Teeth brushing

DS is 18 months old and absolutely hates brushing his teeth. I try to use lots of positive encouragement and praise but the most he will do is one small brush stroke on his front teeth and then he sucks the toothpaste off the brush. Usually I have to hold him and quickly brush his teeth while he cries and tries to stop me. I really hate it.

He has 12 teeth at this stage and we live in a town that doesn't add fluoride to the water so I feel quite stressed that he doesn't like brushing his teeth. My town has one of the highest rates of childhood tooth decay in the country :( Of course brushing teeth is important for everyone but I feel like it's extra important because of where we live. I make sure he sees me brushing my teeth every day and he often witnesses DP brushing as well. We usually do it as a joint activity so he knows it's something we're doing regularly as well.

I'm looking for any tips or ideas on how to make brushing his teeth more fun/enjoyable and less horrible for both of us. I hate holding him down to do it and although he is always willing to come into the bathroom and take his toothbrush his motivation ends right there. Will he grow out of it? I'm worried that being coerced is going to make him avoid brushing but I can't let him not brush either.

I am in the same position as you but we already have marks on iains top front 4 teeth from the lack of fluoride ( we are on tank water)
I do the same as you atm. Pin him down & just get it done. Its been the same with all the kids but they get there. What brand of tooth paste do you use? My kids say Colgate is too hot, even the kids one. I get the macleans one with the wiggles on it. They don't mind that one. I am also told that you get ones with no flavour at all but I am yet to find one. The other thing I do is ditch the brush & just use a wet face washer with a dab of tooth paste on it over my finger. But I usually have to swap back & forth between techniques.

Thanks Efjay. We use Macleans as well because DP reacts badly to Colgate (makes him spew) but I never thought of getting DS a children's toothpaste :doh: Will give it a go. It's good to hear that they get there eventually.

This is a bit OT but we will be on tank water in the next year or so too. I was listening to an ABC podcast about kids teeth tonight and they were saying that in non-fluoride areas the best thing to do is get the fluoride tablets and crush them into drinking water to ingest it gradually rather than a full hit with a tablet but that they're hard to get because they're out of favour and not being made anymore. I might investigate, perhaps they are available locally because of the lack of fluoride.

hun id definatly look into getting some fluoride tablets, you can get thrm from the chemist, for yourself you can get a fluoride treatment if your worried
DD loves to brush her own teeth but wont really let us, so i leave it, as iknow one day she'll let me!

Are you breastfeeding, because that's supposed to be really good for cleaning the mouth too.
DS was the same and I didn't really stress about it till after he'd weaned. We are finally at the point now where he will let me brush his teeth (more or less).
If DS does his own he sucks the brush, swishes it around his mouth and makes brushing sound effects.

We use bribes lol. At that age we had major struggles too and had to pin him down but we're finally past that. I took him to the store with me and let him pick out a toothbrush (a spiderman one and a diego one) and then hyped him up about using it. We use colgate watermelon toothpaste so he likes the taste. DS is huge into books so we brush his teeth before his bedtime stories and tell him if he sits still and allows us to brush his teeth he will be allowed to come lie in our bed for some stories, but if he does not co-operate he will have to go straight to his own bed with no stories. He still complains a bit still, but he sits still for us.

I have had to hold Miss J's head and force her to brush hers! She doesn't use toothpaste yet but we have fluoride in the water. Definitely use the children's toothpaste as it is much less sharp in flavour and designed for kids. The Wiggles Macleans one is favoured by DD1. I had fluoride tablets as a kid but can't remember what age I had them from.

We actually don't drink flouride so I do worry a tad...but in saying that I was born and bred here and don't have issues..but that's another storey. So DD doesn't like it too much either but I brush my teeth at the same time as her straight after a bath and we sing songs and let her do it a bit, then we do it. She'll reach for my brush and I'll let her use it too (yes..I know..gross but also unhygenic..but heck..she's brushing!) and I got her a little electric toothbrush with The Little Mermaid on it (you can get them for something like $12 at the shops)...that combined with a doll that she brushes it's teeth, we still have battles...but I just don't want to / like holding her head as it becomes a battle..so we're hoping by making it fun, we hcan acheive at least one effective brush at night...

