What's the deal with fluoride and littlins?

[kiwicath]

Hi. Since my wee man sprouted 5 teeth before his 6 month birthday, I've been giving them a wipe morning and night with a damp soft cloth. Friends arrived from the UK last night and brought us an oral b baby toothbrush and some Mcleans low fluroide baby toothpaste. It says it's from 0-6 years. I'm a bit nervous to start using it as I've heard a lot lately about kids getting too much through water, toothpaste and supplements. I'm still breast feeding, drinking bottled water (which has it added) and brushing my teeth with fluoride toothpaste. Will he be getting all he needs from me? or should I start to use the toothpaste as well? Have googled but found conflicting advice. Cheers guys.

we use a flouride free toothpaste for ds,age2 and dd 8mth...at this age they swallow most of it and dont really spit out properly, if they can spit at all yet.

My dentist says no toothpaste necessary until 2yrs old. Also, there isn't fluoride in the water everywhere, e.g. in London there is none.

Almost no water in UK is fluoridated.

Hales (a referenece book) suggests that if you (as breastfeeding mum) consume high doses of fluoride, could affect your supply negatively, so probably not be recommenced. Also cites studies which show that only a tiny % of the fluoride you consume will end up in your milk... so, answer is, probably not enough fluoride in your milk to help protect the baby's teeth against decay.

The debate you read is probably more about the value/dangers of fluoride at all in the baby's diet?
At a technical/academic conference, I saw a map of incidence of dental decay in West Midlands recently, & the fluoridated areas were strikingly pale (low incidence) compared to surrounding dark, non-fluoridated areas. Only exception was the severely deprived centr of Birmingham which was dark (high incidence) again. So social factors important, but fluridated water looked extremely beneficial.

depends on what you think about teeth, my ds had fluoride free paste til age 3 and he had crap teeth despite having a really healthy sugar restricted diet
I put this down to a) no fluoride
and b) having a bottle past age 3 too...
In NZ the water is fluoridated..

I started dd on Macleans 0-6 toothpaste. Then a friend told me that her HV had told her to use adult toothpaste, because of the lack of fluoride in the local water. However, I'm worried that adult toothpaste would be too abrasive, so I haven't switched. Does anyone know whether adult paste is bad for young children's teeth?

as a point of interest, i was brought up in the west mids and have only a few fillings. however, when my dentist noticed a tiny hole (only saw it through his magnifier glasses, couldn't see with naked eye) and he did the filling, he discovered that although the hole was tiny, the decay was extensive, and i was only 2mm away from having a root canal! he, at that point, asked me whether i was from the west mids (wasn't living there at the time) and i thought how weird to ask - he had trained there, and seen this a lot. the floride helps to keep the enamel strong, which means if a hole appears, it doesn't get very big, but inside the tooth decays anyway and the filling is difficult to spot. so it's not all good!

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Thanks everyone. I've had a think and will probably hold off on the toothpaste for a bit. We can only drink bottled water over here (which has fluoride added) and he's drinking quite a lot due to the heat so he's probably getting enough.