Your teeth are super important. They help you to Smile, they help you to Talk, and they help you to Eat.
Today we are going to talk about the most important thing you can do to protect your teeth and your smile – brush you teeth.
Babies, Children, Parents, even Grandparents need to brush their teeth at least 2 times every day, every morning and every night, if they want them to stay healthy.
Every tooth has three places that you need to brush:
- Number one – The outside – this is the side next to your lips and cheeks
- Number two – The inside – this is the side next to your tongue
- Number three – The chewing surface – this is the bumpy part of your back teeth
Everyone, even babies, should have their own toothbrush, and they make special toothbrushes for kids that are just the right size for you. Kids and grownups should only use toothbrushes with soft bristles. These are gentler on your gums and actually do a better job cleaning your teeth then medium and hard bristled toothbrushes.
At home you should put just a little bit of toothpaste on your toothbrush. Infants and kids who can’t yet reliably spit should use a rice-sized smear of fluoride toothpaste or toothpaste with no fluoride. Kids who can reliably spit, and grownups, should use a pea-sized amount of fluoride toothpaste.
So let’s get brushing… When you brush your teeth you need to make sure to brush all the teeth on the top and all the teeth on the bottom too. First let’s do the outside of our top teeth. When you brush your teeth it’s like tickling your teeth. You want to place your toothbrush right where the tooth and gum meet and then gently move your toothbrush back and forth about 10 times for each tooth. Ok, after we do the outside on the top. Can anyone remember where we have to do next???
If you said the inside of the top teeth, then you are correct. Ok, here. goes, 10 tickles on the inside of all our top teeth. Nice and gentle.
Alright, after we do the outside and the inside on the top, where do we have to do next? You got it, 10 tickles on the chewing surface of all our top teeth.
So is there any place we didn’t yet do??? That’s right, we have to brush the outside, inside and chewing parts of the bottom teeth too. We’re not going to brush the bottom teeth now as this is just practice, but at home remember you need to brush all three places on your top teeth and all three places on your bottom teeth too.
Now that’s a lot of places and even grownups sometimes forget all the places they need to brush. To help them remember the best thing to do is to let them brush your teeth first and then you brush again to make sure they didn’t miss any places.
If you brush nice and gentle it should take two minutes to brush all of your teeth. You can keep track of the time with a sand timer or a tooth brushing app or timer on a smart phone.
I’m looking forward to seeing all your wonderful smiles at your next visit to the office. In the meantime keep brushing and see I’ll you all next time, on Tooth Time.
