Please help with getting 3.5 year old to clean teeth/basic hygiene!

[Retrospeaker]

It’s a nightmare to get DS to wash face, hands after toileting, and especially clean teeth. Morning and night - he actually isn’t awful at washing hands the rest of the time. It triggers me massively - I think because I see it as a failure of parenting if we don’t do basic hygiene? It makes me rage.

I do choices (shall I do it or you) I’ve tried bribery/threats but trying not to anymore as it makes me feel shit. I’ve forced it when I’ve needed to (which in all honesty is quite often) but I feel like he’s getting too old for it now. We’ve got a reward chart which hasn’t made a difference long term.

I absolutely lost my shit at him this morning about it and I feel awful. Does anyone have any other ideas?

My 3 year old loves the ritual itself and says ‘teeth’ enthusiastically but doesn’t seem to have the motor skills to actually do the brushing motion, so I do a bit then ‘he does a bit’. I’m sure most parents still have to brush their toddlers teeth for them to an extent as it does require a lot of awareness and motor skills, but I could be wrong!

Sit on him and hold his nose. Worked for mine!

It's recommended to brush your child's teeth until they are 8.

Also I can't see the point of washing hands morning and night. Just after toilet and before eating should be enough.

It's actually non negotiable that you do it so giving choices etc is sending the wrong message imo. You just have to do it, end of story.

My dcs dentist has told us to do the toothbrushing until dc is 8. We've never attempted to let them brush their own teeth.

I don't bother washing face unless it's dirty.

Hands are washed before eating and after toilet. But we've used sanitiser instead if they're being fussy.

At 3.5 he's not going to do this by himself, reward chart or not.

Are you taking him to the sink and doing it for him, alongside lots of praise and the chance to try it independently?

You need to be doing it with him / for him until 8.

Is it the room and set up that's an issue? we have tooth brushes in the kitchen and a bowl of water at the table or on top of a large plastic box with lid so it's it child's height with some Scrubbulicious children's liquid soap is much more effective than the bathroom sink.

Echo others on toothbrushing - I still do my 5 year olds as she just chews the brush otherwise or gets distracted. Face washing is straight after teeth - warm flannel, job done.

Hands after the loo - never had a battle as such but it took a while for DD to want to do it properly by herself. To encourage, I took her to Savers to choose her own soap to use and all I had to do was push the pump bit as she couldn't quite manage that but her independence with it increased dramatically!

I still brush my 3.5 year old's teeth and plan to quite awhile longer based on her current coordination level! To let us brush them, we used watching something for quite awhile. We started with Hey Duggee brush your teeth song, then when she bored of that, we would watch a song of her choice while we brushed her teeth, and we've recently managed to cut the screen time and she just lets us brush her teeth and it's part of the routine. It can still be a bit of a battle but it's non negotiable! Same with washing hands after going to the toilet, needs to be done straight away and quickly. Make it a game, like who will wash their hands first? Or make it fun, e.g., making bubbles with the soap? Or give a reasonable choice, e.g., do you want to use liquid soap or a bar of soap to wash your hands? Could also get a fun squirty bottle, e.g., duck shaped. My DD likes wiping her own hands and face after a meal instead of us.

Sorry I didn’t make it clear - I am talking about doing it for him, for the teeth. But he doesn’t let me and yes I have been forcing him @springbabydays but I feel like he’s getting a bit old for that? What age did you force it to?

Up until they do it properly themselves. My youngest is 8 and although it got rarer and rarer the older she got I sat on her fairly recently (I think she saw it as a bit of a game by that point and liked the attention 🤣)

Yes he stands on the toilet or on the step, is given the chance to do it himself and then I do it (I would follow up myself if he had a go and have done on the odd occasion he’s tried). But it’s getting worse and worse and when it’s a flat no I do force it after lots of persuasion but it feels awful, especially as he’s coming out of the toddler phase.

He can get dressed by himself now but I’m not expecting him to do any of it independently, the reward chart is just to try to get him through the routine.

I could get him to go and choose a flannel I suppose, that might help (for the face washing). But it feels like all these things help for a week and then we’re back to square one - the chart helped for a week, an electric toothbrush (that he chose) helped for a week - and then here we are again.

Plan your day so that the toothbrushing happens just before something he really loves. Then say " let's brush your teeth, then we can have breakfast. Do you want Weetabix or toast" " Let's brush your teeth then we can go to the park. Do you want to go on the swings or the slide first today" etc.

The trick is to get him focused on something to do with the desired activity. You may still have to force tooth brushing to begin with but keep talking about the desired activity while you do. If he wants to go to straight to the desired activity, say "teeth first, then I'm going to really enjoy watching you whizz down the slide. How fast will you go? Will it be faster than a speeding rocket? What about a racing car etc, etc." Basically any old nonsense that gets him thinking about the nice thing while at the same time you are leading him to the bathroom and just getting on with doing his teeth. Don't worry about how long they are brushed for at first. Get him doing some brushing without protest first, then gradually increase the time!

Distraction or first / then method.

I do teeth earlier than I would need to so that there’s time for 20 minutes more playing before bed. If we spend all that time in the bathroom, oh dear, no play time. It put the emphasis on getting it done fast so they could do something else.

At that age i used to tell my son what he had eaten that day, and that I could see it in his teeth. Then id throw a wildcard in there like "so shiny! Have you been eating pirate treasure?!". He found it hysterical.

I have 10 and 14yr olds boys and I am still having these same issues with them.

You have to make it part of the routine and absolutely non-negotiable! He needs to stay in the bathroom until it's done.

We do teeth in front of the TV in the living room before bed, no teeth, no TV.

Ok a few good ideas here, thankyou. I’ll try them.

I suppose I thought (with teeth) having been doing it for what nearly three years (and yes it’s always been non negotiable) he’d have bloody accepted it and we wouldn’t be fighting over it every bloody day. But it seems I have many years yet!

Let us know how you get on!

Parents are meant to brush until the child is 7, so you have quite a long time to go!

Have you explained what happens if teeth aren't brushed properly?

I never forced it. I feel like we are playing the long game with tooth brushing.

At first their saliva does a good job cleaning teeth so I used games where I found "treasure " in their teeth or chased monkeys with the toothbrush to make it fun, used tooth brushing apps with songs, used the concept of "I brush a bit, you brush a bit". Lots of talk about whether you'd like Mums teeth or dad's teeth (I have excellent teeth, dads are terrible) , my dad showing his false teeth and lamenting his lack of a toothbrush as a child.

Anyway the result, my 5 year old, 9 year old and 12 year old are all ardent tooth brushers twice a day now.