Can baby toothpaste be eaten? The correct way to brush your baby's teeth

When the baby's teeth grow out, mothers will brush their teeth. When many babies first learn to brush their teeth, they like to swallow toothpaste because of the sweet taste. This makes parents very anxious. So, can babies eat toothpaste? How to train babies not to eat toothpaste?

Can baby toothpaste be eaten?

Because children's toothpaste generally has a sweet taste, children can't help but try it, which makes parents very worried. Although many children's toothpastes are marked as food grade and edible on the packaging, many parents are still wondering, is it really okay to eat this edible toothpaste?

As for food grade, edible children's toothpaste is indeed much safer than ordinary toothpaste. There is no need to worry too much if you only swallow it occasionally, but this does not mean that you can swallow the toothpaste for a long time. After all, swallowing toothpaste for a long time is harmful to children. For example, this type of toothpaste contains flavors, which can easily affect the child's taste development, respiratory and digestive tract health, which is not good for the child's health.

If the toothpaste contains fluoride, you need to be careful. Although fluoride toothpaste can prevent tooth decay, if you accidentally eat a large amount of fluoride toothpaste at one time, or eat it for a long time, it is easy to cause nausea, vomiting and other poisoning, and even heart and lung failure. Therefore, for babies with poor self-control, it is better not to choose fluoride toothpaste, and the amount of toothpaste when children brush their teeth should be controlled to the size of a soybean, so as to reduce the swallowing of toothpaste.

The correct way to brush your baby's teeth

Step 1: Brush the outer sides of the upper and lower teeth first. Place the toothbrush diagonally on the edge of the gums, grouping two or three teeth together, and move the toothbrush up and down with moderate force.

Step 2: When brushing the outside of the upper and lower teeth, combine the horizontal brush and the vertical brush, and brush in a circular motion, that is, draw an M shape for the upper teeth and a W shape for the lower teeth.

Step 3: Then brush the inside of your teeth and repeat the above steps.

Step 4: When brushing the inside of your teeth, place the toothbrush upright and use moderate force to brush from the gums to the crowns. The same goes for the teeth below.

Step 5: To brush the chewing surface, place the toothbrush over the chewing surface and move it back and forth.

Toothpaste that cannot be used by babies

1. [Foamy Toothpaste]

Toothpaste is divided into three types: high-foam, medium-foam, and low-foam. The amount of foam depends on the soap content. High-foam toothpaste contains more than 18% soap. Soap is easily decomposed into caustic alkali or ester acid in oral saliva, which not only irritates the oral mucosa, but also destroys the enzymes in the saliva. In addition, the larger the soap content, the lower the friction, thus affecting the tooth cleaning effect. Therefore, parents should not choose high-foam toothpaste for children.

2. Fluoride toothpaste

The use of fluoride toothpaste by children has adverse effects on their development and health. Experiments have shown that topical use of fluoride can prevent tooth decay, but the efficiency is only 20%.

3. [Children should avoid using medicated toothpaste for a long time]

There are many TV ads for medicated toothpastes, and the proportion of children suffering from dental diseases is very high. Parents love their children so much that they use medicated toothpaste on their children for a long time. However, they do not know that medicated toothpaste will have the opposite effect if used for a long time, which will affect children's oral hygiene. This is because while killing some pathogens, it will also kill normal bacteria in the mouth, which will not only make it difficult to treat the disease, but also cause new infections.

The best age for babies to learn to brush their teeth

When your baby is 1.5 to 3 years old, his deciduous teeth have all grown out. Let your baby understand the process and details of brushing teeth, and prepare him to brush his teeth by himself in the future.

Supplies needed for brushing teeth: training toothbrush, cotton swabs.

Technical guidance on brushing teeth: The child can stand or sit on a stool, and the mother can stand behind or to the side of the child, fix the child's head with one hand, and use the other hand to hold the toothbrush dipped in warm water to brush the child's teeth (no toothpaste is needed).

The order of brushing teeth is: place the bristles of the toothbrush close to the gums and tilted at a 45-degree angle to the tooth surface, brush the upper teeth from top to bottom, and brush the lower teeth from bottom to top. After brushing the outer surface, you should also brush the inner surface and the biting surface of the back teeth. Each surface should be brushed 15 to 20 times to achieve the purpose of cleaning teeth.

Note: During this period, the baby teeth are sparsely arranged and the crowns are short, which can easily cause food to get stuck. Therefore, before brushing teeth, mothers should first check whether there is food stuck in the child's teeth. If there is, use a cotton swab to remove the food before brushing teeth. In addition, you should start training your baby to brush his teeth by himself. Let him imitate your movements first. When he is 2 years old, you can try to let him brush his teeth by himself. At this time, you cannot ask the child to persist for too long, as long as he is familiar with these movements. Because you still need to brush his teeth carefully again according to the above instructions.