Thanks for your replies. I bought the Wiggles toothpaste today.

olive - I will look into the tablets. DP told me today that apparently we are getting fluoride in the water here soon but we will be on tank water soon so back in the same boat. I am so overdue to go to the dentist myself.....went every 6 months until I was 18 and very few times since then :redface: I have no fillings but can't ride the good start forever! How young can I take DS? He has this really weird looking front tooth, it's like two small teeth joined together.....

Marcellus - I am still feeding DS once a day in the morning on waking. Is that enough do you think?

Nai and Heda - I wish I was only holding his head! He runs away too quick so I hold his whole body on my lap with one arm tucked under my arm and hold his other hand and then brush :( It's horrible! It's good to hear they do improve.

Twin sister - bribes are a good idea. We don't read to DS before bed because it hypes him up into thinking it's playtime but I'll give it some thought as to how we can reward him.

DS just loves bath time and is very relaxed in the bath. So we give him his toothbrush when he's in the bath and most nights he seems to have a good go at it. We only use a tiny speck of toothpaste because DS doesn't spit too well and I think he likes the mint taste surprisingly so he feels he needs to consume it.

you can take him now darl, the younger the better, just do a fun vist for a few times. his tooth well thats ok, its not that common but normal, dont worry the adult one will be fine!

i use a non fluoride toothpaste for DD2, its incentive to get the brush in her mouth :lol: its strawberry flavour

It would give his mouth a good clean out in teh morning - I don't really know how much is enough, but anythign is better than nothing.
The other thing to consider is sugar in his diet. If he doesn't have any/much, then again, it's less of a concern (I don't want to say it doesn't matter if he doesn't brush, but maybe it's less critical if he's not having lots of sugar)

I did buy DS a wiggles toothbrush. It worked quite well for a whiel because "wiggles brush their teeth every day"

We let Jazz choose her tooth brush, and we also let her 'play' with it. Not PLAY play with it, but we don't force the tooth brushing issue, we let her just put it in her mouth, pretend to brush. When she's in the bath or sitting in the bottom of the shower with me she is usually chewing on her brush. She mostly chews on her brush, but in all honesty her chewing on the brush is more effecctive than me holding her down and brushing her teeth and making her scared of the toothbrush. We also play a game: Jazz can brush my teeth if I can brush hers. So we all have our toothbrushes out, and she brushes mine, and then I get a go at brushing hers, and then she brushes Shel's teeth and Shel gets to brush hers. It's only a quick go each time but by the time she's sick of it her teeth get a pretty good go.

My advice is to not push it, make it fun, and just be aware of things that can cause tooth decay, limit sugary foods and drinks and give lots of water during and after meals and lots of calcium for strong healthy teeth.

marcellus - I never knew that about breastfeeding, there you go! Good things to know!

We've had similar problems here... DS went from loving his tooth brush to hating it. DH tried him with the electric one a couple of times and he loved it, so we bought him one of the ones for kids with the extra soft bristles. It did say on the package not for kids under 3, but I asked the dentist and he said it was fine. He also said to not use toothpaste until they are able to spit it out, it's really not necessary and if they aren't rinsing and spitting apparently it can cause mouth ulcers and other problems...

Anyway, I would give an electric one a go and just let your LO play with it. DS loves his and wants to have a go everytime we go into the bathroom now.

We got electric toothbrushes for our kids cos they just hated doing it. Now they both love it, and will let me brush first, and then I let them finish it off themselves.

If it's the toothpaste flavour, maybe try just plain baking soda? I haven't tried this on Bridie yet as we are still working on the concept of *brushing* teeth rather than just chewing the toothbrush :) But I know that you can use baking soda to clean teeth, it's a mild alkali so will neutralise food acids, and obviously has no flouride so you don't have to worry about them swallowing it.

You can buy kids toothpaste that come in bubblegum flavour and lots of other yummy flavours....come even have glitter in them :)
Jack loves to brush his teeth in the bath. He started off just chewing on it (which I figure is better than nothing at all) and now he will use a brushing motion. If you are using a children's toothpaste you don't need to stress too much if they don't know how to rinse and spit properly just yet.
Maybe make up a "tooth brushing" song to make it more fun.

We do the bath thing too. Once the toothpaste is gone she uses the bubbles to brush her teeth. Ewww! But at least she's doing it :)

then she tries to feed me bubbles with a spade