Refusing teeth cleaning

[PetrovaFossil1]

Hi all,

My 15 month old has suddenly refused to let me clean his teeth. I think it's because he wants to do it himself but he's not great at it...

He screams and clamps his mouth shut when I do it either with a brush or a finger brush. I'm at a bit of a loss!

Any advice?

Both mine went through this phase. With Dc1 it ended around 22 months, with DC2 we are just coming through it at 2.4. I have taken the approach of letting them do some followed by a bit of enforced brushing with accompanying screaming blue murder protests from child. Not nice but nor are rotten teeth...

Forgot to say, there are various games you can play which may help, eg "I can see a monkey in your mouth" or "You can brush my teeth while I brush yours" or "Let's count your teeth" or "let's get that bit of toast/banana/whatever you ate today". However these games only worked for mine after many many months... hope you might have success more quickly!

Same as minipie here. I played games - both of my sons went through this seemingly never ending phase. DS2 liked me to chase the dinosaurs out of his mouth. I would say 'uh oh, there's a stegosaurus!' and other such nonsense. And getting them to open wide so that I could see down into their tummies and we'd list what they'd eaten all day. All very stop/start, but distracting enough to get the job done as they remembered breakfast, lunch, dinner. It can get very frustrating to say the least. They still need a bit of cajoling now at 8 and 4, but it's much easier than it was when they were tiny.

I tried the game playing which sometimes worked . More often than not I had to get her in a headlock be a bit more forceful.

Thanks all. Some good idea here. Although I'm a bit depressed at the prospect of another year of fighting this!

My 15 month old is exactly the same although strangely enough he is happy to have his bottom teeth brushed but the top teeth are a big challenge. I've tried giving him the brush to do it himself after I've had eleventy million tries but he does a bit and then just laughs at me.........

There are some good ideas here of games and things to try. Like you petrova the thought of having a tooth brushing battle for another year or so makes me want to cry!

Sorry my DD has been like this for a long time, she got her teeth late so we didn't really start trying to brush regularly until she was nearly a year. She was happy with it for a couple of weeks and then refused. For a while I would basically force it every few days - I'd lie her over my knee, she would scream, I would go in for a quick scrub, then I'd sit her up and she'd be fine. No tears, just indignance.
But once she got to about 21 months she was too strong and I feared she'd hurt herself, also she realised that if she didn't scream I couldn't brush her teeth!
Generally I have gone with youtube bribery. Finding various silly toothbrushing songs - the best one worked for about three weeks! I have tried many of the games I see suggested on here but they generally only work once. Now she is 2.5 and if I let her watch an episode of peppa she will let me brush her teeth properly while she watches it. I do it in the evenings, and in the morning I give her the brush and she has a half-assed go at it.

Chasing animals around her mouth, giving her a toothbrush so she can brush my teeth at the same time. ( brace one this), singing songs using you tube apps, guessing all the food she ate that day. I think forcing is counterproductive as it becomes a struggle. I tried to keep it happy. Sometimes I barely got to fling the toothbrush around one or twice at that age. When she got a bit older it got easier - both Santa and the Easter bunny left notes here about brushing teeth. Now at 3 years - it's fine because her daddy plays golf with the tooth fairy who only gives money for the cleanest teeth!