toothpaste

My girls haven't been brushing their teeth with real toothpaste yet, just that floride free stuff. We are about out of it and I was thinking of teaching them to brush with the real stuff. You would think I would remember when i started my son, but I don't, so I was wondering if you all have started yet and how long did it take them to not swollow the stuff? They love to pretend to spit, but I just don't know if they can actually do it or not.

 

Mine are 4 and STILL using the toddler toothpaste. It's kind of annoying, those tubes are so small and more expensive than regular toothpaste. But, our dentist says to use that till they are 5. I did go ahead and try some regular toothpaste a few months ago, and they still aren't great about spitting. I try to have them rinse and spit with the toddler toothpaste to get the hang of it, but they don't do a great job.

 

We use the colgate kids toothpaste. Our pediatric dentist wanted them to use a toothpaste that has the same ingredients as an adult "whitening" toothpaste. They like the flavors too. Right now, we're on watermelon, but they have strawberry and a mint with stars in it. We were told to use the floride ones, just a pea size amount.

 

We just went to the dentist again at the beginning of October and she said to still use the toddler toothpaste. Mine love to eat it :blush: Since they aren't great about spitting it out she said it could stain their permanent teeth. If the girls are "good spitters" I think a pea size about should be fine.

 

We've been using regular for quite awhile now. I just give them very small amount, and they think it's cool to spit in the sink. ardon:

 

We used toddler toothpaste until they were around 2 I think... the pedi dentist we saw at the time said we should use "real toothpaste" starting at one, and I chose not to. Anyways, I finally gave in, and used it at 2, but a small amount. Well, come last month at their 2.5 yo visit, we are seeing a new pedi dentist since we've moved and they were VERY against real toothpaste until they've completely mastered spitting. They said as long as they're getting flouride in the water that is plenty. So we switched, and I'm glad we did, and wish we had never started the real stuff to begin with. I actually saw a new dentist myself yesterday-- and I talked to her about some spots on my teeth that had been bugging me for awhile and that I wanted to know if we could do anything about it. Well come to find out, the spots on my two front teeth are from exactly the same thing the boys dentist is trying to avoid- too much flouride when my teeth were developing! Yikes! So we'll be using toddler toothpaste for a good long while now for sure!

 

Thanks for all the responses. I think I will just stick to the toddler toothpaste a little longer.

 

yeah, I forgot to add that we switched to regular per the dentist when they were able to spit well. They mastered that pretty quickly so we made the switch probably around age 2.5 yrs.- 3 yrs. or so.

 

Ours has 'some' in it, but it's not as strong as regular toothpaste. I think it's Diego or something. Ours learned to "spit" in the bath. They would put the water in their mouths, so we made them spit it out and not swallow it. That has actually come in handy as we do the after brushing ACT for kids - so they rinse and spit after they brush.