How to get tongue out of the way when brushing toddler’s teeth?

[IAgreeWithBryanCaplan]

I have never been able to brush my 13 month old’s bottom teeth because his tongue is always covering his bottom teeth. He’ll happily let me brush his top two teeth. Anyone else had this problem?

With your non-dominant hand, place your 1st and 2nd fingers either side of the lower teeth, this will naturally push the tongue aside. Toothbrush is in your dominant hand. Brush behind your 2 supporting fingers on the other hand.

Put your thumb of the non-dominant hand under your child's jaw angle too for extra support.

You need to get him less happy about having his teeth cleaned. Mine screams her head off, nice wide open mouth, tongue back, works a treat if you ignore the noise 🤣

@caecilius1 Thanks for the advice.

Just one question.

How do you put your fingers into a toddler's mouth without having them bitten off? Are there any special gloves that you would recommend?


You can get this type of thing online, but usually the toothbrush would crank open enough to stop the biting of the other non-dominant hand.
Dr Barman's child toothbrush are pretty effective. Maybe try one of those.

This

We do saying "ahh". If you do it as a game, where you start at a high pitch and get lower (get him to copy you) you'll find that once you get to the lower pitches his tongue moved downwards and backwards

Just push it to one side using the brush?

I agree this is the best way. All the others are forcing.

I say this as someone who has always really hated brushing my teeth, I only do it for a few seconds and sometimes just once a day. I don't want dd to hate it like I do.

@123xyz The ‘say aah’ game is working brilliantly. I can brush all his teeth thoroughly while he emits the loudest most ear-piercing ‘aah’s imaginable.

Glad it worked! We still rely on it sometimes even though DS is well past toddler stage!