked up and down in his mouth and was suitably impressed. DS found it very funny and the element of having to do it before the bear finished shopping and came back encouraged him to cooperate :)

Have you tried the toothbrushes that they just need to chew? I use that with DD. I occasionally worry it's not as good as brushing, but it gets us through the phases when she refuses and I figure it's better than nothing. Health visitor suggested wiping with damp muslin with toothpaste on, so I also figured no worse than that. Am a bit scared someone is now going to post to tell me they are shit and DD's teeth are doomed!

My ds, just two is the same. He chews the toothbrush and sucks the toothpaste off. I have had a bit of success with the following
Day 1
Me: ds can you show me how shiney your teeth are?
Ds: shows me his teeth
Me: wow I need my sun glasses (puts sunglasses on)

Day 2:
Repeat but say not as shiney as yesterday, can mummy help? He lets me help.

I did my DCs teeth until they were about 4 anyway. You can't rely on them to do it.

A Diego and Dora electric toothbrush and cup did wonders but there were times I sat on DS2 (gently).

They need to be done completely by you until they are at least 6. I'm afraid you just need to persevere op!

Be consistent with the brute force approach and praise him when you're done (within reason), don't let on that its a struggle, and eventually you'll probably find he'll be fine with it. Trying lots of different approaches is probably encouraging him to play up now.

We have a brush each. When he puts his own brush in I stick mine in and give it a wiggle.
If he clamps his teeth down I start laughing and that sets him off so I can do some more.
Every night we discuss whether he'll use the red or green brush then we race to see who'll get to it first.
It's an ordeal though, I feel your pain.

My dentist said that children need to have their teeth brushed for them until at least 6. After that he recommends disclosing tablets used regularly so that they can see how much they have to clean.

With ds we have had real struggles in the past, where the only thing that worked was wrapping him in a towel and just getting on with it. if dh is helping then one of us will lie him on our legs, and sort of brush upside down - which for some reason is easier.

we also use collis curve toothbrushes, which clean all 3 surfaces of the tooth at the same time, so when you are in there the brushing is more effective. here

I have been using a tip I read on here (can't remember which poster), I tell my toddler I can see things he has been eating. For example I say oh there's a Cheerio on that tooth I better clean it off. Slightly more hardcore but I have also been telling him about sugar monsters who live in sugar and will eat his teeth unless I brush them away. He will have lovely teeth to show his therapist in middle age :)

When mine went through this (deeply irritating) phase, I would give them my toothbrush and ask them to clean my teeth while we were facing each other and I'd do theirs at the same time because they would normally mirror the open-mouth face I was making. Clearly there's the odd toothbrush up the nose or in the eye but it was a small price to pay.

We use the brush teeth song on you tube so dd watches that as I brush her teeth. We brought a book off amazon about brushing your teeth but she wasn't really interested .

Thanks for all your tips. I have tried these unfortunately is some way or the other. Will just have keep trying.

That is handy to know that we should be brushing them until 6. I will remember that and hopefully one day he lets me in that mouth of his!!

Just keep going op, my son is 2.4 and hated it for months and months, we had to use force and loads of praise during and after.

We were consistent with it and now he knows it has to happen twice a day and there's no point struggling!

So he now sits nicely on our knee and allows th brushing as long as he can switch on/off the brush (we've got an electric one) and put it away afterwards.

Reading with interest at 16mo ds is the same.

I tried doing his in the bath the other week, whilst he was lying down and I was rinsing his hair off. He hated it, but I managed to have a really good scrub for a minute.

Will be buying new brushes for us all tomorrow and will see if the two brush approach works.

Bit out of season but we involved Father Christmas, who visited our house and told DD how important it is to brush her teeth. June now and it's still working... Sort of..

If you give your child sweets/ice cream/biscuits etc tell them that all these foods are now banned until he is a good at brushing his teeth twice a day. Children who do not brush their teeth cannot possibly eat sugary foods.

And do it.

have you tried the AquaFresh ap?

I really can't physically force my child to brush. I tried once aged 2 and I'm still traumatized by it.

I use the "no sweets for children who don't brush teeth method" (above), not that the DC eat many sweet foods anyway but still it works.

On the odd night we still get nonsense I just stop the world and sit on the bathroom floor until she does it. Wait her out. You don't have to do that too many times :)

I like to pretend my 3 year old a dog and role play visiting the vet

Does he not like toothpaste oranurse make an unflavoured not too foamy toothpaste.

Has he been to the dentist yet? Sparks a conversation about teeth/dentist. We have a flashing toothbrush which dd finds exciting and brushes until it stops.
Also peppa pig goes to the dentist is good, it's on YouTube.
Can you open your mouth as wide as daddy's? Competition style.
Brushing in front of a mirror too

Also would avoid bribing with sweets technique, seems counter productive to me, we avoid refined sugars for dental health and actually health in general!

"Magic timer" app works magic for us. It opens a new picture during 2 min of brushing. It is Disney, but although my 2 year old hardly knows any characters, he still likes it. We tried aquafresh app too, which worked to start with, but then he hot bored. Before trying these apps, it was close to impossible to put a toothbrush into his mouth...

I just stop the world and sit on the bathroom floor until she does it. Wait her out. You don't have to do that too many times

with ds, you'd be there until the ice caps melted...sometimes, when reasoning and waiting it out doesn't work, you do just have to get the job done.