The All-Purpose Toothbrush

As Sean grows, we keep finding new things to integrate into his routines. Some additions are daily, like his bath, and giving him solid food multiple times a day. Some additions are regular, such as trimming his fingernails (as Merrie pointed out, we shouldn't be saying, "No bite!" to him if we're chewing his nails to safe lengths) - which isn't daily, but does happen regularly. Some additions are hypothetical, like when we realize we should be doing more specific little activities.

And then there's brushing his teeth. Now that Sean's eating more solids, more of what we eat, and able to quickly get all kinds of things into his mouth and nibble off little pieces (we found a chunk of a leaf behind one of his teeth a couple months ago) that we don't always fish out immediately, we are making it a point to brush his teeth after every bath.

That is, when he's willing to open his mouth, which isn't all that often. Granted, he does open his mouth quite often to breathe and talk and eat, but he's got two tricks which make brushing his teeth more complicated: first, pushing his tongue over his lower teeth, so that when you try to brush his teeth, you've got two choices: brush his tongue, or brush his lower lip -- and second, sticking the toothbrush in his mouth and biting it.

Yes, we have a second toothbrush that's "his," which we give him at the outset. The "we're going to do ___ and we're each going to have an implement" strategy works decently with cereal, yogurt, and some spoonable foods; that's where we got the idea. (Well, Merrie suggested we use two toothbrushes, and she'd been doing the two-spoon thing earlier, so that's where I got the idea.)

But giving him his own toothbrush hasn't exactly made it easy for me to brush his teeth; half the time, it seems like he's trying to toss his toothbrush into the bathtub (luckily, empty by this time of the evening), and the other half of the time, he's sticking it in his mouth... which is the right idea... except his favorite things to do with it are:

1) chew on the toothbrush. After all, it's colorful and it has different textures, and chewing is still a popular method of encountering new objects.

2) bite the toothbrush until he dislodges a bristle or three, which stick to his lips when I'm lucky. Sometimes it seems like he's trying to get a bristle mustache.

583) rub it against his teeth. Ever.

So, he can chew it, he can eat it, he can just about floss with it... one of these days, we hope we can get him to brush his teeth with it.