Bedtime routines

[wavepool]

We need help with bedtime. By the time our kids are actually in their beds, we are pissed and tired. Mostly our nine year old boy- we have to trap him in the hallway every night to get him to brush his teeth. We have tried incentives, family teeth brushing together, timers, moving it earlier in the evening (but then he is always hungry before bed).... Any great ideas? This is embarrassing, but he only does it once per day because I can't put up the fight two or three times per day.

[dcn]

I think I say “brush your teeth” about 15 times every night!

My 9 year can also be tough. Things we’ve tried that have been successful :

New electric toothbrush
Letting them pick a song to brush to
Different toothpaste - apparently the stuff we had was too minty
He wants company so I stand and chat with him or just watch while he brushes

I’ve also had many talks with him about it (not at bed time). I’ve asked him what he dislikes about brushing his teeth, what would help, etc. the toothpaste and me being with him are things that he suggested.

My 6 year old likes it when I make a big deal about covering my eyes and wondering if he can brush his teeth before I uncover them. I don’t know why, but that works every time and even my 9 year old will participate sometimes 🤷🏻‍♀️

[sdlaura]

DH reads to our older two kids every night - they went through Harry Potter and some other more ‘big kids’ series. That provides motivation for them to brush their teeth so they can listen. We also only do once a day reliably 😬

[karinothing]

I showed my kids pictures of teeth rotting out of people's mouth. Like the grossest pictures Google can produce. Never had another complaint.

[sillygoosegirl]

Jun 18, 2022 1:02:34 GMT -5 sdlaura said:

DH reads to our older two kids every night - they went through Harry Potter and some other more ‘big kids’ series. That provides motivation for them to brush their teeth so they can listen. We also only do once a day reliably 😬

This is a big motivator for my kid too. If she isn't cooperative with getting ready, we remind her she will lose time on [whatever book we are reading to her]. We've actually been using this since she was 3 or 4, but it still works at 7.

[felicity]

Jun 18, 2022 8:46:08 GMT -5 karinothing said:

I showed my kids pictures of teeth rotting out of people's mouth. Like the grossest pictures Google can produce. Never had another complaint.

My crown fell off recently and I showed DS the tooth underneath while explaining the whole crown process. The tooth under a crown is really gross looking in case anyone has ever wondered 😂. It was a good motivator for him.

[cricketwife]

Our dentist says that we should still be brushing our kids teeth at ages 5 and 8 because kids dont do a good job. They should brush and we should brush after them. Um, i agreed to do  that once a week, which I think lasted for two or three weeks tops. But, we do make them brush, floss, and do mouthwash, in hopes that by requiring all three, they get "clean enough". (winning at parenting over here.). we have always read books and then do "lay time" where we just lay with them and talk, look at pictures from the day, play wordle, or something  like that. They risk losing lay time (which is like the worst punishment ever) or losing books AND lay time if they don’t do pajamas, teeth,and  toilet efficiently - with a good attitude,etc. Also we’ve always done pretty early bedtimes for our own sanity, which the 8 year old is outgrowing for sure, so he may stay up in his room, quietly. But he still has to be in bed for our own sanity,

[felicity]

But also what really had the biggest impact was cutting DS’s evening screen time short because brushing his teeth was taking too long. So I would probably do something like that. If you have to bump it up so early that he is hungry later, too bad, no evening snacks until you can brush your teeth without a fight. At least that’s what I’d do! DS is also terrified of being late to school for some reason, so the threat of being late in the morning always makes him do it. I would have actually let him be late too since he really didn’t want to get a late card, and he knew this so the threat was enough.

[mrsGreeko]

I would wrestle my kids down and pin them down to brush their teeth. It’s not optional so I wasn’t having any arguments about it. As they got older I only had to pin them each down like once as a “big” kid to get it done and they realized I wasn’t playing with the teeth brushing. I had to do it plenty as little kids.

I’d look at what you are doing that might be incentivizing you kiddo to continue to fight about it. That might be nothing, but it might be that he’s able to stay up a little later while you fight with him, he’s getting your undivided attention during it, you are bribing or cajoling in a way that incentivizes the fight to continue. A lot of times we, as parents, incentivize things without realizing it.

And then look for ways to incentivize teeth brushing. Like I won’t read to you until after your teeth are brushed and if you take more than 5 minutes to get started I’m not reading tonight because you used all the time to get your teeth brushed. Or since you fought teeth brushing for 10 minutes tonight, tomorrow night you will need to go get ready for bed 10 minutes early. And if you fight for 10 minutes the next night, now bedtime is 20 minutes early, etc so that you build in the fighting time in a disincentivizing way.

