How do I make my kids brush their teeth?

It is all too easy to brush your children’s teeth until they are old enough to hold the brush themselves and then leave them to it, but is this really the best way? We would say, not.

Children should be supervised to ensure they brush their teeth properly, to do this try to incorporate it into the night-time routine. As soon as “Beebies goes bye bye” let your children know that it’s tooth brushing time, if necessary brush yours first to show them how! Nagging to ensure your children spend long enough brushing their teeth is tiring and makes brushing feel like a chore for them. The trick is to make it seem like a game, although electric toothbrushes have timers, these can be expensive. A cheaper option may be to buy a colourful kitchen timer (we have a pineapple) and put it in the bathroom and challenge your children to keep brushing until the “pineapple goes ding!” 

Another way to educate your kids may be to take an ordinary empty cereal packet and a dustpan brush and teach your kids about the various facets of the tooth, show them that each tooth has a top, front, back and sides or you could even paint a cereal packet yellow and then get the kids to paint it white with a large brush, making sure they cover all the yellow. Be creative and most importantly, make it fun! When kids can see that brushing is part of your night time routine, they will follow your good example and you will instil in them good oral hygiene habits which will stick with them for life, saving them hundreds of pounds and hours and hours sat staring at the Dentist’s ceiling!

Make brush time fun with the Aquafresh app.