You know that keeping your child’s smile shiny is important, but do your little ones? Has toothbrushing time escalated into a routine of rebellion? Children are sometimes apathetic about the benefits of tooth brushing, but you can make tooth brushing the best part of their day. With a little imagination and some welcoming tips from our office, your family’s oral hygiene routines can turn into a pleasant and even fun experience.
Preparation is key. Here’s what you can do:
-Look for a special toothbrush: If you find your child’s favorite cartoon character or color of toothbrush and enthuse about it with them, your child might get excited just to hold it. Some retail stores even offer custom toothbrushes that children can color and customize until they’re satisfied. You can pick out the toothbrush together as a special treat.
-Find fun toothpaste: Toothpaste for kids comes in all kinds of interesting flavors, including strawberry, watermelon, and bubblegum. This may seem strange to you as an adult, but children love the taste. Some companies even sell packages of toothpaste in primary colors that kids can mix and match to make different non-staining secondary colors.
Now it’s time to party! Here are some ideas for making oral hygiene fun:
-Use your toothbrush as a microphone and sing and dance to fun music before you brush.
-Make silly faces at each other in the mirror.
-Let your child practice brushing on a doll or even let them brush your teeth.
-For every tooth brushing, give an enthusiastic, “Hooray!”
-Play two minutes of music and see if they can brush all their teeth before the clock runs out.
-Make-believe that you are pirates, spacemen, trolls or whatever else your child loves and persuade them that their mission is to defeat the bad guys in their mouth.
When their teeth are rinsed out and squeaky clean, you can celebrate with high fives or even give them a treat like a sticker. Follow these fun tips and Weeder Pediatric Dentistry will be happy when you report that oral hygiene time is your happy time.