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Original poster

21month old will not let me brush his teeth, they are going yellow

25 replies

shatteredmumsrus · 25/07/2006 20:23

my 21 month old will not let me go near him with a toothbrush
His teeth are going yellow already and i can see the plaque on the top ones. any suggestions?

OP posts:

beansprout · 25/07/2006 20:25

Ds's bottom teeth are the problem in our house. I have just kept trying lots of different ways of doing it - him standing up, him sitting down, sitting on my knee etc. At the moment, the only thing that works is him sitting on my knee and him playing with running water.

Have you let him have a toothbrush to chew on so he gets used to the idea?

schneebly · 25/07/2006 20:26

Fight him and pin him down - I had to do this for a while and DS just had his first check up - all perfect and I am glad I did it - he lets me brush them no problem now so I don't think he was scarred by the experience!

TooTicky · 25/07/2006 20:27

Will he do his own? Or could you have a brush each and take it in turns? Or a flashing toothbrush? Superdrug have them and they do make things more exciting - you could do it in the dark.

schneebly · 25/07/2006 20:27

I should add that I had tried all the 'tricks' and distraction techniques before resorting to physically restraining him!

hunkermunker · 25/07/2006 20:28

Agree with Schneebly. He has to have his teeth brushed.

TooTicky · 25/07/2006 20:28

Finish each meal with a piece of apple and a drink of water anyway.

Ponka · 25/07/2006 20:30

I've tried everything, me. A combination of the following and sometimes accepting I have to leave it rather than having a battle has got me results:

Getting him to do it first.

Getting him to brush my teeth while I do his.

Getting him to brush teddy's teeth before his.

Doing teeth right at the last minute before bed and giving him the choice of teeth or night night. He always chooses teeth because he wants to go to bed as late as possible.

Have you tried fruity toothpaste? He might not like mint.

schneebly · 25/07/2006 20:30

cheese is supposed to be really good for neutralising acid after meals (no idea if this is actually true though)

zubb · 25/07/2006 20:31

great tip from Mumsnet a while ago was to pretend that you could see his favourite characters in his mouth and you had to brush them out. Sounds weird but works with ds1 and ds2 when I have needed to brush their teeth. For them it has always been Bob the Builder - so I will tell them I can see Bob / Lofty etc etc and have to get them out and they open wide and I brush away!
Failing that go for the pin down.

jamiesam · 25/07/2006 20:32

No suggestions from your dentist?

My top tips for teeth cleaning are

An electric toothbrush, with a timer - ds's brush until the beeps and then we finish off/check if teeth are all clean.
Play game where we pretend we can see what ds's have eaten that day in their mouth 'what's that pea doing in their, let me clean it off...' - they both loved it.

Bad mummy top tip is to be really strict (brutal?) and simply insist that you have to clean their teeth. Ds1 had filling shortly before his 4th birthday which I was mortified about. All his molars are dodgy - one too dodgy to even bother attempting to fill. So since that filling, it's been gloves off, there is NO WAY they're not going to get their teeth cleaned properly morning and night. If this included making them lie down on bathroom mat and putting handle of another toothbrush in their mouth to keep it open, then so be it. I stress I never hurt them, but I did - well, I guess it wasn't very dignified for them, they would be very indignant afterwards. But ds1's teeth aren't getting any worse, so it's worked - and now they both brush their teeth and then (reasonably) happily let us finish off.

kittywits · 25/07/2006 20:57

I would pin my kids to the floor in a full Nelson( with adult help to help keep their mouths open.) Not joking. They soon got over that phase. They have to have their teeth brushed or they will go rotton and I'm the mummy so they have to let me do it!

lexiemum · 26/07/2006 07:54

there was alot of wrestling and "pinning" down in our house until 2.5 with DD1 - then she watched an episode of Lazytown - Ziggy learns how to clean his teeth and they all sing a song. Now its a breeze we just sing "twenty times up and twenty times down" and teeth are cleaned without the screams.

