Brushing teeth

[Whathefisgoingon]

My 20 month old absolutely hates brushing his teeth.

He watches us brush ours and he likes holding his toothbrush, but he’ll put it in his mouth for a second then it’s game over.

We have tried putting his tv shows on and brushing in the living room, making a game of it in the bath, one of us doing stupid dances to get him to laugh (which is the best outcome of the lot) but realistically we can’t always do that.

Will he just accept it as he gets older? He screams the place down crying and I feel like I’m traumatising him. The minute it’s over he’s fine again.

Following as my 17 month old is the same!!

Sounds tough, we have had some success using a timer, you can get a big clock that counts down, even an egg timer would work, then he gets one minute to faff around then you get the time to do the cleaning. The good thing is the clock acts as advanced warning, which seems to help, and it also means you can relax more knowing that you aren't going to intervene until the time is up.
Also flexibility helps, especially at first our son was really refusing if he was over tired or something, so we just said ok today is not a day for brushing, let's try again tomorrow.
Although without accidentally making it something negotiable, as he seems to get less worked up if he thinks something is non negotiable.
Good luck though, it's not easy!

YouTube hey duggee, peppa and Mickey Mouse all have toothbrush songs my daughter loves them we let her pick which one.

Definitely the toothbrush song from hey duggee!!

We had same here and just pinned him down to do them quickly most days, he's been fine with it since about 2, does his happily every day and helps do his sister's now as well.

DD has a little toy farmer that she really likes, it’s just a little one that I can easily hold in my hand at the same time as the toothbrush so we do it like the farmer is brushing her teeth because I hold them so it’s like the farmer is holding the end of the brush. Maybe something like that with a favourite toy?
Alternatively what used to work was DD having a spare toothbrush and brushing the teeth of one of her toys after we did hers.

We have to pretend we can see things in DS' mouth, it especially works with trains, oh look can I see James, he likes his red paint to be shiny doesn't he, can you open your mouth so I can give him a good scrub? Just need to do his tender that's over here and it's covered in soot... Sometimes the fat controller runs away and we have to chase him all around DS' mouth to clean him. It's a bit mental but it works.

I had the same until mine was 2 and a bit. Stressed so much about it then he had a fall and we thought he was going to have some taken out. Since then, and I don’t know why!, (maybe all the dentist trips!) he has let me brush them and does a good job himself too. Use several you tube videos to help, he has a brush, I have one, sometimes I count them like at the dentist, laugh about getting the food out, and tons of praise and showing daddy how good he is at brushing!!

Fruit flavoured toothpaste rather than mint?

Try you tube for brushing teeth songs, Elmo does a cute one and Mr Tumble

Thanks all!

We’ve had some success with the teeth brushing songs, managed to brush morning and night yesterday with no tears but I’m not sure if it was because it’s a new video to watch