One of the biggest challenge we have with our youngest child is brushing his teeth. We have been working on this challenge for over 4 months now and I think are finally having some success. The following are the steps we followed to get him to brush his teeth.
- This step was a success; if you consider him loving his new tooth brush and rubbing it on his arms a success. However the step of putting in his mouth did not come right away. This step took about a good month until he was willing to put it in his mouth.
Step 2: Add water
- Now that our son was willing to put the toothbrush in his mouth We started adding water to the toothbrush so he would get use to the feeling of a wet toothbrush in his mouth. After a couple of weeks we moved on to the next step.
Step 3: Introduce toothpaste
- This step was a little bit more trickier as we didn't know what type of toothpaste our son would like. We bought two types and let him choose. He would often put the toothbrush with the toothpaste on it in his mouth and then spit it out. We would then rinse the toothbrush off with water and he would clean his teeth with just water. Eventually he did become more comfortable with the toothpaste in his mouth.
Step 4: Prepare for failure
- At this point our son went back to step 1 and refused to put the toothbrush in his mouth. We had to go through the previous steps multiple times.
Step 5: Figure out a way to time the toothbrushing
- We went a little old school here with the help of Raffie and his song Brush Your Teeth, whenever he started sing "you brush your teeth" our son would start brushing his teeth. Yes I understand that it is not long enough to get a good brushing but at least he is brushing his teeth.
Here is a YouTube link to the song we use.
Another idea could be a visual timer. We have used visual timers for other situation with great success.
Step 6: Celebrate everyone's accomplishments
- Celebrate even the small accomplishments, right now we are on step 5 and I know there I a high chance of going back to step 1 but for know I'm celebrating that we made it to step 5.
One other thing we have tried in the past is having our son brush his teeth at the sometime as one of us. I think this will be our next step to encourage our son to brush his teeth longer.