You could also do a token economy for tooth brushing. But when designing such a system, it’s important to do it thoughtfully in a way that rewards in a way that ultimately will incentivize long term behavior change. So things like earning rewards quickly and consistently at the beginning (with lots of praise for the behavior you want to see), then moving to more slot machine psychology rewards. Praise for the behavior you want to see. Not taking earned rewards away for bad behavior, but just not earning for those behaviors. Less attention for the bad behavior. Etc.

[thebreakfastclub]

My son is 9yo. For behavior like that, the consequence would be no electronics the next day. That's a huge motivation for my son.

[ellipses84]

Putting up a fight about it at 9 would lead to consequences. Screen time is my kids currency, but you need to figure out his and use it. Also include rewards and lots of praise. Overly praise/reward the siblings but don’t verbally compare them (just subtly let them witness it). I don’t always make it a direct bribe but if we had an easy night, the next day I might say, I’m really proud that you are growing up and brushed your teeth on your own last night, I’m going to let you play video games for an extra half hour. Or say, I want to go to the amusement park at the end of summer, but if you don’t brush your teeth and we have to spend the money on dental work, we might not be able to afford to go. I also think that’s an age where you can be brutally honest about why it’s important to brush your teeth and what the long term consequences will be if he doesn’t take care of adult teeth (with photos). It impacts how people perceive you (bad breath/ appearance), it can lead to health issues, cost a lot of money, you have your teeth for 90 more years, etc.

Genetics impact teeth so much so if he’s not needed much dental work due to lack of hygiene keep trying to find what works for your family, but don’t feel guilty about it. My kids and DH aren’t the greatest but they’ve not need any major work so I don’t fight the battle all the time. If it’s 1x a day or they have a snack after they brush their teeth at night, it’s better than nothing. You could try to see if they’d use a fun oral rinse or floss sticks. Have the dentist do a fluoride rinse and caps on molars. Electric toothbrushes are better but try all kinds and figure out what they like. My kids are prone to power struggles so I try to give them a lot of choice, like taking them to the store and having them pick out new foods they are going to try (or oral health products in your case).

DS1 needs braces but we’ve held off because he has a lot of medical anxiety and we didn’t feel he was mature enough for the hygiene aspect, but he just turned 11 and we feel he’s ready (we still battle over deodorant every day and he gets annoyed if I ask or nag him to do it but I told him if he did it in his own I wouldn’t have to ask, and usually when I ask it’s because he stinks).

[loira]

DD (6) gets ready for bed a good 2 hours before she actually goes to bed. I find it easier to fight with her earlier in the evening before I've completely lost energy. This works for us because she'll eat a big dinner and doesn't need any evening snacks - it might not work if you have a kid who's more of a grazer.

[jaycee]

Brushing twice a day is nonnegotiable. A natural consequence is that he cannot have any sugary food. No sodas, donuts, candy, etc. No goldfish or snack crackers either as those get ground into teeth and create cavities. Be totally calm and matter of fact about it. Act like you don’t give one shit. If he wants any of that, he brushes his teeth.

[quesyrah]

Jun 18, 2022 10:39:57 GMT -5 felicity said:

Jun 18, 2022 8:46:08 GMT -5 karinothing said:

I showed my kids pictures of teeth rotting out of people's mouth. Like the grossest pictures Google can produce. Never had another complaint.

My crown fell off recently and I showed DS the tooth underneath while explaining the whole crown process. The tooth under a crown is really gross looking in case anyone has ever wondered 😂. It was a good motivator for him.

Similar situation here.


My kids are good about “brushing” as in they would put their toothbrush in their mouth twice a day. But they weren’t getting their teeth clean.

I recently had a filling fall out which had to be fixed by getting a crown. I explained the whole process in great detail.

They brush great now lol!i

[wavepool]

Thanks for all the ideas.
I see a few we can definitely try. He is almost as big as me, so the pinning him down doesn't work anymore and I hate that. We are going to switch to earlier with no snacks allowed until he can handle it.
We already do almost no screen time, and we do read together so I suppose I could cut into that. We have shown him pictures of nasty teeth but they doesn't seem to do it for him. If the earlier in the routine doesn't work, we will move on to no snacks all day!
Thank you!

[thoseareradishes]

I would have a discussion with him about what's going on. "I've noticed you have a hard time brushing your teeth at night. What's up?". See if he can pinpoint any specific issues, then you can problem solve together.

Ross Greene's book Raising Human Beings is great for this. He also wrote The Explosive Child, but Raising Human Beings is geared towards teaching collaborative problem solving with any kid.