Brush your teeth

How do you brush your 1-year-old's teeth?



Well, I did something traumatizing to Joshua tonight. He was a happy baby when I tug him in to sleep. We were laughing at the silly games we played. All the sudden, I thought about his teeth. We bought some toothbrushes for them, but we just let them play with them as a toy in order to get used to it. We never really seriously thinking about brushing their teeth. I mean ~ really ~ how do you tell one-year-olds to open their mouth and stick their tongue out?

However, this time was different. I remembered something their pediatrician told me at their one-year-old appointment: you can brush their teeth with toothpaste.

Oh~ Maybe I SHOULD take it seriously. I looked at Joshua's teeth and felt a sense of guilt. Out of desperation, I pulled him up as he was drifting off to sleep. He was all happy, because he thought we were going to play. (I really think he is a baby who doesn't need to sleep.)

I put him down on the bathroom counter. I wrapped a towel around him and told him to "open up". Of course he wouldn't understand. So I brushed his front teeth (4 on top, 2 at bottom). That wasn't too hard although there was some minor resistance. I then attempted to clean his tongue with a dam wash cloth. I used force to open up his mouth with one hand (experienced major resistance) and cleaned his tongue with another. Once, not enough. Twice ...

Joshua s~crea~med burst into tears. Luckily he's easy to tame with a pinky. I held him up and told his daddy to put him to sleep. I hope Joshua doesn't have good memory and won't remember anything when he wakes up.

How do you brush your one-year-old's teeth? It's almost impossible to do a good job.