Cleaning baby teeth

[FriendlyElephant]

I hope this is in the right place, I suppose it is related to health!

DD is 7 months and has two teeth. I'm a bit confused about what I should be doing to care for them. Since her first tooth came through I've been giving it a quick brush at night while she's in the bath with a baby toothbrush and a little dab of Milk Teeth (it's harder than it sounds when they're squirming and clamping their mouth shut, as I'm sure most parents know!). But I've been reading the guidelines tonight and apparently I should be brushing twice a day and after her last feed at night? Cleaning them again in the morning is not a problem, but DD often feeds to sleep and, although I'm half-heartedly trying to night-wean her, often has a quick bf in the night if that's what it takes to get her back off to sleep.

What does everyone else do? Surely lots of babies still feed to sleep or feed in the night after they have teeth.

I think that bf is not an issue overnight. The problem is formula or cows milk in bottles. Just aim for twice a day and remember to see a dentist every 6 months.

I think it's more about routine as well.
I found allowing lo to watch me brush my teeth then doing his teeth made it alot easier.

Mines 8mo and has 2 front teeth, we have a little baby brush she uses when getting ready for bed at night with her sisters. That's about all we do, should I be feeling ?

It's more about routine at that age, hopefully she will drop the night feed quite soon and then you can start moving towards not feeding to sleep etc. But you can only do what you can, and if she still wants night feeds or feeding to sleep there's not too much you can do about it. Just introduce the idea of teeth cleaning morning and night, and then as they start to get more teeth and they actually need them cleaning, it's a familiar routine.

Though if anyone call tell me how long you should be cleaning them for...!

It just occurred to me earlier that I was basically making it up as I went along and that I'd had tons of advice about teething, but none whatsoever about what to do with the teeth once they were in place!

So far, I've just been giving them a quick scrub all over, probably 20-30 seconds, then I let her hold and have a chew on the brush while I do my own teeth. Its getting more difficult lately as I think one of her top teeth are coming down, so she doesnt want me poking around in her mouth and I have to be careful not to hurt her gums.

See I think I'm doing pretty much the same as I did with the older 2, and the dentist says their teeth are fab (they're 3 & 4 now), so I think probably don't worry, especially WRT breast milk. There's so much advice out there if you listened to and tried to implement it all you'd tie yourself in knots.
Just be careful how much sugar she has (for lots of reasons!) and keep doing what you're doing.

What age do they need to start going to the dentist? DD has 3 1/2 teeth and I have just started brushing them....

I don't know, I'd imagine you could wait a while yet though! Think dd was about 18 months

Our dentist wanted to see DD from 6 months and then every 6 months after that. The fluoride varnish treatments start at 18 months.