Cleaning baby's mouth?

[VivaLesTartes]

My 6 week old just blew a lovely milky burp in my face and got me thinking am I supposed to clean her mouth? I have seen lots of results on Google saying you should but none from any sources that I would trust. The NHS has stuff about brushing their teeth but what about before they have teeth? It didn't come up in NCT and isn't any parenting books that I've read.

Do you mean inside her mouth? I’ve never done that with any of my 4 or 7 dgc.

I've never cleaned out my sons mouth

Only when he started to get teeth.

You can use a baby toothbrush that fits into your finger and has soft silicon bristles, and gently rub their gums once a day. It's not really about cleaning their mouth but more about getting them used to the whole rigmarole of tooth brushing.

When you can see teeth, then you can start doing it twice a day with a tiny smear of toothpaste.

Never heard of this! And burps come from the stomach!

Only when they had teeth.

No. Baby's saliva will clean her mouth. Once she starts on solids then water after meals and a baby tooth brush for baby teeth when necessary.

Culturally, I've always seen this and so do it myself now. You can get soft cotton buds for babies tongue. I use these before babies big sleep and through out the day if I notice a bugger accumulation of milk on babies tongue. (Definitely milk not thrush) and have a silicone finger brush which I'll start introducing at around 16 - 20 wks or sooner if teeth start making an appearance.

If I don't use the cotton buds I use a damp clean muslin to give babies tongue a quick swipe. Use your pinky finger is worried about size and too much pressure. Baby and eldest didn't mind and when it came to brushing teeth we didn't have any issues.

I have heard of parents literally pinning their kids down to brush teeth.

NHS says from first teeth you can start. I don't see any harm in it and we're not using any products so the risk is minimal.

I used the teething wipes from boots. It's for before they have teeth to clean the mouth

Never did that, I’d have been at it all day with DS and his endless milky sicks.

He got his first tooth at 3.5 months so I’ve used a finger toothbrush ever since, morning and bedtime. I wouldn’t clean my mouth all day, just brush my teeth twice a day. If I just drank milk and had no teeth I probably wouldn’t bother either.

Thank you for all the replies. Good to hear it's not something I'm missing. It was one of those sleep deprived paranoid thoughts? So good to see real life examples to put my mind at ease.