First-Born Child: 3 Tips For Teaching Them To Take Care Of Their Teeth

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You’re a relatively new parent, less than a year in, and you’re starting to get the hang of this kid thing. You’ve got feeding and diaper changing down, and your next goal is… teeth brushing? Surprisingly, developing good dental hygiene starts before a child even starts teething. Make sure your first born gets the care they need for their little pearly whites by following these three tips.

Surprisingly, developing good dental hygiene starts before a child even starts teething. Make sure your first born gets the care they need for their little pearly whites by following these three tips.

Start Brushing

Start practicing brushing your child’s teeth before you can even see them. During their time in utero, twenty teeth are fully developed within their gums. Run a warm, wet washcloth over gums morning and night to prepare your child for tooth care early in the game. Once they start teething, you can start to use an actual toothbrush in order to get all the nooks and crannies on the surface of their new teeth.

Monitor Toothpaste

Supervise kids when they brush their teeth. They may have motor skills early on, but tooth brushes are a choking hazard until about age six, and sometimes even beyond that depending on the particular child. Make sure that kids three and over only use a pea-sized amount of toothpaste. More than that makes it difficult to control in the mouth. They should practice spitting out the toothpaste around two years old so that they know it’s not for swallowing. That way, when they switch to regular adult paste, they’ll know what to do.

Switch Up The Cup

As early as six months, switch your child from bottle to sippy cup. This minimizes the impact that bottle sucking can have on teeth and gums. Children that suck on bottles and pacifiers long after six months can have teeth migrate and redistribute inside the mouth. Hello, orthodontist bills. Having your child visit the dentist, like Apollo Dental Center, from an early age can help to get them used to the office environment so that they can form positive associations from the beginning. Nobody wants to wrestle a five-year-old into a car seat to go get their six-month cleaning done. Emphasizing parts of the visit like getting a new toothbrush and seeing their favorite dental hygienist can make the trip even more enjoyable.

Teaching your first born to take care of their teeth from the time they’re little can pave the way for dental hygiene success with the rest of your little ones.