How to Brush your Children’s Teeth [ video ]

Transcript:

– Hi, it’s Dr. Shehan from Dentists of Ivanhoe, and I want to talk to you about how to brush your children’s teeth today.

So, if your child is between the ages of 18 months and six years old, you wanna be using children’s toothpaste, not adult toothpaste, because it has half the concentration of fluoride. Now, usually if your child is between those ages, they won’t have the ability to spit out, so a lot of time the toothpaste they use they’ll probably swallow, so you should still encourage them to spit and try and wipe the excess toothpaste with a cloth so they don’t swallow it. But that’s why we want you to use the children’s toothpaste, because swallowing too much toothpaste can be harmful to their teeth.

Now, if the child is over the age of six, that’s when you wanna start introducing using adult regular toothpaste. Use a small amount, maybe a pea size, put it on the toothbrush, and start brushing their teeth.

This s also the age where you wanna start introducing or start getting them to brush their own teeth. Usually, around the age of seven or eight, that’s when they have the ability to start brushing their own teeth. But a good trick when you transition from brushing for them to them being independently brushing their teeth is to make sure that you still brush heir teeth for them at night time, but in the morning let them brush their teeth.

Let them be independent. It’s fun for them as well, but make sure that you’re observing them.

If they don’t like the flavour of the adult toothpaste, what you can do is you can mix a little bit of children’s toothpaste with the adult toothpaste, it just masks the flavour a little bit, and go from there, and I’m sure you’ll have no problems.

If you have any questions about your dental health, feel free to Contact Us and ask our friendly dental team!