Tooth Cleaning Confusion

[SummerToad]

Hope you can help me. Ds is 9 months, he has 6 teeth. So far he is pretty good about having them gently brushed, it makes him laugh. However can someone confirm i'm not meant to use toothpaste yet right?

Also, he has a long sleepy breastfeed before bed, so at the mo i clean his teeth before this, as by the end he is all sleepy and floppy and i don;t like to start prodding him. Should i be cleaning them after this last feed rather than before, well i guess i know i should, but what i mean is will it damamge his teeth if i do it this way round?

Tooth brushing with a tiny amount of 0-3 paste is important, but diet is the most important thing. No eating in between meals and only water and milk to drink.

actually breastmilk has been shown to be beneficial to teeth as it has antibacterial properties, so i w9uldn't worry at all about feeding him to sleep.

it isn't like ordinary milk or formula. it also doesn't pool around the teeth becuase baby keeps the nipple far back in his mouth and itgets swallowed right down

I always used kids toothpaste from the start.

eeek life is one long meal, we've no longer fnished one than begin another so the no eating between meals may be hard! yup, he only has water to drink

thanks thisisyesterday that is reassuring.

i do have some weleda herbal toothpaste stuff that i feel happier using than fluoridey stuff, am i wrong to think that swallowing even the colgate milk tooth stuff would not be good?

you can get baby toothpastes without fluoride too i think

A smear of flouride paste is fine. Any fluoride ingested now will make adult teeth which are currently forming more resistant to decay. Although if you are confident that your childs diet is going to be low caries risk (when they are older)then its not an issue!

www.ada.org/2057.aspx This is quite interesting.

You don't need toothpaste really until about 18mths.

Here in scotland we are encouraged to use the stronger childrens toothpaste - at least 1000 fluoride - because our local tap water has none added.