Bright ideas for getting 'strong willed' dd2 (21 months) to clean her teeth??

[HandbagAddiction]

So far we've tried playing with the toothbrush, watching big sister use toothbrush, brushing her teddies teeth, watching us brush big sister's teeth......and probably more, but I can't think of them right now.

So, currently I'm in fear of all her poor teeth rotting away as despite my best efforts, she won't let me go anywhere near them....so any more suggestions and ideas for cracking this would be really helpful...

Message withdrawn

my ds had one toothbrush i had the other and we would brush each others teeth didnt have too much of a problem as his always enjoyed brushing his teeth but never brushes them properly so i let him choose what colour tooth brush he wants i have the other i do his teeth first he'll do mine then i let him do his own

I am mean mummy - "Do you want a story?" "Yes" "Well, we need to brush your teeth first"

No brushing, no story. Plain and simple. Works!

We always tell our kids 'you don't want to be like grandad...'. He has two of his own teeth left and they are rather disgusting looking...

It works most of the time. I also get them to brush my teeth. Or you can set a timer and you have to brush your teeth until it goes off. HTH

Bribery all the way in this house!! Ds is the same age and I think it's too young to expect him to do it for any reason other than cos he gets something he wants at the end. When he's older we can rationalise it for him.

Find something she wants enough to put up with having teeth cleaned for. It used to be bubbles for ds but he has gone off those. Sometimes its letting him play with something inappropriate, like tweezers or nail clippers .

In the evening he gets to go to bed with daddy if he has his teeth cleaned, otherwise he has to go with mummy

We check for fairies/crocodiles/mice and then when we see one we chase them round her mouth with the brush. Oh its just gone round there etc etc really camped up.

She thinks its hilarious and laughs her head off.

My 14 month old drives me crazy, she HATES having her 7 front teeth brushed! I don't know what to do about it. My son was the same and he still tries to get away with not brushing and he's 9 yo now. If I wasn't so fussy about my teeth, I could understand it, but I love to have clean knashers!

Thanks for the suggestions everyone - some good things in there that I hadn't thought of. I will be putting them into practice as soon as possible......