Toddler teeth brushing

[Cluelessfirstimer]

DS is 2 and used to love brushing his teeth. Now of course he hates it (along with most other things - we are slap bang in the middle of those tantrums and NO)

I've tried brushing teddies teeth and praising teddy for having it done. Worked once.

Watched a video on how to brush your teeth and animals dancing around - Worked twice.

I've brushed them for him which just results in tears. Brushed our teeth together which just resulted in tears.

Throw me some tips!

No tips just solidarity. It's such a battle and nothing I've done, no videos, books, special toothbrushes works x

It really is isn't it! Makes me feel better knowing I'm not alone x

Sticker chart?

When my 2 went through that phase nothing worked until one day there were no more tantrums. It’s just a phase was my mantra.

Will give that a shot - thank you!

That's a good mantra!

I just sit in his room and don't let him play with anything or get to do anything fun until it's done. I refuse to wrestle him or pin him down. He just doesn't get to do anything until his teeth are brushed and he knows that. Same at bedtime. No stories until teeth are brushed.

You just have to be stubborn and patient. Shut yourself in the room with him and nothing happens until teeth are brushed. Be matter of fact. "We have to brush your teeth to make them clean. We can do X once you've brushed your teeth. Which video would you like to watch while we brush?" Use a 2 minute YouTube video on your phone or a song, that's fine. But don't do anything else. My son knows if he squirms about then the video is stopped until he sits still. I have a playlist of toothbrushing songs on my phone.

Yeah I think just a phase, sometimes it's worse than others. I find brushing my teeth at the same time works as she likes to be like mummy, same for other things too.
Or try a singing a song? I do something similar and stop singing when the toothbrush comes out of her mouth.
Also, she doesn't want me to touch the toothbrush or she goes crazy 🙄 so I try to not touch it.
Just various things I've tried that help sometimes, we still have a nightmare doing it most of the time... x

Horrible stage but you'll get there! I have a trick with my toddler where I get him to sing a nursery rhyme but like just "aaaah aaaah" to the music.i then furiously brush his teeth while he does it and that works most of the time. It's a whole other song and dance just to get him to that point most nights though. Good luck 🤞🏻

We had the same. It’s a phase unfortunately. Keep trying and reward even minimal tooth brushing - I took the view that if one tooth had been brushed that was a win and rewarded it with compliments (same approach with unwanted food). We are now back to no fights although it did take a lot of time and patience.

Thanks all! Glad to hear it's a common phase. Exhausting!

I'll try all of the above fab advice and hopefully it passes soon ...

Read on another thread about pretending there are tiny dinosaurs (or other favourite things) hiding in his mouth who need their teeth brushed. That's worked well for 2 days so far ...

The problem is you need to brush her teeth yourself until she is around 8 as children don’t have the dexterity before then. Children particularly miss the biting surfaces of the back teeth.

By all means let her brush first , with no more than a pea sized bit of toothpaste as more than that may make her adult teeth a funny colour , but you must , every time , go over them afterwards.

All toddlers will scream , shout , wiggle around at some time but teeth brushing is a non negotiable .

Sitting with toddler on your lap and brushing in mirror may help as it’s quite an intimidating thing having an adult just inches from your face . But in the end it may come down to all in wrestling for a short while whilst they come to terms with the inevitable.

@Lollygaggle thank you for, for the... advice 🙄 ?? Did you think I was asking for help? I wasn't 😃

Just to point out, I do go in my daughters teeth with the toothbrush after she is done brushing herself, but give her the opportunity to go in herself so she learns (which actually she does a good job at) first.

I hope some of the suggestions help you OP 😊 x

Give him his own brush that he can choose at the shop, let him brush his teeth himself and then you can probably get to do it afterwards,
That worked for my kids as they felt in control and you can finish the job

I used the same technique at tea table. I would give them a spoon and I had another spoon which worked well

Second what @ZiggyZowie said. My little girl likes her independence, if I went in and brushed her teeth straight away, she'd go nuts.
Also, I don't want her to have negative association with brushing her teeth personally.
The dentist said to me, letting toddlers bite their toothbrushes is enough pretty much.
I would go in after still though and try give a little myself 😊
I'm sure you're doing a great job anyway x

When bribery fails, in the end you just have to calmly persist and get it done with minimum fuss. Announce all done cheerfully when you’ve finished but don’t make too big a deal of the tears. I used to say “Sorry darling but I have to brush your teeth” which was the truth. Mine was even worse about having her hair washed. She used to scream the house down, it was awful. I tried everything.

Going through the same atm with our 2yo, he will do it himself really badly but it’s better than not at all in my opinion. I just try to help do it properly every time but ends in ‘no! Me do it!’

The dinosaur game lasted all of 2 days btw and then he hated it again.

Had some minor success with "Now or in 5 minutes" and setting a timer, as well as letting him lie with his head on my lap, rather than trying to cradle him in my arms which he finds too much like being restrained.

Will keep going with that until it fails and then try letting him do it himself and "checking" after. Will also try problem solving it with him and trying to get him to come up with a solution that he likes. A set of cards with tooth brushing options to choose from might help for a bit, or buying a toothbrush with his favorite character on?

It's like playing whack-a-mole!

Multi pronged approach we introduced a star chart in the short term. A stick star for a good teeth clean and a star she could colour in for a very good teeth clean. She got to chose the coloured crayons that they were drawn with too

Tooth cleaning videos. We started the actual tooth cleaning videos but now it's any 2-3 minutes video. How to make colourful pasta and wax crayons are current favourites

Teeth cleaning is non negotiable and we have pinned her down in desperation. She has a small cavity in a molar and 2 molars at risk of cavities due to severe silent reflux so we have to have good teeth cleaning twice a day minimum. Under dentist advice we put toothpaste on her molars before bed too as this is when her reflux is at its worst