Bath and Toothbrushing Struggles with 18 Month Year Old - Solve Without Tears??

What about a shower and brush his teeth in the shower? Or use one of those long shower extentions. You may get all wet, but he may be up for it. If you are concerned about soap in the eyes, get him some cool goggles at the store. The cheap ones will prevent the soap from getting in his eyes.

Just a thought. Good Luck!

Jilly,

When this happens, they are usually either expereinceing a sudden fear or anxiety or they have developed a dislike for the sensory experience. Which do you think this is? That will change your approach.

If it is sensory, the toothpaste may be texture, or it may just be the feel of the bristles. If it is anxiety, he might night like the "invasion" of anything, and his fear is going to be inexplicable and you probably will not be able to reason with him to make the fear less, even if you can figure out what it is.

You can search for different toothpastes and try different brushes if you think it is a sensory thing. If it is fear, you have to decide how long you can go without, and either wait for him to be OK with it, or go ahead and do what needs to be done and comfort him afterward. You really can't leave him dirty without concequences, especially with teeth, so avoiding tears is probably not in your future.

The bath is the same. If he is afraid of the water, you will just have to wash him quickly and get it over with. If it is sensory, try a visor to keep water out of his eyes, and other products that change the way it feels.

If it continues, and if he seems to have other sensory issues pop up, you can seek out the advice of an OT who can offer some desensitising exercises, like brushing, but you will not want to try any of these on your own.

See if you can tell what the origin is.

M.

For the tooth brushing, two other ideas is to have him brush your teeth and then start brushing his. He will focus on what he's doing and not pay as much attention to what you're doing.

I'd say something like "I'm going to brush your teeth and I hope there's no lions in there." Of course he'd growl like a lion. I'd play along and be scared and he'd laugh. I'd say it again and so on, all the while brushing teeth. I needed to change it up very often and would hope not to find all kinds of animals, space aliens, singing teeth, anything that would have him make a sound that involved opening his mouth. LOL

Yes, I remember my son had issues with the bath for a while too around this age. I think something happend during one of the baths grandma set up for him: either too cold or he slipped in it.....not sure. But little by little we got him back to sitting in the bath. We started bathing together at that point too or at least I would get in it for a bit with him to show him it's ok and fun again. New bath toys can help. Let him pick out something new and fun for the bath tub. We have this car wash thing which is pretty cool. In regards to the hair washing, I think doing it a little more often may actually help him get used to the idea that it is part of bath time... even if it is just a rinse. We sing songs A LOT! We have a tooth brushing song and a bath time song and we rotate with different songs to make it fun. "This is the way we wash our legs, wash our legs, wash our legs...when we take a bath" and so on. Change the body parts and also change to "brush our teeth..." Now to get my 2yr old psyched with brushing teeth, we say he has monkeys in his mouth and we must find them all.......find by colors or number.....another day it could be dinosaurs or sleeping monsters that sneaked in through the night. Other times, I'll mention the different foods he ate throughout the day and we need to find them among the teeth.....rice, corn, bread.....anything he ate. This also helps with his memory and he may want to give his input in it as well.

Good luck and remember that any stressful moment can be solved with a different perspective. Use games, distractions and music...it will at least ease your mind in the process. :)

Hi Jilly - Sometimes tears are a part of the teaching process. Personally I DID not compromise when it came to teeth. It is very important to clean those little things. I have 3 children now 13, 11 & 10 and NO CAVITIES to date. Mine hated it to at first but you just have to be consistant, stay calm but firm. Sometimes it is just a power struggle and they are testing us to see if they can get away with it. We tried the electric toothbrushes too, my son just played with it! Let the them pick out their own toothbrush, they feel part of the equasion then.

Martha had a great response too, that makes sense for some children. I remember that my son hated the texture of mashed potatoes, and 1 of my daughters hated the texture of apple sauce.

