Flossing for little kids

[Anonymous]

When did your kids start flossing? My DS is 3.5, and it's corn on the cob season, and it occurs to me that he does not floss his teeth--we are only barely into the brushing twice a day without constant wriggling. (Thank God this is an anonymous forum!) So, when did your kids start flossing?

[Anonymous]

DD IS 2.5 and we’ve started about 6 months ago, if not always completely consistently. We use the pediatric flossers, which is much easier than trying to wrestle her with floss on our fingers.

[Anonymous]

DD is 2.5 and we haven't tried flossing yet, although your post reminds me that we should start.

We use short videos (2-3 min long) to persuade her to stay still for teeth brushing. We also have 2 toothbrushes and we let her "brush" after we do. Those things have helped make teeth brushing a lot easier.

[Anonymous]

DD is 7 and we don't floss. I am a horrible parent.

[Anonymous]

We use a flosser and floss every night. We've done it since our kids were around 1 or so. There's a podcast called Chompers that is 2 minutes long with new episodes twice a day. We use that to get our kids to brush for the full 2 minutes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD is 7 and we don't floss. I am a horrible parent.

No you're not - I'm a grown-ass adult and I have never flossed and I don't make my kids do it.

[Anonymous]

I started at age 3. Their teeth are usually pretty far apart so they don’t need flossing yet because they don’t touch but at the dentist appointment the hygienist mentioned that the two back lower teeth on each side were starting to touch so start flossing. I floss all of my six year old’s teeth. We use flossing sticks for the kids.

I had tons of cavities as a kid so I try to take extra good care of their teeth in case they got my horrible ones.

[Anonymous]

We started a little after two. We use flosser picks. The regular adult kind is very sharp at the end so I switched to the children’s... which is unfortunately heavily flavored Grape but DS loves it. It’s really not a battle and doesn’t take much time once the kids are used to it.

[Anonymous]

If their teeth are spaced, there's no real need to floss yet. Our dentist was clear that as long as there is space between their teeth, flossing is mostly for gum health which they don't need to worry about till their teens

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If their teeth are spaced, there's no real need to floss yet. Our dentist was clear that as long as there is space between their teeth, flossing is mostly for gum health which they don't need to worry about till their teens

Interesting. Our dentist told me I should be flossing my 3 YO every day - especially in the back.

[Anonymous]

We started around the age of 2.5 with both kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We started a little after two. We use flosser picks. The regular adult kind is very sharp at the end so I switched to the children’s... which is unfortunately heavily flavored Grape but DS loves it. It’s really not a battle and doesn’t take much time once the kids are used to it.

Why is it unfortunate?

[Anonymous]

Flossing is so important for dental and overall health not to mention good breath. We started with those disposable flossers and then when they were about 10 we moved to the Glide floss. You should floss every day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If their teeth are spaced, there's no real need to floss yet. Our dentist was clear that as long as there is space between their teeth, flossing is mostly for gum health which they don't need to worry about till their teens

Interesting. Our dentist told me I should be flossing my 3 YO every day - especially in the back.

You want to start when they're young, even if they don't "need" to because their teeth are spaced, because you want to instill this daily habit as early as possible.

[Anonymous]

Just took my 2 yr old (27 months) to her second ever dentist appt and they said her teeth are quite close together so it would be good to start flossing now. That was on Friday so this post is a nice reminder to actually start trying to do that regularly.