Brushing a Baby's Teeth
22nd December 2009
Teething is a pain. It involves many a sleepless night for all concerned. But this isn't a blog post about that particular trial, it's some advice about what comes next.
Milk teeth need the same kind of dental protection as your own, so obviously the first instinct is to brush your child's newly arrived teeth. So, down the shops for a special baby toothbrush and baby toothpaste we went. The brochure that came with the special baby toothbrush suggested that you "approach the baby from behind so they don't see the brush coming". I gave that a go, but even semi-asleep babies are not that easily fooled.
After that failed, I instead opted for the reverse-psychology approach. Because, well, it's a baby: Put anything chewable in front of them and they'll put it in their mouth! So I put the toothpaste on the brush and then held it just out of reach of my daughter. One quick swipe and in it went. Obviously it was the wrong end of the brush, but hey it was a start! A bit of further guidance and she was chewing on the correct end. She was even pulling the brush in and out. Success! After a few tries she was happy to let me do some brushing as well.
Of course what you don't consider is that this new item on the parental agenda is a disruption to the normal, bath, bottle, bed formula you've perfected over 6 months. Brushing is a little too like play. So added an extra few minutes to the bedtime routine.
Plus this technique is also liable to end up with you covered in toothpaste. But you're a parent, you've been covered in worse...