How can we help our 22 month old accept tooth brushing?

[Pontypool]

Hi .

I've got a 22 month old son. Almost a complete set of teeth.. cannot get him to brush them at all. As he will fight us every second.

I've got a normal baby toothbrush and another (electric) child's brush that's an elephant suitable for his age. He isn't having any of it.
My wife suggested getting this new type , where soft silicon bristles brush the entire upper and lower teeth all at once. Like dentures.
He isn't having any of it at all. I can maybe insert it for like 1 second before he violently shakes his head from side to side.
Toothpaste so over his face and clothes

We've also tried all brushing our teeth in there he isn't having that either. We had limited success letting him brush his own teeth. But he just bites down on it and isn't doing it right.

Curious if anyone has any experience how to handle this?

Hold his head still and do it. Might take two of you. Do whatever it takes. Toothbrushing is non negotiable.

You lie him on the floor with his head towards you, and use your legs to pin his arms down, your head held between your thighs, and you brush. Honestly at that age it's about getting it done, not 'accepting' it. We offer either a song or counting whilst doing it. He's too young to do it himself, we do let our toddler have a go herself but after we've done it ourselves. It's increasingly common for kids to need fillings, don't let that happen.

Not brushing could result in rotten teeth that need removing under general anaesthetic when they are older. He just has to accept that this happens every day twice a day as part of his routine. Play a song whilst it is done then they know the song ends and it is over. As a parent seeing your child upset is awful but sometimes they get upset, you can't prevent it.

We have also done the wrap them in a towel, lie them on the floor with one parent holding their body and the other parent using their thighs to hold their head still. It is completely shit but necessary. We only had to do that a couple of times.

They are now adults in their twenties, no fillings and brush their teeth twice a day and also not traumatised from the pinning down but having teeth removed under general anaesthetic would be traumatic.

Honestly, although we limit screen time at other times, for tooth brushing we just let them watch youtube videos. The Hey Duggee toothbrushing song tends to be popular. There are lots of videos that are 2 minutes long specially designed for this.

Yeah there are 2 ways

1. You hold them down and forcibly brush teeth. It's 1 minute of pain and its a non-negotiable.
2. You utilise a screen and distract them so you can brush their teeth.

We do both versions. Number 2 in the morning for a really good brush. Number 1 before bed as she doesn't kick off quite so much, so she's more just wriggly rather than not cooperating at all.

Its the one thing that we insist upon, well that and nappy changes. So she doesn't get to have a choice in it one way or another she's having her teeth brushed.

I second the videos. I have a playlist on YouTube of two minute toothbrush songs, most characters do them, they have a little timer and often a diagram of a mouh in the corner. The only screen we allow is TV the rest of the time, our children think our phones only have toothbrush songs as it won't auto-play outside of the playlist.

I had a resistant toddler like this. We make it in to a bit of a game now. I get him to tell me what he’s eaten today and we ‘scrub it off his teeth’. So I start naming all the things he’s had and then he adds to it and says ‘away, strawberry away’.

Hold him down, wrap him in a big bath towel, whatever it takes. Tooth brushing is absolutely not up for negotiation, playing around, or discussing. It’s only a phase!

A few things that can help

• hey dougee toothbrushing tv show/song
• brushing teeth in the bath

but if all that fails you’ll just have to pin him down. Put your legs over his arms and brush them. Explain to him that tooth brushing is a non negotiable.

You don’t give him a choice - pin him down if necessary and hold him still while the other brushes.

I have to pin down my 20 month old 🙈 she hates it but she'll thank me when she's older lol. She's got a nice full set of pearly whites

Also have to hold my 20 month old to get them brushed. Usually sing a song made up by me to entertain her and also letting her play with toothbrush at other intervals helps too.

You can’t. I sat on the loo with DS between my legs pinning his arms down while I held his face and brushed. We carried on like this until he grew out of screaming about it. He survived.

Pin down if you have to but try everything else first! The thing I found best I saw on here and it's to tell a little story about what you can see in their mouth, based on their interests. So it might "go open wide I think I just saw a tiny digger in there. Yes I did! I'm going to try and catch it but it's going fast. It's whizzing round this back tooth, let's see if the brush can keep up. Oh wow, there's a blue car here too and it's overtaking. Who's going to win. Oh no the car crashed!" Etc. The sillier the nonsense the better. Keep it short at first and build up.

