Back in August I took my oldest son Kyle to the dentist at his dental office and dental crown lab. While he might have been excited (he LOVES going to the dentist), it wasn’t a great parenting day because he was going in to get two fillings. The truth is, my kids love eating lots of sweets. While we limit them, we obviously weren’t doing a good job making sure they brush their teeth enough.
I think that the biggest issue is that we didn’t have it as part of our routine. The mornings are often too hectic as we all wake up at different times and we pretty much have just over an hour to get up, eat, get dressed and get out the door. That’s not enough time for two adults and three kids to keep things calm and stress free. While the alternative is waking up earlier, I’m just not mentally or physically ready for that yet (I’m still waking up at nights to feed our one year old, but that’s a whole other post). Nights are more calm but too often, we forget to get the kids to brush their teeth before they head to bed because that’s not when we brush our teeth. If you want to know more about oral health, you can check out this guide to dental hygiene from Durham Dental.
I reached out to my amazing readers for some of their best tips and tricks on how they get their kids to brush their teeth regularly. Here are some of the best tips:
- Incorporated it as part of our morning/night time routine. Before they get dressed they brush their teeth in the morning and after they put their pj’s on at night they brush. I find it easier to remember that way – revolving around when they get dressed.
- Keep a tooth brush in every bathroom for both kids really helps when they forget to do it while getting dressed and remember on their way out the door!! My oldest also has a travel kit he keeps at school for when he remembers or can be bothered to do it. It was also something else to make it ‘fun’ for him.
- Put a note on the bathroom mirror to remind them (and the parents).
- Setting a timer on our phone has worked for making sure we don’t miss it. We have an alarm that makes a duck quack noise; that way when it’s heard, the kids know its for them
- Special tooth brushes make it fun and they look forward to brushing their teeth. Give your kids something to look forward to at that time. Either a fun song, reading them a book or cool toothbrushes. Use whatever appeals to your kids and they will remember themselves.
Really great tips for tooth brushing! I usually sing a song while my grandkids brush and when I’m done, they can stop. Its always fun!
awesome tips,but i find kids learn the best by example…..your boys are handsome
Great tips and buy them fun toothbrushes and great toothpaste, plus with them watching you brush they will follow along too
We just got the boys cool toothbrushes that have a red, yellow and green light to tell them when to start and stop!
I had such problems getting my two year old to cooperate because I used to have them brush separately. Now that I make them do it together (plus some cool new Power ranger toothbrushes) it’s going a lot better!
These tips are great, especially the one to make it a time to sing a song. Ours love to sing songs, so this would make brushing teeth time extra special.
I try to make it every night before bed. Morning is much harder for me.
These tips for brushing teeth are great. The kids seem to love different flavors of toothpaste and they also like their newest toothbrush that spin and changes color to count off two minutes of brushing.There are so many great products out there now.
Brushing the teeth always seems the last on the to-do list for us which is horrible. These are great tips that I will use to get our routine back on track. THANKS!