A strange bit of advice needed, I could ony ask here!

[mumgoingcrazy]

DD2 is 4.5yr. She has GDD and SPD and has a history of a lot of sensory difficulties around and in her mouth. So onto my strange request.....

After a long time of not being able to brush her teeth properly, we have successfully been able to do this for about a year now, however we cannot get her to spit the water out after brushing, she always swallows it. We use 0-3yr toothpaste with 1000 ppm but even so it cannot be good for her. She has watched us, and her older DD spit the water out, but it doesn't occur to her this is what she needs to do. She's a visual learner so wondered if some symbols might work, if I knew where to get them.

Does anyone have any ideas??

TIA x

Should also add we use the tiniest amount of toothpaste, just enough to cover her teeth as I know it's full of chemicals.

Hello

I'm sorry, I don't know what GDD and SPD are but my DS2 is 8 and has Asperger's and we've had lots of problems with teeth brushing! He has only very recently started to spit when brushing. I mentioned it to the dentist and she said not to worry. She said having the toothpaste staying in and around the teeth will protect them and if you are only using a tiny bit it won't hurt to swallow it.

Would it help to do some kind of step-by-step pictures of what you do when you brush teeth: ie 1) put paste on brush, 2) brush up and down 3) spit, etc??
Maybe with tick boxes so she can tick when she's done it and have stickers or a treat after a certain number of days doing it right?

Hope others will be along with advice soon x

agree with suburbandream, one of the dentists told us not to bother spitting out anyway, as leaving the toothpaste in is better for your teeth!

Can she physically spit? We had to work on this a lot with DS before he started using it functionally. It's quite a tricky procedure if your mouth is a bit lax or you are orally defensive.

I cannot get DS1 to spit. I found that out to my cost when he bit a glass and ended up swallowing glass when he was 3. Thankfully, he's 5 now! As he's been assessed as having some motor planning problems I think his issue is just that. Still cannot get him to spit.

Same here, I was worried about ds swallowing toothpaste but the dentist has told us not to even bother with rinsing.

Thank you all. Sounds like it's not too much of a big deal then if she doesn't spit.

Suburbandream, I think step by step pictures would really work for her followed by a sticker (anything more would be lost on her I think, rewards need to be immediate).

Hairymaclary, actually I'm not sure if she can physically spit. She can blow a raspberry, do her tongue exercises etc but have never actually seen her spit. She has low muscle tone, and is undersensitive on her face and over sensitive in her mouth so I wonder if this is actually one problem not worth tackling at the moment. She'll do it when she can.

I'll give the pictures a go though.

Jerbil - how scary for you!! Motor planning is a problem for DD2 too, so maybe she just physically can't do it!

When we were kids we always swallowed the water because we liked the taste. When asked, the dentist told our mum that therefore there was less chance of any 'bits' getting lodged in our teeth.....

My DS doesn't spit either, there's no way he could learn that yet... Glad to hear it's safe, hadn't occurred to me, but only use a small amount of toddler toothpaste.

Heard recently from a dentist that we shouldnt spit toothpaste out but allow it to remain and coat the teeth so it shouldnt do any harm. If you are particularly worried there are herbal natural toothpastes.

This is all good to hear, to be honest it's really nice to have a problem that doesn't need dealing with. It can go to the bottom of the list!

Like the idea of a herbal toothpaste though, are they as effective as the normal ones?

I use organic mandarin toothpaste by green people, they can eat the whole tube...no nasty stuff in it.:)

DS2 can spit anytime (apparently it's a boy skill ) but not when there is a toothbrush and toothpaste involved. Just one of those things, I think.... in his case anyway.

Oh, just thought of one thing that SALT told us to use for speech development, a mirror so they can see what their face is doing. Maybe worth a try but other than that I strongly suspect it's a waiting game :-(
DS1 also has low muscle tone and is on waiting list for OT (definitely oversensitive in mouth) Good luck xx

Thank you all, hopefully it will come over time but in the meantime I like the idea of a herbal toothpaste. Will get that!!

I'm going to make pictures and get a little mirror too. Good ideas.

Just another one adding that the dentist said not to spit (nt children) & that swallowing it's fine. The thought makes me gag - but if she's happy I'd leave it. Like you say, it can go riiiiiiiiiiiiiight to the bottom of the list!

Herbal toothpast - slight warning - don't be surprised if she suddenly learns to spit, none of the ones I tried were very pleasant! You also need to make sure they have enough in them to actually work yet nothing in that will damage the teeth.