DD1 also went off mint flavours around 2 aswell - found some orange flavour toothpaste in sainsburys which also helped.

accessorizequeen · 27/07/2006 21:59

Have same problem and my ds is 2.7 now, just noticed plaque last week. DP & I pretend to be bumble bee, truck, digger, kangaroo etc to get him to open his mouth & that stopped the screaming. Some really good ideas here on how to get him to do it for longer as I think we manage 30 seconds most times. Feel horribly guilty, I have such ghastly teeth myself I should have made more effort & set a timer or something. I dread teeth brushing time, but it's 4 minutes a day isn't it? He has tantrums for an hour, I can manage 4 minutes!

soapbox · 27/07/2006 22:27

Who is the adult here?????

No option - no negotiation.

If he doesn;t have his teeth cleaned then he sits on the stairs until he does do. No food, no drinks!

Really, you need to set some clear boundaries over what is acceptable behaviour and what is not!

wrinklytum · 27/07/2006 23:12

No teethbrushing = no bedtime story in our house.Usually works as ds loves his stories.Worth a try.

PinkTulips · 27/07/2006 23:29

the only way is to make sure it happens every night one way or another, after 3 weeks of me pinning dd, holding her head and brushing as she screamed she started to understand that it was going to happen whether she liked it or not, now she comes running to have them brushed and is good as gold. we still have the odd night where i have to fight her but the important thing is they get done every night. she's 18 months.

vitomum · 27/07/2006 23:34

agree with schneebly and the others. My ds would get away with it if he thought he could - but he doesn't. Now he allows it most of the time with the occassional wrestling match still required. I think this is something that there has to be non negotiabe boundaries on.

fattiemumma · 27/07/2006 23:37

colgate sell a flashing toothbrush.
it is designed to flash for 3 minutes indicating when the child can stop brushing but i use to for dd who is 22 months also hated having her teth brushed but the flashes distract her enogh that she wants to use it.
they arent any more expenive than a normal one either and you can get them with charcter too.

olivia35 · 27/07/2006 23:38

It's the main thing we're a bit crap about. Ds is nearly two & some nights he's totally co-operative - other nights he puts up a fight.

Dh is nicer about it than me, coaxes, cajoles & often gets better results, but sometimes just gives up - I'm the Bad Cop to dh's Good Cop, simply do it by force if necessary.

poopy · 27/07/2006 23:45

We are a zero tolerance family when it comes to toothbrushing ... but I know it is hard as DS took ages to stop kicking up a fuss and DD is only just now letting us brush her teeth without a fight (she is 2.5).
We did the superheroes in the mouth for DS - each tooth was given a name and was duely brushed ... with DD it was much harder - pinning down was the only thing that worked. She then gave in but we could only brush her teeth in the bath but now I pull faces and she copies me ...
It may be toothpaste that is the problem ... our dentist told us that toothpaste wasn't important but brushing, at this stage was .... so we binned the toothpaste for a while ...

Original poster

shatteredmumsrus · 29/07/2006 18:24

he is only 21 months yet so negotiation is out the window, he cant even talk. I have pinned him down up til now, its like a gentle headlock. what does that sound like, honestly!!!i have spent a fortune on toothpastes and toothbrushes. give up being nice now, he has them done and thats it.Thanks to those who have resorted to being physical, i dont feel so bad now

OP posts:

hovely · 29/07/2006 22:43

if it helps...
take him to the dentist and get him/her to tell DS that he has to brush;
get ds to choose new toothbrush;
give him yours so he does your mouth then you do his (if you try them both at the same time you can't grab the brush when he tries to ram it down your throat).

amazonianwoman · 29/07/2006 23:27

We just tried the "brush your favourite characters out of your mouth" scenario tonight and it worked an absolute treat

DD wanted her teeth brushed 3 times, previously would never let a toothbrush anywhere near her top teeth.

Thanks for the fab suggestion

Pixiefish · 29/07/2006 23:31

Tried all the enticing methods but still dd won't always let me clean her teeth.

I hold the back of her neck and brush her teeth

kbaby · 30/07/2006 21:50

We also have major problems with DD 2.2. I was holding her down on the floor with her arms pinned across her chest and putting up with the 40 second ear splitting crying, but I just bought a sticker chart and for the past 2 nights shes let me brush them quickly in exchange for a sticker.

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