Teeth cleaning

How do you clean your toddlers teeth? Mr 15 months won't let me near his mouth with a toothbrush. I want to obviously get a good habit going so don't want to pin him down to do it. Help!!!

Unfortunately I quite often have to pin down miss 23 months, by that I mean, I hold her firmally and dh brushes her teeth ... we try to do this once a day, but sometimes we also just let her "brush" her own teeth

I've been giving DS a toothbrush to play with since he was about 6monyhs, he loves brushing his teeth luckily, although probably doesn't do the best job. We do it together which works well as he's recently started copying everything I do.
I have heard some mums use a muslin cloth to give the teeth a wipe.

i found that doing our teeth together while looking in the mirror worked

I sing a song to DD "this is the way we brush our teeth, brush our teeth, brush our teeth, this is the waay we brush our teeth before we go to bed/music/swimming"

Its really helped, she hated getting her teeth brushed before that, probably at the same age your son is but once I started singing she knows that its time to brush them, and yes sometimes I have hold her down (I put her on my lap and lean her back to one side) but shes generally pretty good now. Sometime she finds really funny at the moment is brushing her tounge which we make a game of as well

kezza2112 wrote: OOhhh..its a bit hard to negotiate with Mr 15 months as he can't talk yet.

Give him a bit more credit, as a nanny I found you can negotiate with children as young as 8 months. And that was not the exception either. With my own DD have found that I can negotiate very well with her at nearly two, because I have done it since she started moving (6months old). A baby/child will only know as much vocab as you use with him. Give him a chance and you'll find he will understand a heck of a lot more than you think...

HTH

Edited by kathamill

if my dd is being difficult i get her to pretend to be an animal like a tiger etc... and tell her to roar as loud and as long as she can lol she loves it and opens her mouth nice and wide for me

although both my girls 3 and 16 months love getting there teeth brushed i always have a turn either before them or after and dont have a problem except when teething

We do it in front of the mirror just before bed (as part of our routine) and I get him to open his mouth as wide as possible (AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH) and then I get the sides and then I get him to EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE and I do the front. He's pretty good and enjoys looking in the mirror when we do it.

We don't spit yet but we're working on it. He knows to T-t-t-t at the sink so that's a start.

I found a 5 minute cartoon of "Crawford the cat" brushing his teeth on youtube really helped getting my DD into it. We used to get her toothbrush and watch it together, and she just started copying him. I guess it's all about making it fun...