Toothbrushing Adventures

Teaching a 15 month old how to brush his own teeth can be extremely frustrating or delightfully hilarious.  It all depends on the attitude of the parents.  When J started getting his first teeth around 6 months, we picked up a rubber tooth brush (slips over my index finger) and fluoride free tooth gel. He adjusted pretty well to that, since he was "teething" and to him it was just another fun thing to chomp on.  

Then, around 14 months we began switching over to a real (baby) toothbrush, not only because he had more than 10 teeth (and Momma wanted to have a hand left from all of that chomping), but we felt he was beginning to be at a place of being able to imitate us.  The first several tries ended in me almost straddling him, trying to get a brush in his mouth, Momma frustrated, and then he'd throw a HUGE tantrum when I'd take the brush away for the night.

Time for a new approach. My husband suggested that I bring him his toothbrush and maybe J would grasp a little more by imitating him.  Hubby to the rescue!! Great idea! So for the last week or two, this has been our approach.  J knows that after his evening bottle, and after choosing his PJ's (we have just started letting him do this, through a suggestion by a friend) and a diaper change, it is TOOTHBRUSH TIME WITH DADDY!!! I grab both of my guys' Tbrushes, and they have some time of just brushing together and Doug instructs and shows J how it's done.  Then we let J just mess around with his brush on his own for a bit, then Momma finishes up.  He is just now beginning to open his mouth for me so I can do a quick once over-top and bottom.  I have learned that this 'once over' will last about 15-30 seconds before he's done, so Momma has to be quick. This approach has done wonders, and we now fill that J is beginning to not only have some fun with brushing his teeth, but learning too.  Yay!