toothpaste for babies

[MaeBee]

i clean my 9.5 mth old babys 6 teeeth every evening with an infant toothbrush. (or rather, i try to!) but i don't use toothpaste. am i meant to?!
a dull thread im afraid! don't think it will get up to 1000!

I think a tiny smear of toothpaste (as much to get them used to the taste as anything, but hardly any at all - I think our first tube of toothpaste lasted the best part of a year! Don't know what the 'official' advice is though.

'Officially' you're supposed to use toothpaste. Practically...well I didn't use toothpaste on my older two until they were at least 12m, if not older. Now, at 6 and 4, the dentist says their teeth are in perfect condition. Ds1 has had to have some of his scraped a little once or twice. The dentist said that that was highly unlikely to be because of the brushing, more likely to be because of the chemistry of his mouth. Diet and brushing are more important than using toothpaste at this age, according to our dentists.

thanks! just checked the British Dental whatsit advice,and they say fluroide toothpaste, but i know they arent meant to swallow any, so how thats meant to work!?!
thanks though!

Yes - How do you teach them not to swallow the toothpaste? I use the most minescule amount, but dd1 will not spit it out.

Any tips for that?

I used such a tiny amount, I didn't worry about it until they were old enough to teach about spitting out - once they're older they think it's fun, something you're not usually allowed to do.

Which is the main reason I didnt use it until they had some degree of control and understanding.

I use weleda tooth gel as it doesn't matter if they swallow it, doesn't contain as many chemicals but still helps clean their teeth, and dd (2.3) likes the taste of it, been using it since about 6mths when she got her first tooth.

I use weleda too for dd. She's 8 mths now but started when she had her first teeth at 6 mths.