Do you brush your teeth before or after breakfast

[mellowdramatic]

My dentist told me to brush before breakfast (or an hour after) but hardly any of my friends or mums at school seem to know this. Never brush straight after eating as you are brushing the acids into your teeth.

www.nhs.uk/Livewell/dentalhealth/Pages/Teethcleaningguide.aspx

I brush after, but never immediately. Can't stand the taste of food if I've brushed before breakfast!

Fair nuff

Before. :)

I do both! A quick brush when I get up and then a proper one after breakfast otherwise all the bits of cereal get stuck in between your teeth!

I brush my teeth as soon as I get up, can't bear how my mouth feels first thing in the morning!

I brush after breakfast. In fact I brush after the school run so plenty of time after eating

OP - yes ,yes I have same advice .

Makes sense .

But I'm kind of horrified it's so little known about ,and that dentists so rarely mention it .

I do both, the DC have theirs done about ten minutes after their breakfast before we go to school.

If I did theirs before breakfast they'd have bits of cereal and toast stuck in their teeth all day, is that better or worse than the alternative of brushing too soon?

You talk about this to people ? How interesting your convos !!

Before - but am married to a dentist!

Agree that this needs to be better publicised - I didn't realise til I met him. However, I've always brushed before as feel a bit sicky about eating without doing my teeth

slave - you'd be better to do before as you're meant to wait an hour after a meal before brushing - particularly if you've had anything acidic such as fruit juice etc

this has been bellowed through to me by a grumpy DH who is dealing with a baby who diesnt seem to have got the memo that the clocks changed last night!

Thanks Gobbo, even if that means that they go to school with food stuck in their teeth and won't brush again until bed?
PS. Hope you all get more sleep soon!

slave - I know. It sounds counter intuitive doesn't it and I wouldn't like to go out with food in my teeth!

We did have another snooze so he's recovered his equilibrium and I asked about the food in teeth issue.

Apparently brushing before a meal or an hour after the meal is the "gold standard". Is it possible for them to have breakfast first thing and then get ready for school etc and brush teeth as long as possible thereafter?

If not, then you could brush the teeth immediately post breakfast but that's not so good for the reasons above. If you need to do that, it's acidic things that soften the enamel which is then weakened by the brushing immediately after so try and avoid giving fruit juice etc with breakfast if you need to go down that route as that will mitigate the risk.

There was a big thread on this in chat recently very informative IMHO.

Thanks Gobbo, they don't have anything too acidic at breakfast, just cereal and toast, we don't have juice in the house for the DC just water.

I think we'll just make sure that they have as much time as possible between eating and brushing.

I thought you always brush before breakfast? Isn't this the first thing you do when you get out of bed? To get rid of the horrid morning breath before you put food in your mouth?

Alwaya before. Though rarely eat breakfast before 11am so would have horrid furry teeth and morning breath for most of the morning if I waited until I ate.

Before

Before, we don't have time to wait afterwards.

Before and after. When I wake up it's the first thing I want to do. But after breakfast I put contact lenses in and brush my teeth as part of getting ready to go out.