Electric Toothbrushes for children?

[nmd]

Hello, sorry if this is a silly question but are electric toothbrushes really ok for children? I used to work with someone whose gums receded in his twenties due to electric toothbrushing (his dentist said they should only be used by people without the strength to brush manually) and I read something in Junior recently that brushing your child's teeth too frequently can also be a problem. Dds are 4.5 & nearly 6. DH very keen to get a family set but I wanted some more opinions first!

I feel sure they are, I seem to remember researching this before I bought one for ds, about 2 years ago, when he was 4. You could search on the archives here, pretty sure I found some useful stuff.

mine all have the.. bionicle ones!

ds - 6 - has an Oral B Buzz Lightyear one. I find it is a more efficient way to get them to brush. Will probably get dd one too as she is so independent that getting them done properly is hard as she won't let me "help".

According to our dentist electric toothbrushes are fine for children to use. We often use our own one on the children and they love it.

The sort of damage to the gums that you refer to is caused by over-vigorous and over-frequent brushing, rather than the normal twice-daily.

Our dentist says electric brushes are fine for chuldren. The only thing to be aware of is that they don't clean the chewing surfaces of back teeth quite as well as manual brushes so you need to check molars for any left-over debris. The electric brushes seem much better at removing plaque for me and dh - less work for the hygienist to do!

Thanks very much, we'll go for it!