Struggling to brush teeth of 18-months-old

[FryingPam]

I’m afraid our teeth brushing is quite useless…he’s fighting it, throwing his head from side to side, tries to run away. I can’t brush his teeth properly and start to worry. I don’t give him sugar yet and he drinks only water. How big an issue is this, and are there any hacks to make it better?

Obviously it's important, but most important of all is to not make it a scary big issue, so that they're in a good mindset to take care of their teeth forever afterwards. Ours both went through phases of not liking it. We used to get them to brush their teddies 'teeth' and our teeth (with our toothbrush, obviously), making a game of it and getting them to set the timer. Kids love games and I found a lot of difficult things could be dressed up as fun!

Mine will hold the teeth brush by himself and can find it fun, especially if I brush my teeth at the same time, but at this age, he isn’t able to actually brush, it’s more putting the brush in his mouth and biting it. He absolutely doesn’t want me to do it though.

I got them to do it by teaching them about cavities. There child friendly educational videos on YouTube. They now let me brush their teeth. I also use character toothbrushes and toothpaste.

Needs must.
I'd always make sure I'd brushed each surface of each tooth at least once (sometimes this meant 10 seconds, others she'd tolerate a good 30 seconds).
Some nights are lots of tears and having to hold still, other nights are no fuss.
Thankfully, it is a phase, and both my kids were tolerating tooth brushing really well after a few fussy months.

Electric toothbrush really helps

At what age did you start this?

Our DS is a year and just sucks the toothpaste off the brush...any advice?!

Same problem here. I generally find it easier if I can distract her - sometimes instead of going ‘ahhhhhh’ I sing an opera song she finds funny, or I give her a book to read (she loves books), or a fidget toy in her hands. At this age it is all about distraction, and it can become a game when they run away.

Good luck!

Around 18 months.

Same problem with my DC2. I haven’t found anything that sufficiently distracts her yet. I actually asked a dentist last week. He said he has the same problem and sometimes has to resort to clamping child down briefly and just doing it quickly.
My view is that if it’s a bad day then at least getting some toothpaste on each tooth, and making it a non-negotiable/ habit is good enough.

I am normally rabidly anti screen time, but in this situation I let them watch videos on my phone. There's a really shit one called Dino's Toothbrush Adventure that DS2 particularly enjoys. The Finny the Shark one is also quite popular and as a bonus you get some good sea creature identification opportunities.

I just did it quickly and made it part of the routine, accepting it wasn’t going to be a thorough job! Worst case they lose their milk teeth anyway. I’m sure any little bit you can do will be better than nothing!

Is he still drinking milk at all? Breastmilk, formula or cow's milk they do need their teeth brushed.

Agree though that it is more important to build the habit at this age than to do it perfectly, so try to keep it a positive experience even if that means they don't get much of a brush. If you've got into a negative rut, take a break for a week or two and then try again with some games or give them control.

Doing it in the bath is often good.

I don't remember how it started, but I used to brush random animals/book characters out of their mouths. 'Oooh, let me see, who have you got in there today?' Very dramatic, 'Have you got a tiger in your mouth?! A tiger?!' and so on. Sometimes they'd tell me who was in there, sometimes I'd make it up (and sometimes be told I was wrong, it was something else), but for whatever reason, it generally worked.

And yes, be quick and quit whilst you're ahead. If they let you get quickly round all teeth, that's good enough for now, you can build up as they get older.