Brushing your infant and toddler’s teeth

Recently, a viral Tik Tok dentist (not the one posted above) was criticized for showing how to brush an infant and toddler’s teeth similar to the one above. Some say it looks traumatizing. But it’s actually the correct way of brushing since the baby or toddler’s head needs to be stabilized. You can’t brush your child or baby’s teeth if they’re moving their head. There’s no other alternative. Please, Y brushes don’t work.

Unfortunately, brushing your kid’s teeth in the beginning can be really difficult. They squirm, they cry, they don’t like you. Their arms are flailing, their head moves and shakes. It’s really easy to give up. It turns out it depends on what we value. Is having healthy gums and teeth free of cavities important? Or do we figure we’ll wait and see? If it happens, the damage will be taken care of. This is a difficult situation to face since it is so traumatizing to brush a kid’s teeth. We don’t want them to be harmed by it. But we also don’t want that added stress later.

I’ve seen so many parents delay their own treatment only because they want to focus on fixing their kid’s teeth in the end. This is traumatizing to see. We need better dental hygiene education today more than ever and it should be encouraged among all dentists. Education begins when your baby starts showing their teeth. Don’t think we can ever make up for it. We’ve gotten way too treatment dependent today. We need to focus on preventing problems. This becomes less traumatizing in the end.