Toothpaste

Fluoride is only good for teeth not for every other part of the body. Not even adults are supposed to ingest lots of it so I would def not give a toddler fluoride toothpaste

I don't think they put as much fluoride in children's toothpaste, do they 🤔 my little boy is currently going through a phase of not wanting to clean his teeth at the moment because he doesn't like any of the toothpaste I buy 🤨

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/fluoride-good-or-bad

We do as per our kids dentist even though they don’t spit it.

I think there are multiple reasonable approaches. My kids dentist advised if teeth look great, we can hold off on fluoride but if there are any concerns it is very safe to start a fluoride toothpaste. We use Toms fluoride free, my daughter just turned 3 so he suggested one way to add a smaller amount of fluoride is to dip the toothbrush in Toms children’s mouthwash and brush with that after brushing with regular toothpaste. We will switch to a fluoride toothpaste when he recommends, and if he recommended it earlier we would have done it earlier.

Not sure why a toddler would need fluoride anyways, their teeth are only gonna last a few years so you could just clean em with non fluoride stuff and you can use the fluoride stuff when they’re older and have adult teeth

We do not use fluoride toothpaste for my son. He’s been to the dentist and his teeth look great. He will get a fluoride varnish every 6 months and according to his dentist, that’s all he needs along with our regular brushing 2 times a day and tongue cleaning edit: also, rotting teeth are connected to live roots or nerves and it can sometimes be very painful to have rotting teeth. It can also cause other health issues, even for a toddler

We use fluoride as advised by health visitor and dentist. We live in a city with one of the worst rates of tooth decay in under 5s in the country so they are very focused on good oral hygiene. And yes she could rot all her baby teeth and they will just fall out, but I want to start and instil good habits from the beginning.

it’s a no for me. you really aren’t supposed to ingest it, especially littles so if they can’t spit then no

Those who do not use fluoride toothpaste, do you have fluoridated water?

@Anne my son does get a little fluoridated water. We give him bottled water mostly but sometimes we do give him filtered tap water which does not remove Fluoride

Just use a hydroxyapatite toothpaste instead, it works the same a fluoride but apparently isn’t toxic.

@Victoria~ the way the milk/baby teeth are kept affects the adult teeth below. If you allow the baby teeth to be neglected, break, get cavities, weaken etc then it’ll just go straight through to the adult teeth.

I’m a dental nurse and I absolutely use fluorite toothpaste on my child, she’s 9 months and has been using fluoride tp since 6 months old. Fluoride is essential. I’ve seen first hand the teeth of children (and adults) who don’t use fluoride and they are genuinely worse than fluoride users.

Oh yes yes I do. I believe ours and their teeth needs fluoride

Depends on if there’s already signs of tooth decay!!! If there is, the pros out weigh any of the risks.

We use happy tooth kids and my daughter loves it! Fluoride free for now for us, her teeth are healthy and she sometimes swallows it and I don’t stress. But we are teaching her to spit it out.

@Victoria~ because milk teeth have 50% less enamel than adult teeth :)

I have to say no to toxins as much as possible…I currently use dr Bronner toothpaste and it’s weird because it doesn’t have any foaming agents in it but it gets my teeth so much cleaner…and my daughter now is using Himalaya kids toothpaste in orange 🍊 and she likes the taste…just getting back to simple ingredients in my food and body products

The American Dental Association and the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry AND the American Academy of Pediatrics all say to use a tiny amount of fluoride toothpaste. So yeah we use it