teeth brushing is impossible!

[duckyisback]

Does anyone have any tips on how I can get ds to have his teeth brushed.

At first he used to love having them done, now it is a full on battle. He clamps his mouth shut and will hit and push away.

I'm worried because of the struggle to clean them they aren't being brushed properly.

Is there any way to make this easier or do I have to just battle on?

I took 2.9 year old DD to the dentist today - he recommended the aquafresh app. It's quite fun, you can choose a character who dances for 2 mins - the length of time you're supposed to brush for . We used it tonight for a the first time - it kept her entertained so it might help.

He also said, just do the best of u can - which was reassuring.

ducky I'm having the same issue with my 17mo. She only got her first tooth at 11m, second at 13m, so we didn't really do much brushing then. But since mid feb (15mo) she has got 8 more teeth so we are trying to do it every day and it is such a battle! She has slightly wonky bottom front teeth that trap food so I really need to at least get that out before she goes to sleep. But all she has to do is stick her tongue over her front teeth and I can't get to them at all! Usually it ends up with her screaming over my lap while I try and force the brush in - which probably hurts her which doesn't help.
I bought a brushbaby finger brush, it works OK but she likes to chew it (ow) and the bristles are so soft and quite short, so I'm not sure it's a long term solution.
Best solution I've found is letting her watch something on the ipad / my phone. Our current plan is:
Mornings - she just gets the brush with paste on while I brush mine, and she can do what the hell she likes with it. More to get her used to the routine. She does stand there and move it round her mouth so that's better than nothing.
Evenings - I put a youtube nursery rhyme video on my iphone and she sits quite quietly during it. she still tries to push the brush away but it doesn't escalate to crying or a tantrum because she's so distracted. i do lots of short little brushes and take it out of her mouth in between. When it's done I praise her loads.

i don't know how we are going to make it to two minutes though!! I'm hoping that as she gets older we'll be able to use some of the other great techniques I've seen on here. I tried to tell her she had an elephant in her mouth and I needed to brush it away but she just looked at me like I was mad.

I swaddle in a towel and we practice shouting, it's a very noisy four minutes but means that they open their mouths and teeth get brushed properly. And the alternative is angry/upset shouting so I prefer happy shouting.
We also use electric toothbrushes.

I used bubble gum flavour tooth paste with characters on and got him to chew it 3 times a day. the dentist told me the most important bit is to get the tooth paste on the teeth not to worry to much about the brushing so I tried to do the front in the morning then one side later and a side after that.

DS holds my toothbrush, I hold his, and we brush one another's teeth together (19mo). As he has my toothbrush in one hand and his dummy in the other, there's no slapping/pushing me away - and he thinks it's hilarious when I try to dodge my mouth out of his way!

My dentist said that as losing as we got into a routine of having the brush at least in the mouth morning and night that was sufficient to start with and to gradually do brushing. He reckons forcing them just makes the whole thing worse and really for most (not all) kids it can be worked on slowly until they get big teeth if necessary. In her case her teeth are in great condition so I feel ok about doing that.

That said I have a system where my DD lets me brush her teeth properly if I do animal noises. So each quadrant is brushed by a different animal and she has to guess what I'm being. If she's in independent mode I let her just do it herself as best she can.

Her baby brother just chews a brush at the moment.

*as long as

Try a different toothpaste. My ds is 2 and we struggled but I changed to a Colgate toothpaste for 0-3 years and now he loves brushing his teeth

1. Oh my goodness there's an ELEPHANT in your mouth!!! Open wide! Let me clean that naughty elephant off your teeth. Ahh that's better. But oh dear me there are 5 MONKEYS swinging around in here!! I'll just scrub them off for you. Phew. I bet that feels better. Wait a minute there's a sneaky CROCODILE hiding behind this tooth... there, got him. Let me just get rid of these flamingoes.... and I think we're done. Can you feel any more animals in there? Yes... oh you're right, there is a walrus, well done, I missed that one... etc etc

1. Now let me see what you've been eating today. Hmm. I see you had cereal for breakfast. Lets scrub that off. And a banana... got rid of that. And I see you had a whale omelette for lunch. No? Are you sure? There's whale omelette all over the place, alright let me clean it off... and a deep fried haggis for snack... no? Are you sure? This looks like haggis to me.... and roast panda trifle.... no? etc etc