Can’t get your toddler to brush their teeth?

This is hardly a rare roadblock in the continuing growth of your child. Teaching your child responsibility for their own body can be very tedious to accomplish, however, persistence is key. Your toddler is still learning every minute of every day, and they are fueled by fun activities and positive stimulation.

There are lots of ways to help your tot begin to enjoy brushing their teeth and turn it into a healthy habit. Not every method will work for every child, but it sure doesn’t hurt to try a few methods. Here’s a few tricks to help make their nightly routine a little more fun:

1) Monkey see, monkey do.

Brush your teeth with your toddler every morning and every night. They look up to you, and when they see you do it regularly, they will be more inclined to follow in your footsteps. A great way to enforce this is to start young, and once they’re old enough to brush their own teeth, they will look up to you to learn how it’s done.

2) Make it fun!

There are tons of toothbrushes out there with fun characters and songs. Use this to your advantage by singing along to the songs, asking your little one if they want to go “hang out with” which ever character they have chosen on their toothbrush. Impersonating characters can be great stimulation for kids, making them giggle and enjoy brushing daily.

3) Let them know how important it is to take care of their teeth in terms they can understand.

Don’t try to get your child to understand the specifics behind why oral health is important. Explain it to them in simple, concise terms in which they will be able to grasp. Kid’s don’t like things that are “icky”, so using words like this will help make not taking care of their teeth sound unfavorable to them.

Using phrases like “to make sure to keep your teeth strong and white, you have to brush away all those icky sugar monsters”. Remember, kids are impressionable. Reinforce the terms you tell them from the start, and try not to go into too much detail they won’t understand.

4) Stress the importance of flossing.

Getting them to brush will be hard enough if they’re opposed to it from the start. If you introduce flossing at the same time you teach them to brush, it will be much less of a hassle down the road. Preventative oral health is much cheaper and easier than fixing cavities or worse.

Now, we all know how painful flossing can be. The gum pain, the tedious threading between every tooth. The best and funniest way to introduce a child to flossing is a water flosser. There little contraptions are painless, fun, and no bigger than a tooth brush. You won’t have to stick your hands in their (or your own) mouth to get the job done.

Waterpark makes a child specific water flosser to help make the job way easier for smaller mouths. It comes in bright colors with fun shapes and stickers, and is smaller and very precise so you can help teach them where exactly to floss. You’ll never have to cut yours or your child’s gums again on annoying thread floss with an oral irrigator.

Again, trial and error is your best bet. Only you know your child best and you will know what works for them. Oral hygiene can’t be overlooked, and should be enforced from a very young age to ensure maximum dental protection.