Silly Question about Dental Care??

[Nadine216]

Am I not suppose to know this??? I mean I have teeth, I brush everyday twice, sometimes three times!!

How do I take care of dd's ONE tooth? I have a little toothbrush with silicone brissles that she LOVES. She chews on it after bathtime. I give it to her to try and distract her from the fact that I have to put on a nappy.

Some morning she will wake up and have babymorningbreath. I give her the brush to chew on and put some gliserien (that clear sweet sticky stuff) on it. Am I doing it right??

What do you put ON the toothbrush? Toothpaste? I have no idea HELP!!

[Janie]

Nadine, you don't need to use tooth paste at this stage. Even a clean face washer will do the job of cleaning, but using a little toothbrush is fine too.

I'm not sure why you use glycerine? I'm pretty sure it contains sugar, which is disastrous for teeth. I would definitely give that a miss, and just use the toothbrush with water. When your DD is older you can introduce a children's toothpaste.

[Nadine216]

Thanks Janie, I see you are the only one one here who's bubba has some teeth :P :P

I read in a book somewhere that after a spit-up you can clean out your baby's mouth using a facecloth with some glycerine just assumed that you can use it to clean teeth. What are the recommended age for introducing toothpaste?

What about her breath being a bit off? It does not seem to bother her, but DH made a comment (not mean, just said her breath smells like sleep) about it this morning and I just wanted to know what does other mommies do.

[MrsFabuloso]

Nadine,

I use one of the soft silicone toothbrushes for DD too. She chews on it in the bath and when I change her nappy. In the bath I occaisionally put a tiny blob of childrens toothpaste on it, but not very often, usually just dip it in water. I just want her to get used to the taste of it. I also usually get my brush and show her how to brush her teeth on my teeth to try to get her to copy me.

HTH.

[Lea13]

DS has only just started brushing his teeth regularly with baby toothpast and his toothbrush. Up until now he has just had the toothbrush to chew on and we've used only water.

I never noticed any sort of baby morning breath on him though so I am not able to help you there.

[Charlyfrog]

I just let DD#2 chew on her toothbrush after breakfast and dinner but I try and give her two teeth a gentle brush as well. I only use water. We only introduced toothpaste with DD#1 when she was approx 2&1/2 and even now its only the teeniest amount. As she brushes morning and night, sometimes we only do one brushing with toothpaste rather than both.

Babies sometimes get smelly breath when they are teething as well......could there be more on the way?

hth

[Janie]

Can't really help you with the morning breath Nadine. I would guess that it's normal. Does she have any sort of milk before/while going to sleep, or in the night?

Glycerine might be okay when bub just has gums, but I would definitely stop using it now she has teeth. All that sticky, sweet stuff sitting on her teeth will just cause decay. You can probably introduce some tooth paste when she's 18 months-2 years, at least by the age of 2. It's a good idea to teach kids to spit it out, even with children's toothpaste.

[Nadine216]

Thanks girls!
Yeah, she gets some milk during the night, so that might be it, BUT there might be more teeth coming also - I HOPE!!