Also useful was have a toothbrush each and take it in turns brushing his teeth for a few seconds.

This is me now with my nearly 2 year old.
I just hold him under the chin and start to brush he will open his mouth to cry and shout and I just carry on while he cries, then lots of praise when it’s finished and all done clap clap, good boy.
I then brush my own teeth in front of him while he calms down and I make it look like I’m really happy to brush my teeth.
It’s hard but he has get used to it.

We are strange people and brush our kids teeth in the living room before they go up to bed. We let them carry on playing and just bring the toothbrush in and just say I’m going to brush your teeth now.
It’s less of a hassle than making them stop playing and traipse up to the bathroom.

My younger one is 2 and we do a bit of a combination of distracting / making him laugh / asking him questions so he opens his mouth. E.g can you roar like a dinosaur/ lion etc.

Usually he does it without too much fuss, but not always. I tell him, you can open your mouth and we can do it nicely or I will have to put you on the floor and you won’t like that as much.

You need to be consistent and actually pin him down and brush his teeth if the co-operative approach doesn’t work. Hopefully he will learn quite soon it’s better to open his mouth and co-operate.

Hi thanks for all the suggestions. Nice to have so much feedback I'm going to give everything here a go. I hope distracting him with a video will work, like it does with nappy changes, which he also kicks off with, but I know he's a very strong willed and stubborn little boy. Probably I'll have to pin him down.

I've tried holding his head still before but he absolutely kicks off , red in face, tears. My wife usually bails out after 10 seconds.

We did a combination of these two methods as well. We did much better with a manual toothbrush as they were terrified of electric ones, however child-friendly they looked!

it takes the two of us, one holds his arms on our lap and then other holds his head and brushes. He hates it but it gets done. Your wife will be more upset if his teeth start to rot and fall out so she needs to be abit more tough and not bail. It’s for his own good.

Keep as calm as you can

make sure he sees you brushing your teeth

maybes even go so far as mammy brushes her teeth. Daddy looks and says “oh a bit more - let me “ as it can be the all by myself age

We make it fun. I don’t agree with pinning down, yes it’s non negotiable but at his age setting up a positive association with brushing is so important for his long term attitude to oral hygiene. Don’t expect to go from nothing to a full two minutes in a few days, plan to gradually increase pressure over a week or so.

start with video - hey duggee or ms Rachel toothbrushing song are good. I do mine at the same time to model. In front of a mirror can help too. My kids really like applemint flavour toothpaste by brush baby, it had a rabbit on it. Minty is “too spicy” for them!

“mummy’s turn to help” are there any turtles in your mouth? Clean their shells! Let’s brush away that spaghetti you had! Wow there’s a meatball in there! Say any silly thing to make it fun. If he tolerates a second or two, that’s your starting point. Keep it light hearted and see if being consistent with this approach gradually leads to longer and longer periods of him tolerating it over a week or so.

yes you can restrain and overpower him, but you may be able to use positive reinforcement to desensitise him. Takes longer though.

I second the Hello Duggie song. I used to the brush their teeth themselves for most of the time so they get used to doing it but the last 30 seconds or so I’d go over myself. The are teens now and always complimented on their clean teeth.

Yep. I employed the headlock method. DH couldn't face doing it but I had no compunction. I didn't have the time for drama at bedtime or getting out the door in the morning.

DS is 17 now and seems to have forgiven me.

I started doing it really early, just gently wiping the 1st tooth to get them used to it being done every day. I had a stupid sing I made up, that I always sang as I did it, and I went really gently, telling them how awesome, how well they are doing...

Then there was the brush biting stage... I once put DS1 on the window sill (he was too small to get down by himself) and said he wasn't getting down until we brushed his teeth. It took 5 minutes, but it worked.

Then, from about 3 years old, we did "you start and I'll finish" to very slowly teach them how to do it themselves by age 7-8.

Try unflavoured toothpaste. Unflavoured. Not mild.