Good luck in your quest.
M. F

Hi Jilly,
Lots of great advice in all of these replies.
Think you just need to mix things up a bit. New toys for the tub. Bring in an animal/doll he likes and pretend to give it a bath with bubbles etc. Make it fun. That will hopefully get him to at least sit down and play a bit in there again. Then u can tackle the hair washing. Goggles will probably be the best answer for that.
Toothbrushing...same idea. Let him have a toothbrush for his animals/dolls. Pick one and sit and brush its "teeth" too. Let him brush the animals teeth. Talk it up and make it fun then work towards it being your sons turn to brush his teeth, then Mommies too if need be.
You know your little dude best, so just keep at it. You'll find the right way for him to get back to having fun in the tub and clean teeth.

I don't know if this will help but you might try new toys for the bath. You may even let him pick the toys out and tell him that they are special toys for the bath. Also if he doesn't like baths try showers.

My daughter didn't like the children's toothpaste either. We tried several different different types and eventually found one that worked. In the meantime she brushed her teeth with water and I would brush her teeth for her as well.

for the teeth part my now 3 year old when she way younger id tell her "if you don't brush you're going to have bugs in your teeth they LOVE left over food that's sitting there" Throughout the day we'd come across bugs such as ants and fly and so forth..which that's not completely lying. When we don't brush our teeth they end up rotten for a reason....so try that... till this day when she eats she drags me in the bathroom with her to brush her teeth. best wishes.

I can't help with the bath fight. But what I did to get my son to let me brush his teeth was go get him an electric toothbrush. Just a kids colgate battery powered brush, nothing fancy. I thought maybe he would like it better since mine is a sonicare and that was what he was seeing me use. And amazingly (to me anyway) it worked. I was just hoping and thought it was going to be another failure, but he let me use that one and has ever since. Also, this may not be the best "good mom" advice, but maybe try giving it a rest for a few weeks. I was sick of fighting mine, so I just quit for a while. Then I got the powered toothbrush and started again when he wasn't in a stubborn mood. As far as the toothpaste goes, if he doesn't like it, skip it. It isn't necessary. It is really just a way to get them to let you brush. If that is part of the problem, don't bother with it for now. Once he is older you can try again, but I have been told that water is fine for babies. The brushing is way more important than the toothpaste, especially until you can use fluoride toothpaste, which isn't recommended until anywhere from age 3 to 6, depending on what you read.

Give a power toothbrush a try, maybe it will help you. I was at my wit's end and my doctor had basically told me to just hold him in my lap and keep trying even if I only got a few seconds done, and that eventually he would stop fighting so much. But with the power toothbrush, it isn't even a battle. Good luck!

Oh PS- You said "he would brush". I am assuming you brush them for him and you don't really mean you want him to brush his own teeth right? He is way too little to actually brush his own. I let my son take a turn when I am done, and usually he just plays with it and ends up trying to brush the mirror or his toes or something. :) I'm sure you brush them, but I just wanted to be sure, sometimes with these posts it is hard tell what should be taken literally and what should not. With mine I just keep making him open his mouth and say Ahhh in lots of sing-song voices until I get all the teeth, then give him a turn.

Hi, I had the same problem with my first son. He is now 6 years old and he finally brushes his teeth without me telling him. When he was little it was a challenge. One thing that worked was that I bought him a toothbrush that has music ( he loves music, he plays the piano) He brushed his teeth until the song was over. He loved to press the button to hear the music and he brushed without any tears.
As for the bath, if he hates his hair washed maybe it's because of getting water in his face when you rinse him. If so, they sell a special rinse bucket that helps not to get the water in his face. You can find it in Baby's R Us.
I hope this helps. Good luck

As far as the teeth, I use a finger puppet that "brushes" my 2 year olds teeth. Or a regular puppet in my hands works too - such as elmo

I would look into having him evaluated for SPD...Sensory Processing Disorder. Come up to Broward for a thorough screening from Therapeeds. They treat kids from all over the world....the right way. therapeeds.com