Teeth and the dreaded brushing

[MABS]

Please be totally honest - do you really, really brush their teeth twice a day at 22 months? Ds hates it and if I manage to do it twice a week its some sort of miracle - bad mother I know

Jaytree and Eulalia thank you both for your ideas. Jaytree I was going to just be polite and say thanks but to be honest I'm not entirely sure what you mean!! I've had a couple of glasses of wine and think this is hilariously funny at themomement. Are you saying give the drink of milk BEFORE bathtime so that cleaning teeth doesn't interfere? If so, I will have a think about that, I've wondered about doing that and it is good to hear that it works for someone else. Eulalia thanks too, I may well try that rinsing idea. Ho ho and goodnight.

RE-vitalisting an old thread:

How long do your brush your child's teeth for -- when you do brush? I guess I let the tots have a go on their own for as long as they will do, and then I insist on a (very/extremely) quick go in "the corners". I just wondered if anybody out there really had a full two minute's go 2x/day...

Ooh no! It's all I can do to keep him seated for 30 seconds. I get the brush in, and do a quick once round, as thoroughly as possible, twice a day. Then, if he wants to hold the brush, I let him have a go. I can never see if I have done a good job, because he will not let me look in his mouth. Any fingers in there get bitten! On a cuter note though, he enjoys saying 'Ahhhhh' when I get the brush out, and opening his mouth for it. I just wish he would do that for longer than 2 seconds though!

Same here I'm in for as long as he'll let me. His favourite movie at the moment is Monsters Inc. and there is a line in there that says Scary monsters don't have plaque (thank you script writers) so I say that to him and he lets me have a whizz round and then does it himself (of a sorts). Before that we named each tooth after a Thomas the Tank Engine character. Its certainly not for the prescripted 2 minutes although we brush in the morning before his fruit juice and try to give him cheese at every opportunity after a meal.

I found getting an electric toothbrush really helped when dd was nearly 4.

hi any tips on getting my son to brush his teeth better i can get him to open to do the inside ones but cant get him to understand you close your mouth and do the front and sides any tips would be realy helpful i have all ready done the i brush my teeth to show him what to do and it did not realy work thanks

There was a tip of the day that said "name their teeth", as in Mr Happy tooth or such like. We have Cinderellas teeth, Fairy teeth, Little Mermaid teeth etc. Works a treat with dd2 who is 2and 10m!! Even big dd joins in sometimes age 5!!

I guess we are lucky, dd has her own toothbrush and I have one, she waves hers around and I do the brushing. Sometimes she tries to brush mine so I just open my mouth and go 'aaah', she copies me which makes it really easy to get to all those little pearly whites. It took us quite some time to get to this stage though and I am sure that as I sound like the cat that got the cream, she will make a liar of me tonight!