Establishing Hygiene Habits Early

. When you have young children you have to make sure that you instill good dental hygiene habits in them. Often times, the habits that are created in youth are perpetuated throughout the rest of an individual’s life.

First, you have to make sure that you understand how you are going to make these habits a positive experience. More than likely, your child is not going to be excited about brushing his or her teeth.

It is important that you are brushing your child’s teeth each morning and each night. You want to make sure that your child understands that this is part of a daily routine and it will always occur at night and in the morning.

When you are taking your child to the sink you want to make sure that you have a good attitude about brushing. If you are negative about brushing your child will also be negative about the experience.

You do not have to be over excited about the process but it does help to make sure that your child is excited about what you are doing. Having some type of reward system is a great way to make sure that your child is not frustrated.

When you are brushing your child’s teeth you do not want to push it. Make sure that you are not brushing too hard because if you brush your child’s teeth too hard you will hurt them and make the experience very negative.

As you brush the teeth of your child you also want to make sure that you are getting all of their teeth. Teach them how important it is to brush each and every single tooth in their mouth, even the teeth that are hard to reach.

There are going to be times when you will have a harder time getting your child excited about brushing. It is not the end of the world if you go a night without brushing their teeth because they are especially upset about the process.

You do not want to get in the habit of letting them wake up or go to sleep without brushing. When they know that they can throw a fit and get out of brushing you may notice that they begin to throw fits more than usual.

Understanding how to keep your child excited about brushing may take some time. Do not get too frustrated with your child or even with yourself when you are figuring out the process that needs to take place.

The more that you understand about your child the easier it will be to make the process go smoothly. Take the time to really understand what they do not like about brushing and see if you can change this.

Sometimes, they just will not like brushing for no real reason. Just stay positive and keep on plugging away at making sure your children understand how important it is to be brushing their teeth consistently.

Once you have gotten in the habit of brushing, you will also want to get into the habit of flossing. There are a lot of people that do not understand how important it is to teach a child how to floss when he or she is still young.

Your child needs to learn how he or she is going to floss properly. You have to make sure that your child does not hurt himself or herself while flossing but that he or she knows how to properly floss their teeth.

When you are teaching your child how to floss you want to make sure that he or she is not sawing the piece of floss back and forth between his or her teeth. This can be extremely detrimental to the gums.

Not only can it be detrimental but it can be very painful. You want to make sure that your child does not experience pain when he or she is flossing because this may deter them from continuing the habit.

Flossing at night has become the norm for those that are trying to teach their children to floss. Flossing in the morning has just become too complicated because of all of the different places that people need to be in the morning.

Rinsing your child’s mouth with a kid friendly mouth wash is also important. You want to make sure that your child is getting fluoride coated on their teeth everyday to ensure that their enamel is growing strong.

You can instill good dental hygiene habits in your child. Start now and you may be able to avoid many dental costs in the future.