These tips for How To Brush Your Teeth For Children are a great place to begin with your toddlers. A great beginning in dental hygiene will lead to good habits the rest of their life. While this may seem obvious to some, it really can be tough to teach your kids. Check out my tips and don’t forget to grab our free tooth brushing chart printable!
How To Brush Your Teeth For Children
As you work on how to brush your teeth with your children, there are some great ways to really help them focus and learn right away. While their baby teeth are going to fall out, you want them to learn proper care early. Many children grow up with a fear of the dentist, and that comes most often from having had a painful experience. Avoiding pain is easier when you establish good dental hygiene from the beginning.
Get the right tools for their little mouths. One of the biggest issues with learning how to brush your teeth is getting over having something put far back into your mouth. For little ones, the gag reflex may be especially pronounced. This means a regular toothbrush is not going to work.
- Look for the right infant, toddler or child sized toothbrush to fit their hand and their mouth.
- By the right kind of toothpaste that tastes pleasant to them while doing the job.
- Invest in flossers instead of traditional dental floss for easier removal of food between teeth.
- Plak Smacker Plaque Disclosing Tablets are perfect for helping kids learn where they missed places brushing.
Watch videos of how to move the brush in your mouth. Sometimes, it is just hard to explain something while doing it at the same time. That’s where Youtube becomes my friend. There are some great videos out there to show your kids and help them to understand proper form when brushing their teeth. My personal favorite is this simple one from My Kid’s Dentist that shows Proper Dental Habits for kids.
Practice the swish and spit. Do you want to totally make their day? Let them swish and spit. Kids love getting a chance to spit (especially since they are often told NOT to!) It’s just part of growing up. So, swishing is not just a way to clean the toothpaste out of your mouth, but also a great way to loosen food and plaque from teeth. Let kids have fun with water in the bathroom by practicing their swish and spit techniques.
Offer rewards for brushing without being reminded. One of the best ways to encourage kids when learning how to brush your teeth is to give a reward. If your kids brush well every day, offer a special prize, such as stickers on their teeth brushing chart. If they brush without being reminded, you may even want to go further and offer an even bigger prize. This can be anything from a trip to the park to a new book or toy.
Tooth Brushing Chart
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Dental hygiene is so important for us to teach our children. Learning how to brush your teeth is something you may not remember from childhood, so these tips will be a great refresher course on how to encourage your children about proper technique!
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