Any tips on how to clean toddlers teeth ?

[IveGotAlpen]

In Dior need or help !

Toddler refuses to let me clean his teeth. I have tried everything. Him sitting on my lap, looking in the mirror, cleaning my teeth at the same time to show him it's fine, praising him ...the list goes on.

At first it started with loads of crying and wriggling and now he purses his lips shut and screams if I even approach him with the toothbrush.

I have given him the toothbrush to hold himself loads of times but he just sucks it so worried he's not actually getting his teeth clean, as he pretty much has all his baby teeth now.

Suggestions please, it's a daily battle morning and night 😪

Don't have any ideas, but I'm in the same boat, so watching with interest for advice!!

Have you tried one of the chewy toothbrushes? Brush baby do one, and also Amazon do a banana shaped one. I give dd one of those with a smear of toothpaste on to chew on, before I attempt toothbrush (which more often than not is met with utter refusal) so I figure it's better than nothing for the time being...

Did have a breakthrough last week by opening my mouth really wide and saying aaaahhhhh and she copied me and tolerated the brush going in for about thirty seconds. Don't know if that would work! To be fair, I let her hold it and guide her hand so she was brushing herself. But I am sure that tomorrow she will have changed her mind and I'll have to think up a new trick.

I used to sit on mine !

@hp2 your toothbrush? Didn't it hurt??

I use YouTube videos - google toothbrushing songs and let her choose one to watch while you do it.

I have the same policy with toothbrushing as I have with medicine, unfortunately. If my 18m/o won't let me do his teeth/do them himself, I gently pin him down on my lap and wiggle it in there! Screaming helps as I can see what I'm doing

It improves a lot after 2. DD used to like watching the Elmo brushy brush video on You Tube.

Thanks 😊 I will check out the toothbrush songs and the chewy toothbrushes. It's SO stressful.... I just want him to have nice teeth....he will thank me when he's older lol.

We sing a song 'this is the way we brush our teeth' started with one verse and increased over time. Fine with it now. A timer might have the effect.

My DM used to look for 'treasure' in my ds's mouth. 'Ooh look I can see a diamond, open wide, let's see if I can clean it' etc etc. Ds1 used to think it was fantastic and once I tried it we had less problems. The dentist said to hold them on your lap like you do when they have their jabs and hold open their mouths. This kind of worked when the treasure didn't! We also used the Aquafresh app and the ds all enjoyed it but it was more to get them brushing longer. You could maybe get your dc to choose their own toothbrush to make it into a new adventure!

Ooooh I had a chewy toothbrush! The banana one from eBay. Just put a smudge of toothpaste on it and let him chew on

It....
It works for sure. Just had a check up last week and teeth are perfect considering I've never been able to brush them properly!!

I've ordered a chewy toothbrush !

I'm weirdly excited !

Bear2014 😂😂 your comment has give my husband and I a good laugh before bed!

Fliss689 I'm a good mum really 🤣

We used to hunt for animals, so i get really excited and day that I could see a tiger and he needed to be brushed away then find loads of other random animals in there that we needed to get rid of. She went from hating her teeth being brushed to giggling while we were doing it!

I tried to link it to the story we had just read too, so I would often find the gruffalo, but bad mouse, owl etc in there too